[OS:N:] Can we make up action lists for profesions?

[charles MacDonald <cmacd achilles net>]

 <evan telly org> Wrote...
> For the here and now you need to stick with the practical,
> which means you must convince her of *both* the direct
> advantages of open source (some of which I've mentioned
> above), *and* provide a little background to give her comfort
> that she's not sticking her neck out on a new Betamax.

>The first place to start with this, of course, is IBM. Huge company that
>existed long before Linux (and indeed Microsoft), and absolutely rock
>solid in support of Linux across its product line from PC to mainframe.

> Find out what her concerns and fears are, and address
> them in abundance (almost to the exclusion of all else).
> If you get past this point *then* you can talk about *our*
> fears regarding the erosion of rights and freedoms, but
> that's definitely not a short term goal in this particular
> form of advocacy.

Alright, so lets try and bring this to a practical action level..

what sort of resources do we have to present to some of
our typical "targets" for advocacy.

Example, My Union is looking to set up a mail list and
web site.  I of course offered to get on the committee.

First meeting someone asks, "I have heard that you
can keep a mailling list as a data base in Access? do
you know anything about that?"  My answer is that
databases are very handy for storing large amounts of
information which includes mailing lists, but that selecting
a given technology may be putting the cart in the worng place.

So far I have been showing them discusion sites that happen
to be connected to linux as examples of what a discusion
site could look like.  (I still have to find out if Mailman can
be run with both an English and French interface)

Then think about the Technolgy folk who was asked to
build a web site, and so grabbed on old Pentium and a
Linux CD and set a site up over a weekend.  Now the
management sees that it is vital to their business, and
wants to move it to a big prefesional WIndows
Whatever server.

What arguments do they use to sugest that A Big
Profesional Linux Server would be a better choice,
keeping in mind that the content creators (marketing
and PR types) may have recently been entertained at
a course on how ASP/Front page/.NET will answer all
their problems and so they are chomping at the bit to
get the latest Washington State salvation..

Perhaps the "next step" would be to prepare some
talking points for these sort of situations. Weather they
amount to magazine articles or marketing material
from Vendors such as Red Hat.  (having more than
one Linux vendor making almost the same points
in their sales material would add some legitimacy to
the arguments.



--
Charles MacDonald  Stittsville Ontario
 cmacd achilles net      Just Beyond the Fringe
           http://www.achilles.net/~cmacd/
No Microsoft Products were used in sending this e-mail.