Paw Prints: Writings of the maddog

I heard recently, and could not really believe it until I saw it, that Microsoft was encouraging people to throw "Tupperware(R) parties" at their homes in order to launch the new version of Microsoft's products.
That is right...plain old down-to-earth "homies" extolling the virtues of quickly going to Vista...er...ah...Windows 7.

I knew that Microsoft had perfected the "we should not have to pay for marketing" line years ago when they orchestrated the launch of Windows 95 by getting stores to open up at midnight just so people could rush in and buy the first copy of Windows 95. Microsoft only had to pay for a couple of bottles of cheap champaign for each store, recouping those costs inside of thirty seconds when the first person plunked down hundreds of dollars for that shiny plastic disk.

Linux can't do that, since anyone that anxious to get a fresh distribution of Linux just pulls it down off the Internet. This also allows the Linux user to get their beauty sleep instead of standing in line outside some store for hours.

At another event people paid big bucks to attend an empty movie theater during the middle of the day, to listen to a simulcast of various Microsoft partners discussing how their Internet products would complement Microsoft's system. It was obvious that the people up on the big screen of the movie theaters were software partners of Microsoft that paid big bucks to produce the simulcast. During the entire eight-hour day there was not a single Microsoft person visible in the event, including when (at the end of the day) a courier truck pulled up and dumped off hundreds of beta-copy CDs of Microsoft software.

So I should not be surprised that someone came up with the idea of trying to get lots of Microsoft fans to invite other Microsoft fans to their homes to show off the new software just like some people go to other people's houses to look at plastic bowls and find out how to use them.

Except while I know fans of Apple and I certainly know fans of Free Software, I don't know any real fans of Microsoft. Sure, there are lots of people that use it...grudgingly...because they feel they have to use it. Not lovingly or even willingly. So this advertising stunt may be the biggest bust since the "shoe commercial".

On the other hand, Microsoft Marketing has inspired me to suggest something along the same lines to Free Software people. Let's throw a party! Lots of parties!

The first party we can throw is the release of Ubuntu Linux's "9.10" on October 29th. (Drat, think about how cool Ubuntu's release will be next year..."10.10" Or is that really "2.2"? Well, I would have a 50% chance of being right....but I digress.)

Let's help Ubuntu people have a better party than Microsofties. That can't be too hard, could it? Take some drinks, munchies and your laptop over to someone's house and install the newest version of Ubuntu on it? Share the joy of hearing that "tumptump" as the login screen appears?

Later on I am sure that there are some new releases of Fedora, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, Debian, or any of the dozens of other Linux distributions coming out. Each party could demonstrate the features of that particular distribution.

While we are at it, I do not think it is too late to have a twenty-fifth anniversary party for the GNU project, or a party marking what I believe is the 15 year anniversary of FreeBSD, or the fortieth anniversary of Unix. In honor of these I might haul out some of the early versions of Linux (Yggdrasil,anyone?) and fire it up on some older computers I have, just to show people how far we have come in a short time.

On October 14th-16th I will be in Sao Paulo, Brazil at FUTURECOM, on October 20th at the 1st Forum de Software Livre de Duque de Caxias in Rio de Janeiro, and from October 22nd to 24th at Latinoware in Foz do Iguassu, Brazil. I invite everyone to party with me at these events, and you can bet I will not be "pushing" Microware....or shoes.

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