Comments on: Weekly Rewind #57 http://danlynch.org/blog/2010/05/rw57/ There's No Place Like /Home Tue, 22 May 2012 00:29:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Dan http://danlynch.org/blog/2010/05/rw57/comment-page-1/#comment-4317 Dan Thu, 13 May 2010 13:43:02 +0000 http://danlynch.org/blog/?p=1773#comment-4317 @tobias - Hey no problem. As I said I'm sure we get things wrong and we're always happy for people to tell us when we do. Listeners correct us all the time in the IRC channel during a normal show and all are welcome. I'd be interested to see how we can make you feel less like an outsider with Linux. Maybe there's something we can do better. If you have any problems with forum accounts just drop me a line and I'll see what I can do. Our forum server has been struggling with load lately but we're well on the way to fixing that with a server migration. Fingers crossed :) Dan @tobias – Hey no problem. As I said I’m sure we get things wrong and we’re always happy for people to tell us when we do. Listeners correct us all the time in the IRC channel during a normal show and all are welcome. I’d be interested to see how we can make you feel less like an outsider with Linux. Maybe there’s something we can do better. If you have any problems with forum accounts just drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do. Our forum server has been struggling with load lately but we’re well on the way to fixing that with a server migration. Fingers crossed :)

Dan

]]> By: Tobias http://danlynch.org/blog/2010/05/rw57/comment-page-1/#comment-4316 Tobias Thu, 13 May 2010 13:24:23 +0000 http://danlynch.org/blog/?p=1773#comment-4316 Ha, so you shame me with balance. And the panel was good on that, too. But I didn't mean it personal, just got my pronouns muddled as I feel more on the outside with respect to Linux. Thanks for everything you do. I hope the outlaws can get spam under control. First hurdle counts double! Ha, so you shame me with balance. And the panel was good on that, too. But I didn’t mean it personal, just got my pronouns muddled as I feel more on the outside with respect to Linux.

Thanks for everything you do. I hope the outlaws can get spam under control. First hurdle counts double!

]]> By: Dan http://danlynch.org/blog/2010/05/rw57/comment-page-1/#comment-4315 Dan Thu, 13 May 2010 10:35:46 +0000 http://danlynch.org/blog/?p=1773#comment-4315 @Tobias - Thanks for the comment, allow me to reply to some of the points. The Linux Outlaws forums has a manual approval mechanism right now because we get hundreds of attempted spam sign ups per day, I personally sort through them by hand as they come in. I approve all accounts within an hour or two in most cases. Automated spam handling systems have failed for us and we're looking for alternatives, would you prefer a forum full of viagra spam? How is that more helpful? You will see from the amount of user feedback we go through every week on the show that we have always taken outside input very seriously. We are not in any way a closed shop. You should try doing some of the hours of work reading and answering mail, forum posts, IRC, microblogs etc for the show. I never ignore any message. Could we do things better at times? Yeah I'm sure we could, should me someone who couldn't. Onto the meat of your comment. I actually agree with you about people not wanting to change their whole desktop and applications being a good inroad. I've said that many times on the show and in other places. I haven't had time to listen fully to the OggCamp live show yet but I thought we'd mentioned that, perhaps not in the heat of a live situation. It should also be noted that there were another 5 presenters on that show from the Ubuntu UK podcast, so it was not a regular show in any way. I agree with you that overselling these things and pushing them onto people is a complete turn off, most people aren't interested. We've all experienced over zealous fanatics shouting about Free Software and I believe that can do more harm than good. That site you mention is a good resource and I have directed many people to it. I also recommend <a href="http://www.osalt.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.osalt.com/</a>. For what it's worth I have got many friends started on Open Source software through Firefox, OpenOffice, VLC and other things. I go to many tech and non-tech events and talk about Open Source development and why I think it matters in an informal way. I don't preach to people but if they ask me what I'm using or why, I tell them. I'm a Linux fan and I primarily review Linux distributions here, I do occasionally look at apps too but many other people already cover that in blogs and podcasts. I think there's plenty of balance. I hope that answers some of your queries and I think we actually agree on the points here. We make mistakes and I believe we can all improve but I assure you I don't live on an island, others in FOSS do and I've been trying to help them see that. Thanks for listening and/or reading :) Dan @Tobias – Thanks for the comment, allow me to reply to some of the points. The Linux Outlaws forums has a manual approval mechanism right now because we get hundreds of attempted spam sign ups per day, I personally sort through them by hand as they come in. I approve all accounts within an hour or two in most cases. Automated spam handling systems have failed for us and we’re looking for alternatives, would you prefer a forum full of viagra spam? How is that more helpful? You will see from the amount of user feedback we go through every week on the show that we have always taken outside input very seriously. We are not in any way a closed shop. You should try doing some of the hours of work reading and answering mail, forum posts, IRC, microblogs etc for the show. I never ignore any message. Could we do things better at times? Yeah I’m sure we could, should me someone who couldn’t.

Onto the meat of your comment. I actually agree with you about people not wanting to change their whole desktop and applications being a good inroad. I’ve said that many times on the show and in other places. I haven’t had time to listen fully to the OggCamp live show yet but I thought we’d mentioned that, perhaps not in the heat of a live situation. It should also be noted that there were another 5 presenters on that show from the Ubuntu UK podcast, so it was not a regular show in any way. I agree with you that overselling these things and pushing them onto people is a complete turn off, most people aren’t interested. We’ve all experienced over zealous fanatics shouting about Free Software and I believe that can do more harm than good. That site you mention is a good resource and I have directed many people to it. I also recommend http://www.osalt.com/. For what it’s worth I have got many friends started on Open Source software through Firefox, OpenOffice, VLC and other things. I go to many tech and non-tech events and talk about Open Source development and why I think it matters in an informal way. I don’t preach to people but if they ask me what I’m using or why, I tell them. I’m a Linux fan and I primarily review Linux distributions here, I do occasionally look at apps too but many other people already cover that in blogs and podcasts. I think there’s plenty of balance.

I hope that answers some of your queries and I think we actually agree on the points here. We make mistakes and I believe we can all improve but I assure you I don’t live on an island, others in FOSS do and I’ve been trying to help them see that. Thanks for listening and/or reading :)

Dan

]]> By: Tobias http://danlynch.org/blog/2010/05/rw57/comment-page-1/#comment-4314 Tobias Thu, 13 May 2010 10:00:54 +0000 http://danlynch.org/blog/?p=1773#comment-4314 Listening to the stage podcast I jumped up when Dan wanted to banish insularity (51:00). I tried to agree with him, and first ran against the outlaw site not allowing comments, then their forums manually approving registrations. Earlier someone mentioned bad bug reports. Personally I find launchpad confusing and sign up to mailing lists just to avoid bugzilla. Then the thing about handing out Ubuntu on the street. Most people don't even know what an operating system is, and switching your whole computing environment at once is a huge jump. None of these issues were mentioned on your island. This should be obvious, because it's been that way for twenty years: the only way open source is going to make inroads is applications. Everybody uses Firefox and OpenOffice because they are better or cheaper than other products. Concentrate on that first. Attracting people who can barely use the web with software freedom will be about as successful as getting starving refugees to vote against the guys with the guns. PS so how about less coverage of Linux distributions and a corner on http://alternativeto.net Listening to the stage podcast I jumped up when Dan wanted to banish insularity (51:00). I tried to agree with him, and first ran against the outlaw site not allowing comments, then their forums manually approving registrations.

Earlier someone mentioned bad bug reports. Personally I find launchpad confusing and sign up to mailing lists just to avoid bugzilla. Then the thing about handing out Ubuntu on the street. Most people don’t even know what an operating system is, and switching your whole computing environment at once is a huge jump. None of these issues were mentioned on your island.

This should be obvious, because it’s been that way for twenty years: the only way open source is going to make inroads is applications. Everybody uses Firefox and OpenOffice because they are better or cheaper than other products. Concentrate on that first. Attracting people who can barely use the web with software freedom will be about as successful as getting starving refugees to vote against the guys with the guns.

PS so how about less coverage of Linux distributions and a corner on http://alternativeto.net

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