Facebook is anti-Linux! Help change them!

[Knapp]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Steve Lamb <grey at dmiyu.org> wrote:
> Andrew Farris wrote:
>> On Sun, 2009-09-13 at 10:23 +0200, Knapp wrote:
>>> I am ready to drop this because it seems to only be causing strife and
>>> that is not what I wanted. I wanted to get FB working nicely with
>>> Linux. Their email seemed unacceptable to me. Perhaps others don't see
>>> it that way.
>
>> Oh I agree with this wholeheartedly... I think the issue a lot of people
>> are having with your message is that either facebook works for them, or
>> that the post was over a year old.
>
>    Actually, for me it isn't those but the fact that this is a common answer
> from pretty much everywhere.  Windows, supported.  OSX, supported.  Linux,
> you're on your own, kid.

This is a sad state. Linux could be supported; we are not that
different from OSX and to support Linux on a web site mostly means
supporting FireFox and maybe a link or two to Linux sites to help
customers with problems.

> If we got up in arms with every site whose support
> issued that statement we would never sleep for years as we'd be so busy
> writing emails.

Time to get busy? This is a HUGE PR problem. It really does need to be
addressed. Product perception is very important to product uptake. How
can Ubuntu become main stream when sites say they support Windows and
OSX but not Linux or Ubuntu? Same question for hardware. It needs to
say, "works with Linux" to get customers to trust Linux. We should be
out there writing to sites to change this.

>  Really, it's not new nor surprising and the answer is not to
> hammer them with emails but to ensure Linux grows in popularity on the
> desktop.  We're using Ubuntu and Canonical has made huge strives to get Linux
> more desktop presence.  We just need to be patient.

I disagree. Being patient will not change things. Taking action and
getting web sites to say "Linux Supported" will change how the masses
see our system. Why do you think so many sites used to say that they
worked best with MS Explorer? It was because MS went out and pushed
for that as part of their PR campaign. Why did they do that? Because
it works. People follow people, people use what is said to work even
if it does not. FUD works because people don't want to take risks.

Most sites work with Linux, so they should say so, if they want to
support Linux.

> --
>         Steve C. Lamb         | But who decides what they dream?
>       PGP Key: 8B6E99C5       |   And dream I do...
> -------------------------------+---------------------------------------------



-- 
Douglas E Knapp

Why do we live?