[K12OSN] Advocacy: barriers to adoption (was LTSP presentation to Ed tech leaders...)

[Rob Owens]

--- Robert Arkiletian <robark at gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you ever tried explaining FOSS to someone who
> has never heard of it
> before?

Whenever I have to explain it to somebody for the
first time, and they give me the "if it's free, it
can't be any good" look, I remind them that people
volunteer all the time.  

For instance, in the United States, soccer (the rest
of the world calls it football) is very popular with
young kids, and many towns have soccer leagues w/ many
teams and many *volunteer* coaches.  Same thing goes
for Boy Scouts, church groups, alumni associations,
etc.

After they agree that what I'm saying is indeed true,
then I say "What if you could electronically copy your
kid's soccer coach and share him with the rest of the
world?  And what if you could get a copy of the coach
out in California who's really good at teaching
defense, and also get a copy of the coach in Texas who
really knows how to get the kids to act as a team,
etc.  You guys would have the best soccer team on
earth."

I also remind them that just because writing programs
seems a lot harder than coaching soccer (from their
point of view), not everybody sees it that way.  Some
people love to program, and some of those people are
nice enough to share all their hard work with the rest
of the world.

-Rob

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com