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Why Free Software is a Hard Sell
jeffro writes "Dont know if this has been submitted yet, but the Independent news UK has a rather newbiesh article on the ups and down of Linux software as a free alternative to Windows.
"Perhaps Linux shouldn't be regarded as an operating system at all, but more as a sophisticated multi-player game with a large number of enthusiastic players. You can lose yourself in Linux for hours, tweaking here, updating there. It's great fun if you like that sort of thing. But if you need to produce a document, spreadsheet or presentation, you're still likely to be able to do it faster and better by sticking with the Microsoft devil you know.""
> Perhaps Linux shouldn't be regarded as an operating system at all
.. well, that certainly puts it on equal terms with Windows.
"Old man yells at systemd"
And if you've never touched a computer before, you can probably write that document faster on a piece of paper. Same old story about people not wanting a new learning curve, just written with different words...
At the end of the day, it comes down to what you're used to, really. If you've never used any OS before, you could probably learn Mandrake 8.1 just as fast as Windows XP. If you're used to Windows, Linux is obviously going to seem more difficult. And vice versa.
I think a lot of people still believe in the old saying You get what you pay for. While the /. crowd knows this doesn't always apply, the average user is what any *nix desktop OS has yet to convince is worth the trouble of upgrading.
Linux will appeal to anyone that is well versed in computer OSes for many different reasons.. but then again, they aren't the ones that need Linux -sold- to them.
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As a once-was computer reseller I'll tell you. It is really easy to blame things on microsoft, you can get 900 different windows for dummies, morons, complete idiots, treestumps type books out there and Linux has to fight an uphill battle against FUD.
Couple with this that best-buy employees cant tell you the difference between linux and windows let alone answer a hard question like how to change the background wallpaper on linux. The salespeople are not there to support it (they arent there to support windows, but linux is a magnitude more powerful and therefore scary.)
Gateway wants to be able to tell the user "pop-in the restore cd and reboot, yes all your data is gone now, windows does that."
All the questions asked by users back in 1980-1990 will be asked again with linux and computer sellers dont want to answer them.
Linux looks like it needs more support than windows, in reality it does not, but it's "different" and that scares companies that are used to their current cash cow.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Article is already slashdotted, but coming for experience, it is hard to sell OSS to PHBs that are used to paying serious cash for something as simple as email.
Recently I convinced a client to use Linux/Apache over Win/IIS. He couldn't believe that you can setup a webserver without paying for the software. He would have spent alot more money on the close source solution.
The only way he would agree to my solution was if I set up both a Lin and Win box, show that the Linux box could do all of the same things as the Windows server. Once I did that then he sprung for the total Linux solution.
Of course, the kicker would be,
"You know, we saved you about $100,000 in software costs, why don't you donate 10% of that cost to Debian and/or Apache."
"Um, no."
99% of people using Excel don't kow that if you type jan in one cell, and feb in the next, you can drag out the rest of the year.
In fact, most of them don't know you call those little boxes CELLS!
It is those users, not us, that Linux WP and SS need to cater more for - because it is those users that make up the majority of users. Offer a business with a hundred terminals a free alternative to Word and Excel (especially over the coming year when the pressure to go XP mounts) and your offering a HUGE saving.
Most users simply use excel as a way to format text. Its amazing. But its true!
One flaw in that article that jumped right out at me is the claim that Intel has shown no software support for Linux.
Intel has put software support behind Linux where it counts: device drivers.
For most Linux device drivers, I scour the web or my distribution media for third-party written drivers. When I need Intel networking or graphics drivers for Linux, I go to support.intel.com.
The Microsoft devil you know
Key word - "know". I'm sure it would be possible to produce open source versions of stuff like Office which had the same UI etc. so users could pick them up and use them quickly. Possible, yes but you'd be drowned in lawsuits before you could say frost pist.
This is interesting. Imagine if, in the early days of motoring, someone had copyrighted having the gas pedal on the right, the brake in the middle, the clutch on the left, the steering wheel etc. Basically, the user-interface for a car. All the UIs for all the different makes would have to be different. How would that work? Eventually, the car with the most popular UI would become a default monopoly. Either that, or they'd be a lot of wrecks when people changed brands.
People are comfortable with what they know. It's not legally possible to produce something which they can operate in the same way to get the same result - even if, under the hood, it's completely different.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
Find me three business executives who use nroff to format documents on a regular basis.
And (although they do) no business should EVER be using spreadsheets for day-to-day information gathering, storage, and retrieval
The point of the spreadsheet is data analysis and presentation.
I've sold both Windows and Linux based tools for awhile, after after a lot of soul-searching (and checkbook-balancing), I've decided I prefer selling Windows solutions. Four reasons --
I still prefer Linux for *my* stuff -- I just like Windows for *other people's* stuff.
I hesitated before I waded down into the muck, but here goes...
It isn't Linux that is a hard sell, it is the idea of using Linux when your client is waiting for a spreadsheet, and doesn't give a shit what OS you use, only that you should have updated the damn spreadsheet an hour ago that is the hard sell.
It is a figure of speach.
Keep in mind that "figure of speech" is just an expression; there is no actual figure involved.
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Linux is missing an important element compared to other OSes: Design. It hasn't got a coherent set of features that are based on a sober evulation of the average user's needs. It has various packages that do this very well for specific solutions, but if you're going to write a user OS, you need careful design. And this is a big task, mainly becuase it requires standardisation of (programming, user) interfaces and behaviour across all aspects of the OS. Users need consistancy and predictability and Linux just dosn't have it. It does have an enormous, possibly endless, feature set, but many of those features are inaccessible to anyone who isn't interested in fiddling endlessly.
And what underlies this is the programmer mentalilty. Most free software is designed by programmers who, on the whole, have little empathy for the average user. They are technology focused. This may be good for the technology, but not good for the user.
The Linux development community should focus on developing and sticking to some technical design standards and working (and innovating) within those contraints. This may provide a platform for someone to fairly easily come up with a really easy to use system.
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Yes, it's a newbie-ish article concerning Linux, but do you remember the first time you ever ran linux?
./"file" everytime to get it running. yes I know this does work, but very few default this way without having to change them. Again, we want to make it easy for newbies.....
I definately do... I took me three days to figure out that I needed to type "startx" to get the desktop up.....
Hey, it was all new to me, I definately had no clue where to start or what commands to use. Nevermind write and print a text file or spread sheet. And this is what the article refers to.
You initally need to spend time playing with it, and learning the system before you can do what most people naturally do with Windows.
IMHO, I believe that Linux needs high consumer use-ability for it to really get into mainstream.
First off, Linux needs a few windowish things to happen.
One
First boot always goes to the desktop... (allow logging in and command line access to be optional for users concerned about security or command line freaks like me). This will give Windows users a nice warm fuzzy feeling at first.
Second
Allow double clicking to execute files in desktop mode. Therefore the user does not have to open up the command line and type
I feel that by making Linux extrmemly easy for new people, many will flock. By allowing users to take to "newbie" usability features away, people like us will still be happy.
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I had to laugh when I read the remark:
I see so-o-o many Windows users doing exactly the same thing. Tweaking fonts, adjusting colors, downloading more screensavers than you can shake a stick at. It's not just a Linux phenomena and I see more UNIX users grow out of this more than I see Windows users getting tired of this tweaking. (I wonder why...)
Remember the Apple ad with the two guys futzing with the PC for hours/days on end when the secretary asks when is that thing going to be ready to use. Their response ``We're tweaking it.'' followed by ``To make it easier to use.'' still cracks me up and is as applicable today as it was then.
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I don't know, but the bottled water industry seems to be doing pretty well...
It's all Hood
Those who remember the early days of DOS will recall Lotus 123.
Now when MS-DOS came out with the IBM PC, IBM did not sell MS-DOS nor did MS sell MS-DOS -- instead all that you saw on TV adds was the APPLICATIONS that came with the PC.
So if we want to get Linux on desktop, into corporations and homes, we need to find a "killer-app" and promote THAT and I belive Linus is working on such a project.
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Despite all the linux hype, it is still harder to install, maintain, and use than windows is.
;)
I'd disagree.
On the installation front, remember that most users don't ever install Windows. It's installed for them by the OEM. So they never touch the installer. You and me, on the other hand, have been through the installer a few times, I'm sure.
Ease of installation is a tough concept, because it can mean a lot of things. Windows doesn't care what you have on your disk, whether you're already dual-booting, or whether you really want to install all of the crap they want you to. They simply wipe out the files on your disk (whether you want to or not), overwrite your MBR (again, you have no choice in the matter - it's MS's way or the highway), and fills your disk with bunches of useless tools that you won't ever use, but that MS *wants* you to use (ex: all of the damn MSN adware in XP - ick!)
Mandrake, on the other hand, has a damn-near-perfect installer. It asks you what YOU want to do, while suggesting somewhat reasonable defaults. It doesn't do much without asking first, and never assumes that it knows better than you do.
Debian's installer is a bit old-fashioned, but once you know your way around it, it's not as bad as everyone says it is. There's a lot of room for improvement though.
Now, if you're not actually talking about ease of installation, but about hardware recognition - you're right - linux is a bit behind Windows in that area. BUT it is getting better. RedHat 7.2 is able to correctly identify all the hardware in my VAIO F650 laptop - that's a signifigant improvement! Remember that a lot of manufacturers only release drivers for Windows - so linux users generally have to wait until the hardware is reverse-engineered, or the company gets around to releasing potentially buggy drivers. It's not the fault of the OS, although many people place the blame there.
Maintenance is another issue. I've never seen anything on Windows that can even compete with Debian's apt. Want program X? apt-get install program-x, and you're done!
RedHat and Mandrake have similar (but IMHO lesser) tools to deal with their RPM based setups (and yes, I know that apt has been ported to RPM-based distros - it's not in widespread use over there though).
Windows has "Windows Update" for the OS itself, and then various other update channels for other pieces of software. Of course, the actual information that you get through Windows Update is sketchy at best, and often there are undocumented "updates" to programs you might use all the time, that drastically change functionality.
On the security side of maintenance, MS has long been a firm believer in "Security by Obscurity" - basically they don't want people to tell anyone but them about security issues with their software, believeing that if the knowledge of the hole isn't widespread, that it won't be a problem. Yeah, right. When they do release a public patch for a security hole, it's often because a small hole they figured noone would ever exploit has now been exploited on a grand scale by some new email virus. Let's not get into the auto-execution of attachments or ability to masquerade a VBS as another type of file...
Linux users, by and large, are very open about any security flaws found in their software. When they are found, they are generally patched very quickly - often before an exploit reaches the epic proportions of certain exploits on the Windows side. That's not to say there aren't occurances of widespread worms and viruses on the Linux side of things - but they're fewer and further between than Windows ones. Probably at least partially because Linux users tend to be a bit more security concious than your average Windows user...but I won't get into that
As for usability - it's all about familiarity. Windows *seems* easier, because people have grown accustomed to it - not because it actually *is* any easier. I'd bet that an avid user of both OS's could sit down with a completely new user (who has never operated Windows or *nix before, but is willing to learn) under either OS and make that person equally proficient. Why? Because they have no ingrown habits to unlearn.
Converts from Windows to *nix-based OS's always say at the outset that *nix is "Hard to use" - when really what they mean is that *nix is "different from what they're used to". I bet the same could be said for a long-time *nix user that touches Windows for the first time.
Your second paragraph is all about drivers. You want more hardware supported under linux? Tell that to the manufacturers of the hardware. Don't blame the OS. Tell the GPL zealots to stop minding proprietary kernel modules quite so much - and at least allow hardware manufacturers to distribute a loadable module for their hardware. Tell the hardware companies that you use Linux and that you would *like* to use their hardware, but can't because they only release drivers for MS and Apple OS's. Tell them that you have friends who are in the same situation. You'd like to buy their stuff and give them money - but you don't want to have to also give money to MS for that ability. If enough of us speak, some of them will listen. If some of them embrace the spirit of OSS and opensource their driver modules, even better - but let's at least let them get the support in there.
Your last paragraph is a quandry - you *can* do all the things you can do under Windows - you just have to go about them in different ways. For example, you can't play most Quicktime movies - as the codec (Sorenson) that is used is proprietary, and the company that owns it will not allow linux-based players to use it without cost. Under Windows, Apple eats that cost, and releases a free player. They don't release that player for Linux, so either you have to eat the cost yourself and develop a player, or you have to go to Apple and tell them to release their player for Linux.
There are lots of other examples that work the same way. Some company has a proprietary widget - one that another company uses. The second company eats the cost of the wiget and releases a free player, but charges for the creation software. If they don't release their free player under your OS of choice, you're SOL. That's not the OS's fault - but that's where the blame is being laid.
I think people need ot be better educated about where the real problems lie - rather than just blaming everything on the OS.
don't kow that if you type jan in one cell, and feb in the next, you can drag out the rest of the year.
;-)
You knowing how to do that *must* be a drag.
Also, don't start dragging with just JAN in one cell, 'cause it creates a 3x3 grid with the format:
MARCIA | CAROL | GREG
JAN | ALICE | PETER
CINDY | MICHAEL | BOBBY
Then Alice morphs into the PaperClip(TM) and the spreadsheet style switches to something in 70s style avacado green and forest gold. This will cause permanent retinal damage, so do be careful.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Here's a scenario: You are a system integrator. You sell support contracts and are responsible to make sure that your clients' networks are running reliably, day-in and day-out. If something goes seriously wrong, you are there, and much of your labor is delivered at 100% loss.
You want to set something up that just WORKS, day in and day out - 'cause then you get the support checks and no hassles, and pure profit.
You don't sell computers, you don't sell networking, you don't sell software. You sell the whole banana, essentially an out-sourced tech department.
In that environment, are you going to tell me that Windows is your best bet?
Every morning, I get up, and read a few emails that give me a summary of the health and status of my clients' (Linux based) networks.
They work for long periods of time with NO ATTENTION AT ALL from me other than reading these summary emails. Backups are done automatically, off-site. (thank scp!) Their web sites and applications work smoothly (thanks Apache!), they get their email (thanks sendmail!) and they can access their files and applications from any of their Windows-based clients, (thanks samba!) and have clean, secure, reliable access to the Internet. (thanks ipchains!)
By moving all the applications to the server, I don't care if the customer chooses Windows, Mac, Linux, BeOS, whatever clients, nor is it a big thing if it crashes. (Pull out the restore CD, put it in the drive, re-boot the computer..)
The important thing is: They all know that their business runs on Linux, depends on Linux, and they know that they are free to confidently run their business because of me and my good friend, Linux.
And they are happy to cut me that check every month because of it.
Would I want it any other way?
NO WAY!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
That's because she's dragging you to a store for people who want to look like (maybe "feel like" would be more appropriate) they are concerned about the environment, health concious, etc. (Or, if you prefer: "tree-hugging-commie-liberal-pussies")
Look in the phone book under "Food Co-Op's" and you'll find a "natural foods" store where the food is real, where the slick suited marketers fear to venture, where the prices are half, and where the closeest thing to an SUV in the parking lot is the '79 International Harvester Scout which looks like it's been to Peru and back primarily because it has.
What was that? You want I should get back on topic? Well, alright...
So much of the "business world" which Linux is accused of being unable to conquor is focused on selling. But, like in the Co-Op story above, there is much of this world where the act of "selling" is an unwanted intrusion. I'd list things like email (as opposed to SPAM), Christmas (as opposed to Christmas Shopping) as among that set. Linux was released to the free software movement because, acording it Linus, he didn't care about "selling" anyone on Linux.
To anyone trying in the business of selling, the whole concept of trying to sell free software is as much an enigma as trying to conceptualize the "weight" of the color blue.
So much of the world makes it's choice of what to buy based on what it is sold. I'm guilty. Business know this, and focus a great deal of effort on convincing people to buy what they otherwise wouldn't. That's what marketers do.
The fact that Linux isn't marketed, (at least not very well) is one of the reasons I use it. When I'm using my computer, I want to select the tool based on what's going to work best for me, not on what's going to be most profitable for some software development company. In some cases, I'd go so far as to say that the act of marketing a product should be read as an admission that the product is inferior. In any case, it's a sign of a company spending less money on development than they could have (or charging more for the product than they have to) to cover the marketing costs.
<obligatory anti-M$ rant>
It's also why I get concerned about the Microsoft Monopoly. Here we have a case where not only is the company marketing their wares to me, (through all the traditional, and in some cases illegal, marketing techniques) they're using their operating system to market their wares to me (through network effects, proprietary file formats, and bundling).
</obligatory anti-M$ rant>
To anyone who is using Linux because it's "cool", your presence is welcome; feel free to stick around for as long as you remain interested. And when you choose to move on to some other "cool" thing, you'll be missed, but your departure won't be unexpected. There are others of us who use Linux because we can, or maybe because we can't help ourselves. We will still be here using and developing Linux, in spite of what the glossy magazines say. And it's this core which Microsoft (rightly, IMHO) brands as a cancer which will (long term eventually) destroy the software (sales) industry.
Both Steve Balmer and Richard Stallman understand this; they see eye-to-eye from different sides of the window.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.