Giving a speach on the GPL need help for persuasion.

[bignester]

In my speach class I will be giving a speach on Linux and the GPL. I will be talking about why my school should make the move from Microsoft to opensource. I have some arguments lined out but I need some help to solidify them here is what I'm arguing so far.

Cheaper "Of course I have this one"
Break away from Microsoft dependencies with universal formats ex: PDF, "do you know any more"


I need some more arguments. Please give me usefull information. I can't use the argument that microsoft just blows and linux is better. Keep in mind I'm talking to a bunch of Microsoft users so I need to persuade them. Any help would be appreaciated.

Thanx ahead of time.

bignester

[jasonlambert]

if its for your school, and the students will be using it, then you can explain that it is educational, it broadens their experience and makes them more attractive to prospective employeers (the ability to use more than one OS, -- adaptability etc).

hmm...

You can lock the lamers out better (providing you have a 1/2 decent sysadmin), so your PC's arnt needing a fresh install every day becuase some dickhead thought he was being "l33t".

Jason

[kriss]

It was Bradley Kuhn who said

After all, if you are in school to study computer science, then a professor saying: "use this proprietary software to learn computer science" is the same as English professor handing you a copy of Shakespeare and saying: "use this book to learn Shakespeare without opening the book itself."

I couldn't agree more. Tell them about the stability. They don't have to pay fees to Microsoft (number of computer * cost of license * 5 = money saved in 5 years from using free software).

Tell them about openoffice, and how it is considered to be far better than MS office.

Tell them it also offers a better security enviroment instantly, (as root is not ment for normal usage etc).

And at the end you put on the Free Software Song and a picture of Stallman

[scientica]

An open world A user friendly collective/community/family, where everyone helps eachaother, share/improve knowledge, improve the function of the system, etc. Everyone can help out, from design-geeks to bit-benders

Kriss, that's a very good quote, muyst learn that by heart

[fingal]

I think it would be good if you mentioned the philosophy behind Linux and open source. For eg. the meaning of 'freedom' in a Gnu context and, as others have said, the fact that Gnu/Linux is a community effort. If you can get just one person interested in this then that's something really worthwhile. Who knows, that person might be another Stallman or Minsky one day.

Describe what is meant by copyleft and other unfamiliar concepts, but also mention any shortcomings Linux might have. After all, it's *not* perfect (what is?) but bug fixes happen quickly... Or at least they can/should do. Go for it man! Get someone fired up about this.

[bignester]

I need some statistics, but I don't know what to include. I'm thinking about price statistics between Microsoft and people like Sun and RedHat. Anybody have any ideas for stats I could include in this speach.

[bignester]

Well I gave my speach today and I was amazed at the number fo questions asked at the end. Usually only one or two questions are asked but I had to stop anwering questions because I ran out of time. I just thaught that was funny considering there where speaches givn on mor contraversial subjects. Iguess people really are interested when you actually talk about the GPL.

[lordnothing]

sweet... what were some of the questions you were asked? also, do you think you actually got any converts from your speech? could you possibly post your speech for us (or PM it to me if it is extremely long)... i'm a little curious as to what you said....

oh, and congrats on giving a good speech.

[Darl]

Yes, I'm curious too. If it goes via PM, please post it somewhere.
If you can't, send it to me and I'll post it.

[bignester]

Well I don't have a formal write up of what I said I just have an outline I'll post it after I go through fix it up for the public to read. Also if you find any inconsistancies in it after I post please tell me so I can fix it. I'll have it up after I go through correct any grammar problems. The most popular question was how can you use staroffice or openoffice the same way as microsoft office. Also I was asked uestions like can a person who doesn't know much about computers run linux. I have another speech to give in a month or so but this time I have to argue all the refutations against linux. so if anybody knows some popular refutations please tell me so I can have a strong speach there too. Like I said I'll have my outline posted in a couple of days.