Re: [fc] Re: Proposal

[Charlie Stross <charlie@antipope.org>]

On Fri, Oct 08, 1999 at 01:05:01PM +0200, Marek Habersack wrote:

> > Here's a second question (same apologies apply): who are we aiming the
> > FUD debunking at? Linux users? Journalists? Or the great unwashed hordes
> Journalists, company employers responsible for software in their companies,
> CEOs, managers, people devoted to Windows :)

Well yes, but that's not very precise.

F'r'xample: _I_ am a journalist. (Linux columnist for a small
British magazine called Computer Shopper.) I'm interested in this list
precisely because it looks like it'll evolve into a very good source of
authoritative sources for debunking FUD, and this is of use to me. I'm
a Linux columnist, not just a random computer journalist, and I don't
need the virtues of Linux preaching at me -- I've only been using it as
my main desktop OS since 1994, and I was a UNIX-head before then.

But by the same token, what _I_ need (juicy facts about how a particular
study was rigged by Microsoft PR people, to say nothing about the
release schedule for the ext3 filesystem and news about the feature set
of KDE 2.0) is not what your average computer journalist needs ("gosh,
you mean I've been suckered by an astroturf campaign?"  followed by
"did you know that _real_companies_who_buy_advertising_ sell Linux,
and you're pissing them off with this negative coverage?"). And their
requirements, in turn, differ from those of a typical local newspaper
journalist ("what, you mean Microsoft are taking jobs away from our area
by stomping on one of our local companies?").

These are three different pitches:

* Explanations and detailed technical debunking for people on the inside.
* Political exposes to educate general computer journalists in the
  dirty tricks pulled by marketing companies; high-level technical
  debunking to back this up.
* Social exposes for people who wouldn't know Linux from a kick in the
  pants but who understand shady business practices. (Political exposes --
  see above -- to back this up.)




-- Charlie

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