"We're Linux" Finalists Announced

Last month, we mentioned the Linux Foundation's contest asking people to illustrate the idea "We're Linux"; Now, ruphus13 writes "Over 90 entries were received, and the finalists are now out. From the article, 'The contest was spawned from the idea that other software companies were paying millions of dollars to celebrities for endorsements, while Linux was promoted and shared by enthusiastic, passionate, actual users. Contestants were given a simple directive: tell the Linux Foundation what Linux is for you, why you use it, and why you'd encourage others to do the same. Humor and professional production quality weren't required — it just had to be genuine.' Details on the finalists can be found on the Linux Foundation Video site here."

Who is going to see these?

[Recovering Hater]

It's my understanding that the winner won't be put on television in any way. How is this going to reach anyone besides people that are already interested in Linux? Point being- people that are *already* interested in Linux will probably try it anyway. This is just a feel good about ourselves project but I guess it's a fun one though.

Re:Who is going to see these?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

If any are particularly dorky, they may end up going viral like the Star Wars kid.

Re:Well done...

[internerdj]

I'm thinking that the bigger thing standing in the way of that is an open operating system. The fact that anything outside their code might be modified has ramifications for both anti-cheating measures and the bigger profitability hit: DRM. How happy do you think the publishers would be if someone worked around their "protections" by denying the DRM specific system level calls?

Re:Blog to a Blog to nowhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're thinking of the "We're GNU/Linux" contest. Easy mistake.

Re:Well done...

[elrous0]

My problem is similar, namely specific software apps I depend on or really like. GOM, Photoshop, Vegas, Premiere, Indesign, etc.--all are non-negotiable. Most of them don't work under WINE, and their OSS equivalents are jokes. :-(

Re:Who is going to see these?

[Jurily]

If any are particularly dorky, they may end up going viral like the Star Wars kid.

Yes, but we don't want that.

Re:Well done...

[internerdj]

I'm not denying that. What you are saying is that a game studio should go to their publisher and push for porting to another platform that has around 1% market share of desktop operating system. That platform is also an OS that makes it even easier to defeat DRM schemes. All of that because people work to crack software on a more difficult platform to crack?

Re:Blog to a Blog to nowhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash is very much not an open standard by any reasonable meaning of the words.

Have you not heard? Flash ain't done till gnash won't run. Gnash is reverse engineered from the bits on the wire. The little specs abobe has released are incomplete and only about very old versions.

Even if Adobe were to fully specify flash and stop adding undocumented behavior, Flash video would not be Free and Open in the way that open source software is: Flash video depends on proprietary (controlled by a single group) patent encumbered codecs. The licensing of h264 is a billion dollar industry⦠it's not likely to suddenly become free anytime soon.

WTF is Linux?

[4D6963]

Do you guys even realise that there's no such product as Linux? Saying "Get Linux" is like saying "Got Milk?", except that anyone knows where to get milk. Where does my mom buy that "Linux" thing? Or is she supposed to find out what Linux is and figure out which distro is good for her?

Market an actual product for fuck's sake!