Yes. Completely agreed. I can guarantee you that we will work to fix that. That’s a pure marketing problem, one that we *can* and *will* address.

Re Nicu: “I think you overestimate the value of the free Ubuntu’s CDs. Maybe also the value of codecs. There is a much bigger perception problem with Red Hat and the desktop (but is a a long argumentation, maybe after the F9 release I will take some time and write a piece about it).”

Maybe, maybe not. Certainly the many Ubuntu successes have to do with a strong strategy that highlights “Linux for human beings” — i.e. positioning and community-building — but make no mistake, spending LOTS of money on physical media and taking legal risks with their codecs have been their *primary* mechanisms for taking their leading position. And they were able to take this position largely because Red Hat very publicly abdicated their leadership in the desktop world. Which was pretty stupid, and a lot of us said so at the time — but what’s done is done.

It’s certainly true that OLPC could do with a lot more integration with the community — and with the Fedora community in particular. But let’s not downplay the amount we _have_ achieved in the last year or two.

Mike: OLPC, the technology and educational philosophy, should be incredibly exciting to you, ideologically. I can understand, though, that OLPC, the organization, is grossly incompetent, and that might get in the way.

I’d like to care about OLPC, but it just isn’t happening for me.

Luis and Greg,

I’m sure you’re both correct.

Regarding media carpetbombing, I’d be way more enthusiastic about spending an equivalent amount working with hardware vendors to get preinstalls. See, I really ought to be excited about OLPC…

1. Red Hat cannot, for legal reasons, add the single most obvious differentiator: multimedia support. Canonical can.

2. Red Hat will not, for financial reasons, carpetbomb the planet with Fedora media. Canonical must, because it’s their core business strategy.

It’s a hard problem.