Cc-uk mailing list

["Improbulus" <improbulus+cc-uk1 AT gmail.com>]

I agree with Stuart this is an interesting suggestion, but that what is more important is explaining to users what's in it for them - why should they bother to switch?

Furthermore, from my experience (particularly in unsuccessfully trying to persuade a friend to switch to Firefox, which I even installed and set up for her), from a user's viewpoint what they want isn't just info on pros/cons and a simple how-to on switching - they also need help on how to USE the new product as easily and quickly as they use their existing one. Familiarity and inertia count for a lot, and people are reluctant to change to something which, even if potentially better, involves more of a learning curve (even with the help of tutorials) than they think is worth their investment of time.

It's interesting that Anil mentioned Gmail as an alternative to Hotmail, it's not MS but it's not open source either is it??

Finally, regarding Anil's comment that "It'll take a developer 30 minutes to knock up an article", again (though I'm no developer), based on my own experiences of writing guides for non-techies (born of my frustration in trying to decipher things which are written in too unnecessarily technical a way and which don't say enough about what you really need or want to know), it takes absolutely ages to write a simple how to or guide, particularly a step by step one. It's the thinking time not just the writing time. And the shorter you want the guide to be, the longer it takes to cut it down...

Cheers

Imp.

-----Original Message-----

From: Stuart Yeates [mailto:stuart.yeates AT computing-services.oxford.ac.uk]

Sent: 06 July 2005 14:50

To: co201jna AT gold.ac.uk

Cc: Cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Re: [Cc-uk] MS Reshuffle

co201jna AT gold.ac.uk wrote:

> everybody,

>

> please check out my mate Anil's suggestion to get all you bloggers out

> there to start writing 'how to switch from MS ____ to ____' articles,

> in clear, simple, effective language.

>

> MS Reshuffle:

> http://www.moomu.com/msc/archives/2005/06/ms_reshuffle.html

There is definitely a great deal to be said for technical guides and how-to's written in clear, simple, effective language, preferably licensed under the CC in such a way that others can keep them up to date.

What is needed is a raising of the level of education of developers, managers, deployers and end-users so that they can make informed, rational choices as to what software, services and licences to use.

That choice may (or may not) be moving from one platform or service to another.

I suspect that campaigning for microsoft licensees to move to other platforms simply because microsoft is microsoft is unlikely to be productive unless people see a genuine gain to themselves from making the swap.

cheers

stuart

--

Stuart Yeates stuart.yeates AT computing-services.oxford.ac.uk

OSS Watch http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/

Oxford Text Archive http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/