In order to help SFD teams spreading the words of FOSS all over the word, I started to collect all the FOSS / Linux benefits (wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/Marketing/FOSS101) and copy the text as below, not 101 yet, bluggers please tell me yours

# Freedom to create, share, invent, collaborate, learn, and modify and freedom matters!
# Free of Cost (Not always but you always have choice)
# Lots of choice, not only what to use but also how to use it
# No Vendor lock in
# Open Standard (odt, png ..)
# No Virus (Linux doesn't)
# No piracy
# Everybody can try and play
# Promote transparency and accountability, you (can) know what you are installing and using
# Lots of community Support, you can even get to talk to the guys who developed the Software
# Cross platform
# Create real innovation
# Promote honesty as there are lots of honest quality referees
# It doesn't support monopoly
# Promote free market competition and create lots of business opportunities
# Keen competition helping to keep things move forward
# It doesn't belong to any company, it belongs to us
# Bring people together from all over the world
# The most powerful way to build thing as anybody can just join
# Full of passion and the communities are full of passionate people
# Reward skill, ingenuity, and willingness to learn
# An outcome of cooperation and collaboration
# It succeed on its own merits, crappy Software cannot be propagated by marketing hype
# It doesn't exclude anybody and its door is always open
# Google and most MNC support FOSS
# Lots of free tutorials online for you to learn as long as you are willing to learn
# It accommodates everybody, from beginner to expert, from children to elder
# It promotes knowledge sharing and allow everybody to learn from each others
# It's an opportunity for countries to develop a crucial pool of knowledge workers to enhance its global competitiveness
# It encourages easy customization, as we don't believe one product suitable for everybody
# It doesn't sacrifice quality as there is no deadline, developers keep working on it until it's perfect
# Most company use FOSS tool even they produce non-FOSS product (Ex java tool)
# NASA uses FOSS as it allows them to do things at massive scale and low cost
# You are free to localize it and share with your country (esp. for those countries that companies believe they are not profitable for sales)
# FOSS systems are famous for its reliability and stability
# Linux is fast to boot
# XFS on Linux can scale upto a million TB (NTFS is just 16 TB)
# Linux can scale to 1024 processors on a single computer
# Super Computer to Server of Google to mobile and your Airtel Beetal router use Linux
# Linux supports 100+ file system
# Linux is fast to install
# Linux supports Dual boot
# Linux allows you to install from network, usb, cd/dvd
# Linux has Everyday updates
# True 64 bit distro available
# Easy test drive (Ex Mysql is free of cost)
# Eye candy e.g. 3D Desktop - Compiz Fusion
# No need for extra device drivers
# Multiple Workspace
# Purpose based Distro
# Most documented Operating System
# No De-fragmentation needed
# No more BSOD
# No Reboot – no need to turnoff your PC for months after install
# Built in visualization ( XEN / KVM / Virtual Box / etc )
# Linux is used in embedded device as well
# Now Mobile comes with FOSS systems – Openmoko, Android,
# Open to public BUG tracking system

Reference for Linux related points: www.slideshare.net/narendra.sisodiya/introduction-to-foss-world

While this is a great list, maybe we should make sure our marketing adheres to facts ...

# Open Standard (odt, png ..)
For the formats authors actually bother to document ... Lots of programs use their own file formats created by the authors and documented only in source – if at all.

# No Virus (Linux doesn't)
Do you not count trojans?

www.geekzone.co.nz/foobar/6229

# No piracy
LightZone for Linux costs money. There are plenty of torrents with both the Linux version and a crack. The same was true of the for-profit Wine fork a couple years ago.

# Linux is fast to boot
A lot of distributions would prove this wrong ... unless you are talking about just the kernel itself, and not booting to a usable desktop. I think most people interpret "boot time" to be how long it takes from BIOS to use.

# Linux supports 100+ file system
Yes, but I would venture to guess most of these are read-only.

# No need for extra device drivers
Has something changed recently with video cards? I haven't checked in the last year because I only have poor-man's onboard video, but last I checked one still has to download binary drivers.

# No De-fragmentation needed
This is absolutely not true. Regardless of whether you use ext2, ext3, ext4 or murderfs, creating and deleting lots of files will slowly fragment your hard disk. This is a concern because many Linux filesystems cannot be defragmented while booted. Periodic defragmentation would require a USB boot to defrag the internal hard disks, and that means having a USB Linux with the (somewhat flaky) defragmentation tools.

prefetch.net/blog/index.php/2007/01/21/d...n-ext3-file-systems/

Thanks for the comments as I also have doubts but I did put the source reference list on the wiki, great choice to put the list here

By the way, I added two more

1) Free software gives you back control over your computer (www.fsf.org/working-together/control/)
2) High level of security as a lot of government now use FOSS because of that

At the end, I would like to link every point to a good source of article to make sure it's well explained and valid, so the list is not finished yet, but please do give me more comments / input.

Pockey

Hi D,

By the way it's quite a lot of work... and some technical reasons I am sure I need your help. Do you think you can also join the wiki at wiki.softwarefreedomday.org and help to complete the list with me?

Pockey

The filesystems thing seems really flaky. I double checked 'make menuconfig' and there aren't even close to being 100 filesystem options, let alone filesystems.

Even if they are counting single drivers which support multiple systems (vfat does fat16 and fat32 for sure. might do fat12. probably doesn't do fat64) I don't think you could hit that number.

Even counting fake filesystems, like those ones that mount your GMail box and Flickr as a "filesystems," probably won't get you to 100+.

I think you are right

Actually I started to think / collect this list this afternoon, I am considering to start with a smaller list as below and avoid anything technical, since it's SFD, let's target the mass

WIKI content:

101 Reasons to use FOSS

There are definitely a lot of reasons why we use FOSS / Systems, that's why we are creating this list to help spreading the words to the mass public. It's always an on-going list please feel free to add yours. If you find any good source / reference article of benefits explaining any of the following points, please help to link as well.

1. Freedom Matters! (Freedom to create, share, invent, collaborate, learn, and modify)
2. Free of Cost (Not always but you always have choice)
3. Lots of choice, not only what to use but also how to use it
4. No Vendor lock in
5. FOSS encourages Open Standard (odt, png ..)
6. Less Virus (for Linux systems)
7. It's the best way to avoid piracy
8. Everybody can try and play
9. Promote transparency and accountability, you (can) know what you are installing and using
10. Free software gives you back control over your computer
11. Lots of community Support, you can even get to talk to the guys who developed the Software
12. Cross platform
13. Foster real innovation and creativity
14. Promote honesty as there are lots of honest quality referees
15. It's against monopoly
16. Promote free market competition and create lots of business opportunities
17. Keen competition helping to keep things move forward
18. It doesn't belong to any company, it belongs to us
19. Bring people together from all over the world
20. The most powerful way to build thing as anybody can just join
21. Full of passion and the communities are full of passionate people
22. Reward skill, ingenuity, and willingness to learn
23. An outcome of cooperation and collaboration
24. It succeed on its own merits, crappy Software cannot be propagated by marketing hype
25. It doesn't exclude anybody and its door is always open
26. Lots of free tutorials online for you to learn as long as you are willing to learn
27. It accommodates everybody, from beginner to expert, from children to elder
28. It promotes knowledge sharing and allow everybody to learn from each others
29. It encourages easy customization, as we don't believe one product suitable for everybody
30. It doesn't sacrifice quality as there is no deadline, developers keep working on it until it's perfect
31.

NASA uses FOSS as it allows them to do things at massive scale and low cost
32. You are free to localize it and share with your country (esp. for those countries that companies believe they are not profitable for sales)
33. FOSS systems are famous for its reliability and stability
34. High level of security as a lot of governments use FOSS because of that
35. Eye candy e.g. 3D Desktop - Compiz Fusion

Pockey wrote:
NASA uses FOSS as it allows them to do things at massive scale and low cost

NASA and RackSpace just launch OpenStack, its an openSource cloud computing software, if you have a few computer you can install it and run dynamically virtual server and do cloud hosting simmilar to amerzon

openstack.org/

Cheers
xuedi

Thanks for sharing the link.

By the way, I am in the process of adding links to each point to better explain the reason through a good / well explained article, if you read anything related to that, please point out and add it here: or reply here to inform me, so I can add.

wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/Marketing/FOSS101

in number 31 (nasa) you can link the words

"massive scale" with this link: www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/rackspace-nasa-la...-cloud-lock-in/36850


xuedi