To effect a regime change, you first need to determine whether an incumbent has committed a violation of trust and if the incumbent has serious vulnerabilities. What does that do to a candidate, even a dictator? It creates the motivation for and a platform on which a change of leadership can occur. It provides the means to put the change into action. You can accomplish this, however, only if a viable alternative exists. You cannot change it if the incumbent shows no weakness in public. If the incumbent controls the media, then few will understand the violations or the vulnerabilities. . . .
Despite the riotous cheerleading occuring among Democrats in Boston this week and that soon to occur among Republicans in New York, it's the summer doldrums in a still flat technology market. At times like this, you can imagine tumbleweeds rolling by as the saloon doors flap and creek to stillness.

Can we imagine that GNU/Linux adoption patterns are analogous to the adoption model of other systems, biological or even political ones? No matter what kind of system you want to talk about, shoving out the dominant species takes some reckoning.

The public soon will see that the major party conventions in Boston and New York have less to do with love for their respective candidates than they do with dislike for the opponents. As much as each party wants to quiet the anti-opponent rhetoric, it won't work. A vocal and visual minority on each end of the political spectrum dislikes the other end's candidates. The media continuously reminds us of that fact.

Unfortunately for the election, passion doesn't unseat incumbent office-holders. So, each party is attempting to work the adoption model for the challengers. They are looking for acceptance for their candidates. They are discovering their inability to reach into the installed base of incumbents to get their candidates' message accepted. Sociologists and marketing people understand the adoption model: the incumbents do not have enough blemishes to make an alternative candidate attractive enough. Even the political vulnerabilities around Bill Clinton failed to unseat him as an incumbent.

Radical innovators make up about only 3% of the US population. That can't win you an election. The early adopters make up around 10% of the population, and this segment consists of young, conservative business types. They drive opinion leadership in this country. Even media bias doesn't move the opinion leaders enough to take an anti-incumbent stance.

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