Killer apps/"selling" points of FC and GNU/Linux

[Kyrre Ness Sjobak]

tir, 16.11.2004 kl. 22.07 skrev Sean Middleditch:
> This getting off-topic for this list.  Please send future replies to me
> and not the list.  Or at least move this to fedora-list and not the
> development list.
> 
> On Tue, 2004-11-16 at 21:53 +0100, Kyrre Ness Sjobak wrote:
> > But then Novel, RedHat, part of the comunity etc. - i.e. firms and
> > people involved - should give them that reason. We should produce those
> > "cool" things everybody just got to have - and the solution is Linux!
> 
> I think you missed half of what I said.  There is nothing you can
> produce on Linux that isn't going to also exist in some form on Windows,
> and there will still be tons of things on Windows that don't exist on
> Linux.
> 
> Again, what is the "problem" you are trying to solve?  You even did
> exactly what I told you not to do - you just shouted out that "the
> solution is Linux!" without stating what it's a solution to.  You want
> to convert Windows users for absolutely no good reason that I can
> ascertain.
> 

It is strictly a marketing problem. How to get Linux a bigger
marketshare.

> > 
> > Mac has understood this. Now "everybody" wants a mac.
> 
> No, they don't.  Less people want a Mac than the people who want a Linux
> PC, according to some counts.  The only people I've ever seen want a Mac
> were people who were already using Linux, or people who's family or
> workplace were already Mac-users.

Well - two guys in my class got themselvs a mac. Now half the class
wants a mac:
- It looks shiny (including on-screen)
- It has a shiny, lots-off-effects presentation program (keynote), which
the mac crowd use to show off

Technology and sales isn't anymore just about whats *practical* and
whats *cheapest*. As long as a large bunch of the population don't know
what RAM and MHZ is, they just go with the offer the salesman in the
flashy suit offers him/her.

> 
> The average guy does not want a Mac for the exact same reason that the
> average guy does not want Linux.  The only real thing Macs do better
> than Linux is software installation, namely in that it's possible
> without using a shell or needing deep yum/apt-foo.
> 

synaptic? It can't get much easier than that...
(okay. Nintendo has an easyer system)

> > 
> > first thing i can come up with (maybe not so usefull, but really cool)
> > that *might* be a killer app is Sun's looking glas 3D desktop.
> > 
> > http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/
> 
> If that is what the OSS movement calls a killer app then it's painfully
> clear why people stick with Windows.  That app has absolutely no
> practical purpose.  It's eye candy at most, and it isn't even
> particularly *good* eye candy.  Most of the demos I've seen of it show
> all these 3D structures that actually make the desktop *harder* to use.
> 
> Looking Glass people did the exact same thing I accused you of doing -
> they found a solution without a problem.  They have no freakin' clue
> what to do with Looking Glass or how to make it useful to anyone, but
> they developed it anyhow just because they can.
> 

I know - but you are looking at it from a strictly technical
perspective. If Linux ever is going to be big on the desktop, it has to
*look* good.

> > 
> > Kyrre
> > 

I see you point - but as long