(Courtesy of Anonymous from LHB)
Sick of being hassled by “Brian” from India with all those surveys and “customer data updates” that you don’t want to answer? Worry not – rather than fight with your old mother over that much coveted phone line of yours, Linux zealots have decided to bring the same meaningless exercises to the street and smack them right into your face in person. Targeted at those “with no interest at all in software”, this nine-piece questionnaire will sure fill you with the urge to toss the next guy mentioning the name “Linux” through a window:
Free Software is software that everybody, including schools and businesses, can legally install, modify, copy and redistribute without any license cost or complicated paperwork. Did you know this?
Here’s my question – who cares? No, seriously, since I am supposed to have “no interest at all in software”, what the hell do I know or give a crap about costs or paperwork related to it?
Lots of Free Software programs useful at home, school or in the office also run on Windows, therefore you can try it without giving up your other computer habits and preferences. The most popular examples include OpenOffice (a free alternative to Microsoft Office), the Firefox Internet browser and the Gimp image editing program. Have you ever tried any of them?
Again, since it’s a given fact that I have absolutely no interest “in software as such”, why the hell do you expect me to try anything by myself at all? Do you want to sell arm floaties to Olympic freestyle athletes when you are at it as well?
Gnu/Linux, instead, is a complete, Free as in Freedom operating system. It is an alternative to Windows. It can run thousands of software programs, from games to business or educational applications. All equally Free as in Freedom. Many of these programs are already used by NASA and lots of great corporations and Public Administrations worldwide. Did you ever try any version of Gnu/Linux?
More software-related mumbo-jumbo just to give me needless migraines. Really, “Freedom” as in what? Are you trying to tell me that now even software has rights to bear arms or something?
Do you already know that you can try Gnu/Linux without installing or touching anything on your computer? You just have to use a LiveCD like Knoppix, that is a special CD or DVD that runs Linux instead of Windows when your computer boots up, but only until you turn it off, when everything will be back to its original state. Have you ever tried a Live Linux CD?
Honestly, I still don’t know anything about this loving “loonix” crap you are pestering me with, and I don’t even spend more than a minute each day in front of a computer for all I loving care. When will you shut up and get lost?
Do you know that widespread adoption of Free Software may save lots of money in software licenses and in other ways to all schools and Public Administrations?
I don’t know anything about that kind of crap. Damn, if I want to listen to someone babbling about semi-political nonsense, I’ll just go either switch on a radio or hail a frigging taxi.
Do you know that Free Software can be configured to run even on computers that have become too old and limited for Windows, thereby freeing people from the need of buying a new computer every few years only because a new version of Windows was released?
Again, what do I look like to you? Bill Gates? Just go bother someone else, already!
Do you know that Free Software uses open file formats like OpenDocument, that is formats that even other/older programs could read without problems? In other words, do you know that if everybody used such software, or at least those formats, nobody would be forced anymore to buy new software or new computers just because the other people with which one has to exchange files did so?
Seriously…
Do you know that in several countries it is already legally possible to buy complete computers without any operating system, with warranty and all but at a lower price?
... Get…
If you didn’t know any of these things, why don’t you ask what Free Software may do for you as a citizen and taxpayer to the closest Linux and Free Software advocacy group?
... Lost!
Comments
The most popular examples include OpenOffice (a free alternative to Microsoft Office), the Firefox Internet browser and the Gimp image editing program. Have you ever tried any of them?
Yeap, and they all suck.
Oh, I do so hope that somebody stops me in the street and asks me these questions. Sadly, it’s very unlikely, because as we all know Linux has no marketing power whatsoever.
I’m reminded of a Mormon missionary who caught me unawares in Birmingham about twenty years ago. He looked at his prepared spiel, and he looked up at me (from his miserable 6’3” height), and he said,
“Do you play basketball? Because we’re got some seriously good scholarships available at the University of Utah. There’s even a research program on Cold Fusion going on!”
Sadly, although I’m blue eyed, my blond hair was receding too fast to make this a viable proposition.
Oh f***. Dealing with these a**holes online is bad enough but now I might see them in real life too? ARGH!
They sound like the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Oh that would be terrible.
*knock knock *open door
“Have you heard the word of GNU/Linux”
“What”
“Do you know that Free Software can be configured to run even on computers that have become too old and limited for Windows”
“...”
The new Logitech Revue came out, and it can’t do PVR, nor view content from sites like CBS and ABC. So, you are essentially paying 300 bucks just so you can watch silly Youtube videos and the like.
In other words, the new Linux based embedded OS mascot is feature-lacking, devoid of premium content people want and pricey. I love how Linux brings all of it’s problems intact to the embedded world.
Remember, this is perhaps the most hyped and heavily marketed linux variant ever. And backed by a giant corporation. So much about LinuxNeedsMarketing.
Joe,
It’s actually more like selling arm floaties to multiple amputees in the Paralympics. Not that the obvious marketing issue would occur to a Loon.
“Do you know that in several countries it is already legally possible to buy complete computers without any operating system, with warranty and all but at a lower price?”
Legally possible? Like what, in others you get beaten with a stick if you buy a computer without Windows? Probably that’s how Liu Xiaobo got his 11 years in jail!
I knew that if you used Windows without paying for it, you could get arrested for that, but not if you don’t use it.
“The Linux Day is the largest Italian event for the promotion of Linux and Free Software in General “
This one is also on that Stop site, I’m wondering, how many Events Promotes of Linux and Free Software exist in Italy.
Firefox sucks? BLASPHEMY! I’m questioning on your choice on software zombiechan.
@1234swordy
XD
Yeah, I know it’s odd
who could hate Firefox?
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