8 Aug 2002 shlomif   » (Master)

Welcome to Linux

If you take N Haifa Linux Club activists and ask them what we should do for "Welcome to Linux" this year, you'll receive N+1 opinions. The discussion that erupted on the mailing list (which I purposely caused) does not seem to have entered into mail-archive yet (possibly because of the DNS problems).

What I think should be done is simply demonstrate some of the capabilities of Linux. (sort of like Linux in action) I think it is useless to try and teach the basics of Linux in 6 or 7 2-hour sessions, and that we will only lose people that way.

Other distiniguished members of the club disagree from various reasons. I still recall the previous "Welcome to Linux" attempts as things we put a lot of work into, were relatively unrewarding as far as the organizers were concerned, and caused us to lose a lot of time which could have been invested in lectures.

I don't think it is our "obligation" as Linux experts to evangelize Linux into the non-informant public. (the situation is worse in Israel, as many people don't know what Linux or Open-Source are.) As known from Cognitive Psychology the words "must" and "should" are extremely demotivating. My suggestion would put a much lesser strain on our resources. Other than that, I believe that we will again put too much effort with far too less reward.

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