First, a response:
> Second, business executives and other potential desktop customers look
> back at the Unix environment and remember how it fractured and that no
> one really had a market share that commanded respect. As long as there
> are people out there who want to argue one distro against another we are
> going to have to deal with this reality.
Actually, in my experience, most potential desktop customers who haven't already tried unix/linux have never heard of it, or have a very vague idea of what it is.
> Thirdly, The very nature of the open source community as free, is it
> owns worst enemy. We need applications and distros the we know will be
> here in 90 days and will be supported not by an invisible cadre of geeks
> working around the world( how do I get in touch with someone I cannot
> see or talk to?) but rather we need flesh and blood at a desk somewhere
> and a help desk to go along with that. If we have to pay, then we will
> pay for the convenience. How do you do that and maintain the freedom
> that we have enjoyed in the Linux community? By supporting companies
> like RedHat who have made a significant contribution and investment in
> the marketplace. It is that commitment that is earning them
> recognition and respect and there are even people to call for help( and
> you pay for it.)
I can understand your viewpoint here, but I disagree with it. Most of the major distributions have been around for quite some time, and don't appear to be going anywhere. I use as my examples Debian, RedHat, Mandrake, Suse, and Slackware. In addition, the free nature of open source software guarantees the perpetuation of quality applications, because in the event that a developer abandons a project, people who use and love the software will adopt it and continue work on it. A good example of this is SoX, which was abandoned quite some time ago by the initial dev, and has become much bigger and better since. The applications that tend to disappear within 90 days, again in my experience, are those that are either redundant, very esoteric, and/or semi- to non-functional. I view this as a healthy selective process that retains the good software and eliminates the bad and unnecessary. On the contrary, when a proprietary project, one that's owned by a corporation and support
ed by flesh at a desk, dies, the code generally dies with it, and enthusiasts either have to accept this, or write a clone from scratch. Finally, I think the help desk (I don't want to say 'paradigm,' but it's really the word that fits here), as embodied by some poor, generally undertrained sap sitting at a desk with a flowchart, is a fossilized holdover from the days of proprietary software where a single company has a monopoly on expertise. With open source, the help desk is a conglomerate of search engines, usenet, LUGs, IRC, yahoo! chat (yes, there's a linux room), the LDP, man pages, READMEs, distribution sites, project developers, and finally, if you really MUST have them, the people Redhat pays to sit in front of phones with flowcharts. The great thing about problems is that new ones don't come along all that often, and it usually isn't too difficult to find someone who's had the same one before.
Although the number of active Linux distributions seems to be diverging toward infinity, each distribution represents a group of people who thoroughly create, build, test, debug, patch, and generally improve that subset of software that goes into their distribution.
> How many of you have paid for the last distro you have running on your
> computer?? I bet not many of you. These companies take the dreaded
> word 'Money' to continue and if you do not support them financially that
> can never happen.
You've got me - I didn't pay for the copies of Debian I'm using. However, I'm a starving recently-graduated student, and I make up for my lack of monetary donation by using my time, energy, and stubbornness to improve the software with which I come in contact.
> As far as I am concerned, RedHat has the edge in the market place and
> will continue to do so and I think that we should stop ragging on them
> and recognize their contribution and support their efforts. We cannot
> have a fractured Linux desktop development and dozens of distros and
> expect to compete with MS$,, who I want so much to see eat dirt!!
Fracture equals choice. I'm not ready to put all my eggs in Redhat's basket. The day somebody has a monopoly on Linux will be the day I stop using it.
Now for my own rant:
I believe that the three most daunting obstacles preventing Joe and Maria Homeuser from using Linux are the following:
1. You have to install Linux yourself. No major prefab PC manufacturer, by which I mean the likes of Dell, Gateway, IBM, or HP/Compaq, offers desktop systems with Linux preinstalled. Many users have never installed any operating system, and will remain unwilling to do so when they can get preinstalled systems seemingly free of extra charge. LUGs are helping to alleviate this, but it is again much simpler just to buy a preinstalled machine and turn it on. People are also generally reluctant to spend $1000+ on a computer from a company of which they haven't heard. Preinstalled machines would take a lot of the frustration out of the Linux transition, since a majority of the problems people encounter have to do with getting hardware to work. This too is turning around since Walmart began selling preinstalled Mandrake (hooray!) and Lindows(ugh) PCs.
2. People expect Linux to be a free version of Windows. A Ferrari is not a Pinto and should not be treated as such. Linux can provide the same functionality as windows, but one should not expect every application to be identical. Neither should one expect to run all of one's windows software in Linux. An example is the permission system. New users can be confused and frustrated by the necessity to be a superuser in order to install software, but less so if they understand that these permissions prevent an unknown person from being able to wipe your HD, attack the pentagon, or order you 12,367 llamas over the internet by simply sending you an email.
3. People expect a computer to be a microwave. People that will read a 90-page manual before operating a VCR will sit down in front of a PC and expect to be able to operate it by sheer force of will. User-friendliness is a great thing in software, but I have yet to develop an algorithm for mind-reading. (If somebody does so, please GPL the source and email me a copy ;) Programs that perform complex tasks are necessarily complex. By reducing the number of options a complex program will accept, one reduces the power of that program. If a well-written manual is provided, it can make using a powerful, complex program as easy as using any other. In addition, reading the manual and providing feedback helps the developers realize how useful good manuals are and helps keep manuals a top priority. So, realize that your PC is a complex machine designed to do complex tasks, and that using it may require slightly more than just pressing "Go."
My $12.77
Levi
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