Quote of the day

"Most people reason dramatically, not quantitatively."O.W. Homes

     

kasia: "This is very simple: Linux is a great operating system.. I love my command line, wouldn't want to live without it, however, it is not suitable for everyone. Now if everyone would just keep that in mind we could all live in happy harmony.." That's one enlighten Linux user.

     

A fine interview with Marcelo, Linux 2.4 kernel maintainer. He says many wise things. One thing ringed less true than others, though:

We need to get ordinary people used to using Linux. It isn't that it's so hard to use, it's just different.

Too bad it isn’t true. Linux is hard to use not only because it’s different but because, well, it is difficult. I keep seeing the command line attitude (“using command line isn’t that hard” or “all you need to do is ./configure & make & make install, what’s so hard about that?”). That’s so out of touch with reality that reading Cooper’s ”Inmates are running the asylum” should be a required reading for people who hold such beliefs. I’m not trying to bash Marcelo here, he’s an extremely able person, but, as Cooper points out, able people are easy to dismiss the difficulties that less able people may have. This tendency is natural but can be fought with enough introspection. And it should be fought because if people want bigger adoption of Linux they have to understand why Linux isn’t being adopted and one of the reasons is that it’s hard to use. Thinking otherwise is just self-denial and an obvious consequence is that if you don’t think something is a problem, you will never fix the problem.     

Law 14 (law of attributes) from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

The book says: for every attribute, there is an opposite, effective attribute. You can own the same word as the competition. You have to find another word to own, another attribute.

     

Law 13 (law of sacrifice)from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

The book says: you have to give up something in order to get something. There are three things to sacrifice:

• product line
• target market
• constant change

     

Law 12 (law of extension) from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout.

The book says: there's an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand and it's a mistake. Instead one should create new brands to address new markets/products.

My comment: in this chapter authors predict (in 1993) that Microsoft will fail because they use this unhealthy strategy of extending their brand to new products. 9 years later and Microsoft is still going strong. Looks like the law doesn't hold universally.