Linux advocacy

From Berkshire Linux Users Group

The urge to advocate the use of Linux is widely felt. When you find something that works well, you want to tell as many people as you can. BLUG's role in Linux advocacy cannot be overestimated, especially since wide-scale commercial acceptance of Linux is only newly underway. While it is certainly beneficial to the Linux movement, each and every time a computer journalist writes a positive review of Linux, it is also beneficial every time satisfied Linux users brief their friends, colleagues, employees, or employers.

There is effective advocacy, and there is ineffective carping: As Linux users, we must be constantly vigilant to advocate Linux in such a way as to reflect positively on the product, its creators and developers, and our fellow users. The Linux Advocacy mini-HOWTO, available at the Linux Documentation Project, gives some helpful suggestions, as does Don Marti's excellent Linuxmanship essay. Suffice it to say that advocacy is important to a LUG's mission.

A time may come when Linux advocacy is irrelevant, because Linux has more or less won the day, when the phrase "no one ever got fired for using Linux" becomes reality. Until then, BLUG plays a vital role in promoting Linux use. They do so because their advocacy is free, well-intentioned, and backed up by organisational commitment. If a person encounters Linux through BLUG's efforts, then that new user's already ahead of the game: She knows of an organisation that will help her install, configure, and even maintain Linux on whatever computers she's willing to dedicate to it.

New Linux users already in contact with BLUG are ahead of others whose interest in Linux has been piqued by a computer journalist, but who have no one to whom to turn for aid in their quest to install, run, and learn Linux.

It is, therefore, important for BLUG to advocate Linux, because our advocacy is effective, well-supported, and free.

See also The Limits of Advocacy