[Novalug] Explaining tech to the non-tech minded

John Franklin franklin@elfie.org
Fri Nov 24 22:54:15 EST 2006


This is good, but implies that FOSS is geared towards academia.  The  
business minded will consider it to be "idealized" or "impractical,"  
two words that are tied too closely to their concepts of academia.    
They know what happens in universities today will be the Next Big  
Thing™ in between five and twenty years, but their business may not  
last until then, and there's a lot of work and cost to get any hot  
new technology out of the lab and into the marketplace.

If you're going to be doing analogies, try for something they'll  
better understand.  FOSS is more like the entire economy, from end to  
end.  There was -- no joke! -- a manga in Japan that taught economic  
principles.  While on a train trip, our manager hero explains to his  
employees how interdependent the economy is.  Using his pencil as an  
example, he traces the origins of all the components (wood, graphite,  
eraser, metal banding, paint), all the industries that have to exist  
to acquire those raw components, the materials engineering to refine  
the metal ore to thin sheets metal, the assembly of the pencil  
itself, then the shipping and retail sectors that bring the pencil to  
the public.  How much does it cost you?  A pack of twenty for two  
dollars.

The FOSS process includes raw material "industry" in the form of  
kernels and OS fundamentals, engineering tools like compilers (and  
people who work on just compilers), IDEs, graphical libraries (X11),  
desktop frameworks (KDE/Gnome) all of which need to exist to allow  
someone on an idle Saturday write a virtual sticky note app, then  
packaging (rpm/apt) and distribution networks (Red Hat, Debian,  
Ubuntu) to bring it to the public.

Does this help?

jf

On Nov 22, 2006, at 10:06 AM, Kevin Cole wrote:

> Megan Larko wrote:
>> Hello Folks,
>>
>> As a member of the Tux.Org Board of Directors (BoD) I happened to  
>> receive the
>> following email message with a query of how to explain FOSS  
>> cooperation and
>> development to the non-technically or business minded.
>
> I find it helpful to think of research: Libraries have copies of  
> books that
> are "free" (gratis), and offer researchers a certain though limited  
> degree
> of "freedom" (libre).  Literature reviews allow researchers to collect
> prior research and then build on it, as long as they properly cite the
> research they're building on.  In the end, all benefit from an  
> improved
> body of knowledge.
>
> It's a far from perfect analogy, but it may offer a starting point for
> discussion.
>
> -- 
>  Kevin Cole                    |  Key ID: 0xE6F332C7
>  Ubuntu Linux DC LoCo Team     |     WWW: http://dc.ubuntu-us.org/
>  Washington, D.C.  (USA)       |   Phone: +1.202.234.0213
>
>            ". ! 1 |" -- Rene Magritte's computer
>
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-- 
John Franklin
franklin@elfie.org
ICBM: 38º 56' 32.6"N 77º 24' 47.7"W Z+62m

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