RE: Gnome advocay help/advice

[Bryan Pfaffenberger <bp virginia edu>]

In addition to these good suggestions: Try to find out what *problem* the
administrator is attempting to solve, and show how GNOME solves it. Start
out by asking about this. Listen carefully to the reply. Bring with you a
number of possible arguments in favor of GNOME; many can be made. Use the
one that goes to the heart of the administrator's problem. (In my
experience, the best way to get administrators to do things is to convince
them that doing it your way will make their jobs easier.)

Examples: If the administrator is concerned about controlling costs, you can
highlight the benefits of using outstanding software that is generally
available free of charge. If the concern involves vendor licensing, explain
the benefits of using GPL-licensed software that does not expose an
organization to the manifold risks of such licenses (such as inadvertently
exceeding the number of users specified in a site license).

Best wishes,
Bryan
Univ. of Virginia

>
> Also, if there is any chance of doing custom GUI programs, grab a copy of
> glade and show him how libglade can be used to modify interfaces without
> recompiles by modifying the gnumeric print dialog for instance.  That
> might impress him.
>
> > Well, if I were you I'd also show the most polished program of GNOME -
> > Gnumeric.
>
> > > I've been granted an audience with a big cheese sysadmin in the uni to
> > > demo gnome, hopefully to persuede him to add it to our systems as an
> > > alternative to cde (on solaris).