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-
-
-Commercial Port Advocacy mini-HOWTO
-
-
-
-----
-
-!!!Commercial Port Advocacy mini-HOWTO
-
-!!Doug Loss dloss@seul.orgv0.1, 29 December 1999
-
-
-----
-''This document discusses methods that can be used to approach
-commercial software companies to convince them to port their
-programs to Linux.''
-----
-
-
-
-
-!!1. Copyright Information
-
-
-
-
-!!2. Why write this?
-
-
-
-
-!!3. Other efforts
-
-
-
-
-!!4. How to choose companies to approach
-
-
-
-
-!!5. The art of cold contacting
-
-
-
-
-!!6. What to say
-
-
-
-
-!!7. My standard contact message
-
-
-
-
-!!8. The final inspirational message
-
-
-
-
-!!9. Resources
-----
-
-!!1. Copyright Information
-
-
-This mini-HOWTO is Copyright (c) 2000 by Douglas R. Loss.
-All rights reserved.
-
-
-A verbatim copy may be reproduced or distributed in any medium
-physical or electronic without permission of the author.
-Translations are similarly permitted without express permission
-if they include a notice on who translated them.
-
-
-Short quotes may be used without prior consent from the
-author. Derivative work and partial distributions of this
-mini-HOWTO must be accompanied by either a verbatim copy of this
-file or a pointer to a verbatim copy.
-
-
-Commercial redistribution is allowed and encouraged; the
-author would like to be notified of any such distributions.
-
-
-In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information
-through as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to
-retain copyright on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be
-notified of any plans to redistribute the HOWTOs.
-
-
-We further want ''all'' information provided in the
-HOWTOs to be disseminated. If you have questions, please contact
-Tim Bynum, the Linux HOWTO coordinator, at
-linux-howto@sunsite.unc.edu.
-----
-
-!!2. Why write this?
-
-
-I read over all the other advocacy howtos for Linux that I
-could find (I've listed them in the resource section at the end).
-They were almost all addressed to convincing end users (either
-business or personal) that Linux could meet their needs on a
-day-to-day basis. That's a very useful thing to do, but it
-wasn't what I was looking for. Only the Linux Advocacy Project
-came close to what I was looking for, and it didn't quite cover
-what I wanted. I wanted something that would help me approach
-organizations making software for other platforms and convince
-them to port their works to Linux. Since I couldn't find any
-howto concerning that I decided to write one.
-
-
-In this howto I'll cover how to approach software companies
-and what arguments may be most effective in convincing them to
-port their programs to Linux. I won't talk about trying to
-convince them to release their Linux ports under open source
-licenses. While that might be a good idea, I think these things
-should be done in small steps. Advocating a port to another OS
-is much more likely to meet with interest than advocating what
-the company may perceive as "giving away" product, or advocating
-a radical change in their basic development model.
-----
-
-!!3. Other efforts
-
-
-There are other groups and individuals doing their parts in
-trying to get various software and hardware vendors to support
-Linux. Norman Jacobowitz is a consultant working with SSC, Inc.
-on an advocacy project that approaches the same problem I'm
-addressing here, although from a different direction. Here's
-what he told me about his efforts:
-
-
-
-
-SSC, Inc, publishers of Linux Journal, maintain a
-"software wish list"
-at <http://www.linuxresources.com/wish>. They are
-currently paying an
-outside consultant to use these results and other data to lobby
-marketing managers at ISVs to port their products to Linux. This
-is an
-effective, on going project to bring more native software to
-Linux; so
-please drop by the wish list and vote for your favorite
-software.
-
-
-
-Andrew Mayhew has been trying to convince hardware vendors
-that making Linux drivers, or at least releasing the
-specifications so the Linux community can write the drivers, is a
-good idea. Here are his thoughts:
-
-
-
-
-I go to conferences. I was most recently at
-Networld-Interop in Atlanta (which was shortly followed by the
-Atlanta
-Linux Expo). There at Interop I went to many of the vendors with
-two
-agendas. First, I was there as a respresentative of the ISP that
-I work
-for and was looking for solutions. But secondly, I was there
-find out who
-currently had Linux support and if they didn't have Linux
-support, why
-they didn't and was the company considering it. It is
-interesting to
-note, that in the large Novell section, there were actually two
-Linux
-related sub-booths. Additionally, Cobalt Micro was there with
-their thin
-server, along with !RedHat and Caldera. Fairly small showings in
-a nearly
-completely non-Unix related conference, but a showing none the
-less.
-
-
-
-
-
-Most of the companies that I was talking to are primarily
-hardware
-vendors. They already don't make any money off of their drivers.
-They
-just need to develop the drivers so that people will use their
-hardware.
-My typical approach to one of these companies was to first ask
-about the
-product in general, so that they could get through their
-marketing routine
-quickly, and then ask about driver support. When the only words
-out of
-their mouths would be Windows 95, 98, and NT, I would ask about
-other
-platforms explaining that I run in a multiplatform environment
-and would
-need interoperability between these platforms. In introducing
-the idea
-that they should support other platforms I would only slowly work
-in the
-idea of Linux as one of them. I found that introducing the idea
-that I
-wanted driver support for Linux right off typically got me a
-knee-jerk
-reaction which would basically have the person shutdown and try
-to find a
-way to get out of the conversation. But if you can get their
-defenses down then you can explain to them how, in
-general, all they would need to invest to get Linux drivers would
-be to
-openly publish the specifications for talking to whatever
-hardware and
-possibly providing hardware to key developers. The biggest
-argument to
-this, is typically, "We have some proprietary ways of doing X and
-don't
-want to have that information out in the open." The usual way
-around this
-problem is to explain that being able to talk and use a device
-does not
-normally mean having to know what proprietary tricks they are
-pulling. At
-least this fits with the wireless LAN and the Fibre Channel IP
-people that
-I was dealing with.
-
-
-
-
-
-One smaller company, which I think may attempt to find
-someone in the community to help develop a driver for them came
-up with an interesting
-solution around the proprietary issues as well. This being that
-they
-would have the initial developers sign NDAs for the hardware
-documentation, but the source code could be open source so long
-as the
-documentation in the source was not just a copy of what the
-company
-provided the developer.
-
-
-
-
-
-For software companies, I think it is a very good idea to
-point out that
-there is nothing or very little available of their kind of
-software;
-whatever that area of software is. But it probably should also
-be noted
-what does exist. Of particular interest would be the development
-tools,
-the development support available, and possibly information about
-other
-porting projects. In terms of these other projects they would be
-interested in the porting problems that they have solved or would
-similarly be tackling.
-
-----
-
-!!4. How to choose companies to approach
-
-
-First, you need to identify an area where Linux is deficient
-in programs. I wouldn't try to convince any company to port
-their web server to Linux. There are plenty of such programs
-available. I'd much rather use my time trying to convince
-companies to port games or kindergarten through 12th grade
-educational programs to Linux, as there's very little of those
-types available (none in the educational area, so far as I
-know).
-
-
-Second, you need to identify companies that are most likely to
-be interested. I have no hard evidence of this, but I strongly
-suspect that your efforts will meet more success if you
-concentrate on second-tier companies rather than on market
-leaders in your chosen category. Companies with seemingly dated
-products or products that were aimed at obscure platforms would
-seem to be good targets. Their software may not be dated for
-Linux users since we're not always taken in by the hype factor.
-They may well be looking for new markets for their products as
-their present market dwindles along with their ability to
-compete. I doubt that Disney or Davidson and Co. would consider
-porting their educational programs nearly as quickly as say,
-Soleil Software or Topologika. Also, if a company provides its
-software for both Windows and Macintosh currently, it may be more
-likely to consider supporting yet another OS than one that is
-exclusive to the Windows or Mac world. If all the companies in
-your target category are Windows or Macintosh exclusive I'd try
-the Mac shops first, as a Linux port would give them a much
-greater market expansion (on a percentage basis) than it would a
-Windows-only company.
-----
-
-!!5. The art of cold contacting
-
-
-What you will be doing is known in the fund-raising business
-as "cold contacting." This means that your "target" company
-won't have known that you'll be contacting it, and won't have
-been primed to hear your message. A 1% response rate is
-considered normal. You should be able to do better than
-that.
-
-
-In a sense all target companies will be slightly primed to
-hear about Linux due to the remarkable amount of publicity it's
-been getting of late. In that respect your contact won't be
-completely cold. That's good.
-
-
-The first thing to do is to identify someone in the company to
-contact. It's always best (if possible) to identify an actual
-individual rather than a job title. Depending on the size of the
-company and its organizational structure, your best bet is the
-head of program development. If that isn't a possibility, try
-for the head of whatever technical section the company may have.
-If ''that'' isn't possible, read over whatever bios might be
-available in the "about the company" section of the company's web
-site (they almost all have something like this) and pick the
-person who seems most likely to be intrigued by Linux and to
-become an internal advocate for a Linux port. Finally, if none
-of the above things works try contacting the head of the company.
-Incidentally, it won't hurt to contact more than one person in
-the company if your bio research shows somebody other than the
-head of program development as the most likely person to be
-interested.
-
-
-Your initial contact should probably be via email. First,
-email usually goes directly to the person addressed rather than
-being filtered through various layers of the organization as
-postal mail and telephone calls are. Second, with email everyone
-starts equal. Physical presentation and elocution don't enter
-into the contact, so the logic of the message may be more
-apparent.
-
-
-The subject of your message should be understated. "Make
-Millions Easily!" will just get your message deleted as spam.
-Try something like "A good new market for your programs," or "An
-overlooked market for your software."
-
-
-The first sentence in your message should probably be a
-conditional apology for sending the message to the wrong person
-if the person receiving it is the wrong person. The next
-sentence should request that the message be forwarded to the
-right person and that that person's email address be sent back to
-you for future contacts. This has a few effects. The apology
-establishes that you're not a know-it-all and that you are
-polite. The request reinforces the politeness and quietly lets
-it be known that this won't be a one-time contact. That's
-important. It's a lot easier to blow off a message if you don't
-think you'll ever hear from the writer again.
-
-
-That brings up another point. If things work out right, you
-won't be making just a one-time contact with this company. You
-will be signing up to be an outside contact for them, a source of
-information about things Linux. As such, there are some
-guidelines to follow in all your contacts. Be polite. Be
-patient. Be truthful. Be helpful. Stay apart from internal
-politics.
-
-
-Be polite means responding civilly to all messages, even if
-you consider them insulting or moronic. Remember, "A soft answer
-turneth away wrath." Besides, it's just possible that you may
-have misunderstood the message. Asking for a restatement of the
-message to clear up its meaning can't hurt.
-
-
-Be patient means answering what you consider obvious questions
-calmly and clearly, and answering them as many times as
-necessary. Email isn't real-time; you can take a jog around to
-block to cool down before answering yet another, "But doesn't a
-Linux port mean we'd be expected to give our products away?"
-message.
-
-
-Be truthful means answering each question to the best of your
-ability, and saying "I don't know" when that's the correct
-answer. However, "I don't know" is only the first part of that
-answer; "but I'll find out and get back to you" is the rest of
-it.
-
-
-Be helpful means going beyond just answering the immediate
-question and trying to address the reasons the question was
-asked. For example, one company asked me how it could publicize
-the existence of a Linux port if it did one. I mentioned the
-standard places (comp.os.linux.announce, Linux Weekly News,
-Freshmeat, Slashdot, Linux Journal). Then I brought the question
-up in the seul-dev-apps mailing list. The discussion there
-eventually started the development of the
-lu-news system.
-
-
-Stay apart from internal politics means keeping a little
-distance between yourself and your company contact. However
-friendly your exchanges are, your role shouldn't be one of
-confidante but one of outside expert and advocate. You won't
-force the company into supporting Linux. You can only make sure
-they know about the opportunity and help them find the best way
-to take advantage of it.
-
-
-You should probably be prepared to answer questions about why
-no one else in the target company's market niche is developing
-for Linux (if that's indeed the case), and what capabilities are
-available in Linux, such as multimedia. Are the available media
-players exploitable commercially? Do they run efficiently? You
-might also make the point that a port to Linux of a graphical
-program will mean a port to the X Window System and will mean
-that the program is much easier to port to any other OS that uses
-X, such as Solaris, AIX, or HPUX.
-
-
-Andrew Mayhew brought up this point to me, and it makes a lot
-of sense:
-
-
-
-
-It has been my (albeit limited) experience that
-structuring the
-email/letter sent to companies with the idea that I or one of my
-clients is actually interested in their product at the beginning
-(or as
-closely as reasonable) of the document gets more results. Now,
-this is
-only really applicable is you mean it.
-
-----
-
-!!6. What to say
-
-
-Okay, enough about what tone to adopt. What do you
-''say'' to convince them that the Linux community is worth
-porting for? Here's what I did.
-
-
-First, I explained as well as I could just who the Linux
-community is, and why Linux users would be a receptive group for
-my target company's products. I very carefully didn't
-exaggerate, and made sure that I explained when my figures were
-estimates rather than hard numbers. If someone comes up with a
-way of measuring usage, we may be able to get the hard numbers we
-need for market demographics, but till then we have to do our
-best.
-
-
-Next I explained why I thought the Linux market would be good
-for the company to enter.
-
-
-Then I laid out the ways in which the company's current
-program line could be ported to Linux. I must say that I lean
-toward using
-Abacus Research & Development Inc. (ARDI)
-Executor technology as a "wrapper" for Macintosh binaries as the
-easiest and quickest way to do that, but
-WINE
-and the
-TWIN library
-(as I understand it,these two groups are now working together)
-are all possible tools to help move programs to Linux without
-full-blown ports. Incidentally, I cleared my letter with ARDI
-before I mentioned any action that their engineers might be able
-to take for the company. You would lose credibility if the
-target company acted on your recommendation, contacted someone
-like ARDI, and was essentially told, "We don't know what you're
-talking about."
-
-
-There's also
-Loki Software, which does ports of commercial software
-to Linux. So far they're done only games, but when I talked with
-the president of Loki a while ago he was quite willing to
-consider doing similar ports of other types of software.
-
-
-Finally, I ended with a personal note on why I was trying to
-convince the company to port to Linux. Here's a copy of my
-standard letter; don't copy it word for word, but feel free to
-adapt its organization if you like:
-----
-
-!!7. My standard contact message
-
-
-
-
-Dear Sir or Madam:
-
-
-
-
-
-If I've sent this to the wrong address in your
-organization, I
-apologize; could you please forward it to the appropriate
-person? Also, could you let me know who that appropriate person
-is
-so I can direct future communications to him or her? Thank
-you.
-
-
-
-
-
-I know that
[[insert company name here
] has fine
-educational
-software programs for both the Macintosh and Windows PCs.
-However, I'd like to speak on behalf of a computer community that
-has heretofore been overlooked by the entire educational software
-industry; the Linux community. I'd also like to call your
-attention to porting tools that can make moving Windows and
-especially Macintosh software to Linux nearly trivial.
-
-
-
-
-
-Linux is the fastest growing operating system in the world. It is impossible to put
-exact numbers on how quickly it is growing because it can be downloaded for free
-off of the internet. The last attempt to estimate the total user base in early 1998
-came up with 7 million users world-wide in early 1998 with over 100%
-growth/year. The explosion of Linux publicity since then has undoubtedly kept that
-growth rate alive, putting the current market at around 20 million with rapid
-expansion for some time to come.
-That's more than the worldwide total of OS/2 users and is near
-(if not more than) the number of Macintosh users. In addition,
-these numbers should probably be in some part subtracted from the
-Windows and Macintosh user figures, as almost all of the
-computers Linux is used on initially had Windows or MacOS
-installed.
-
-
-
-
-
-Just who are these Linux users? They are primarily male,
-technically educated, and in their early twenties. The first two
-traits are more standard than the last; Linux users range from
-the teens to probably the mid-40s in age. (I'm 46, so I had to
-extend the range at least that far.) This is a prime demographic
-for the educational software market. These are people who
-generally have or will soon move into well-paying jobs in
-technical fields, and who are often just starting families.
-Linux users are usually not very patient with MacOS or Windows,
-and so tend not to see or to consider software offerings for
-those operating systems.
-
-
-
-
-
-To the best of my knowledge, there are currently
-''zero''
-educational software programs available for Linux. While many
-Linux users will write their own programs if they can't find
-anything to fit their needs, that has so far not been the case
-with educational software. This may be because Linux only
-originated in 1991, and has only experienced explosive growth in
-the last 2-3 years. The market is completely open.
-
-
-
-
-
-This has only recently been noticed by the Linux
-community.
-As more of us have young children, the awareness of the need for
-educational software for Linux is growing. I'm sure it will only
-be a matter of time till someone begins to address this
-need.
-
-
-
-
-
-What is the easiest, most cost-effective way to enter this
-market? It's certainly not impossible to start from source code
-and rewrite the operating-system-specific routines to work with
-Linux. That's what many Macintosh ISVs did when they wanted to
-enter the Windows market. However, there are easier
-ways.
-
-
-
-
-
-There are "wrapper" programs available for both Windows
-and
-Macintosh programs, which enable them to run on Linux without
-having to be rewritten extensively. For Windows, there is the
-TWIN library from Willows Software
-<http://www.willows.com>. I
-don't have any direct experience with TWIN, but the Willows
-website gets quite specific on what Windows routines move across
-cleanly and what ones need some touch up. The WINE Project
-(<http://www.winehq.com>) also has Winelib, a similar set
-of libraries that Corel is planning to help develop and use in
-porting its office applications to Linux.
-
-
-
-
-
-For Macintosh programs, Abacus Research & Development,
-Inc.
-(ARDI <http://www.ardi.com/>) has rewritten a substantial
-fraction of the Macintosh OS and toolbox routines, and makes this
-technology available in two different ways. Executor is
-available both as a Macintosh emulator for end-users and as a
-porting tool for Mac ISVs. Executor is available for Linux, DOS
-and Windows. A demo of Executor for Linux is included on the Red
-Hat 5.1 Linux distribution, the most popular commercial
-distribution. The engineers at ARDI are fluent in Macintosh and
-Linux and can evaluate how hard it would be to make a Linux
-version of your Macintosh software. In many cases it can be done
-without your needing to change a single line of code. A Linux
-version of your program created in this way can easily fit on the
-same CD-ROM as your Mac and Windows executables, thereby giving
-you a three-OS program on one SKU. The expenditure required to
-open up this potentially lucrative new market is relatively
-minor; certainly much lower than the cost of the ports many
-companies made in expanding from the Mac-only market into the
-Windows and Mac market.
-
-
-
-
-
-Finally, a personal note. The reason I'm moved to write
-to
-you proposing that you enter the Linux educational software
-market is my 6-year-old son. I run Linux because, of all the
-operating system choices available, it best fills my needs and
-desires.
-If there were good educational software available for Linux, I'd
-snap it up. I know I'm not alone; I've heard from other parents
-every time I've mentioned the problem in various Linux forums.
-There's a market out
here waiting to buy your product
. Please
-don't disappoint us.
-
-----
-
-!!8. The final inspirational message
-
-
-If you decide to take a turn at advocating commercial software
-ports to Linux, remember that in so doing you're not acting as
-merely one individual, but as a representative of our entire
-community. I know we're more honest than Microsoft; I like to
-think we're less self-satisfied than Apple; I hope we're more
-generous in helping other users in need than any of the other
-user communities. Show those qualities to the companies you
-contact--honesty, humility, and helpfulness--and you stand a good
-chance of being successful.
-----
-
-!!9. Resources
-
-
-Here is the list of other advocacy documents I looked through
-before I decided to write this one. While they didn't cover the
-aspect of Linux advocacy I was looking for, they are well worth
-your time to read through. They have a lot of good advice on how
-to be an effective ambassador to the non-Linuxen out there.
-
-
-
-
-
-*
-Linux Advocacy Project
-*
-
-*
-Linux Advocacy mini-HOWTO
-*
-
-*
-Why Linux?
-*
-
-*
-Why Linux?
-*
-
-*
-Why use Linux?
-*
-
-*
-Politics
-*
-
-*
-[[No Title]
-*
-
-*
-Advocating Linux
-*
-
-*
-Linux FUD Factor
-*
-
-*
-Linux Myth Dispeller
-*
-
-*
-Linuxmanship
-*
-
-*
-Four Phases of Linux Acceptance
-*
-
-*
-To use, or not to use?
-*
-
-*
-Linux Compared to Other OSs
-*
-
-----
+Describe
[HowToCommercialPortAdvocacy
] here.
