On Sat, 13 Apr 2013, Beartooth wrote:
On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:15:34 -0400, David wrote:
On 4/13/2013 2:46 PM, Beartooth wrote:
There is a real opportunity here for somebody. An old adage says
"Find a need, and fill it."
As the Baby Boomers retire, there will be an increasing number,
well content with the situation Paul Frields describes, who have life
partners whom they expect to outlive them. The astute ones should be
thinking about adopting an OS in time for those partners to get used to
it.
Fwiw, I estimate that there are enough now for somebody to get an
affordable support system for CentOS, SciLi, et alii off the ground.
Sounds a little lame dude. You want to switch grandma to CentOS which
would surely affect her and 'the granddaughter' being able to share
kitten pictures? And, if / when she has problems and she asks 'the
neighbor kid' for help and he looks at the computer and asks 'what the
hell is this'? :-)
Not at all. Grandma doesn't come into it. Jack & Jill (both power
users at work, where they had layers of IT backup) are retired, and run
Fedora now.
Jack (their ersatz for Tech Support) is at home in these Frieldian
media; so they're fine while his health lasts. He wants Jill not to have
to stoop to some lesser OS if she outlives him, as the actuaries expect.
But Jill loves golf and racquetball, not computers. So Jack puts
her on SciLi or CentOS, while he's still hale & hearty. She gets used to
it, and can do her email, browsing, and other routine stuff by herself.
When she does hit a problem, she'll be able to hire neighbor
kids, or students at the nearby college, ad hoc; but it'd be handier to
pick up the horn (or start an email, if that's not affected), and get a
bill.
RedHat, with clients who need massive support, doesn't want
Jill's business. But (sez me) there are enough of her now to support a
start-up entrepreneur who does; and in a few years there'll be enough
more to support a thriving business, with that entrepreneur in the
catbird seat.
Am I making sense yet?
I didn't think you were being this literal. It makes sense for the neighbors you mention to act as cheap sysadmin support for local businesses who change to linux, and my personal opinion is that linux will become increasingly competitive for the small business IT base. Us old fogeys are in a great position to provide reasonably-priced IT support for that.
Moving friends and family members to linux is a different issue altogether. It has nothing to do with support, and everything to do with usability and apps. What matters is where they can run Quicken and TurboTax. Sure, if everything becomes and Android appliance, then those of us who know a bit of linux can help them out, just like I can futz around with my wife's Mac. But we'll never make money out of it. If they are friends and family, you really can't charge them, and if they're not, then it's probably not worth the hassle for what they would pay.
billo
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