Promotion of Linux and FLOSS - brainstorm

(FLOSS - free liberal open source software)


(Please help to improve.)

General


First become more clear about your intentions, target, and (kind of) users you'd like to reach.

  • Which are your main points of interest, which applications, technics, …
  • Do you want to promote politics (free software model) additional to technical matters ?
  • Do you intend to reach non-political users (“mainstream”) too ?
  • Where and how promote it ?
  • What are your personal capabilities, what is possible with the community, with support only, what is impossible ?
  • Why promote at all ?



Possible reasons for the promotion of Linux


  • You want to spread the idea of the open software model.
  • You want to increase the userbase, because that means more support for both, users and developers.
  • More (professional) users means more digital products are produced with FLOSS (music, software, graphics, …) thus increasing general acceptance and proving quality.



How to reach the audience


  • Social platforms (twitter, facebook, ..)
  • Forums, web-pages, blogs, IRC, Chat, Messenger-Public-Rooms
  • Linux Magazines, Print media
  • Web-Video (make tutorials, introductions, explain, ..)
  • Radio and Podcast
  • “Mouth-to-mouth” propaganda, conversation
  • Flyer (spread in studios, universities, restaurants, bars, clubs, township administration …)



Possible reasons to use FLOSS


  • It works for the things you need / like to do and is stable.
  • You consider freedom and independence as important
  • You like the community
  • FLOSS permits better decision, how much and what to support financially
  • You're able to add and contribute in many ways
  • You can't bear the “enter your 16 digit serial number”, registration and copy protection stuff anymore
  • You want to be sure, that the application does not disappear, that the file formats are known/open, that your data stays accessible



How can developers support the acceptance


  • make the software intuitive for new users (logical GUI and configuration)
  • add pop-up hints, explain things in context, make keyboard-shortcuts obvious
  • have a good web-page pointing to (community-) support and giving important hints
  • listen to the users and their difficulties, try to improve their experience



Tools for promotion


Graphic tools

  • Inkscape (svg, vector graphics)
  • Gimp (image processing, pixel graphics)
  • Scribus (DTP)
  • Quanta Plus (web-page editor)
  • KompoZer (web-page editor)
  • CSSed (CSS style-sheet editor)





wiki/linux_promotion.txt · Last modified: 2013/06/02 15:45 by 127.0.0.1