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Does Open Source Software Really Work?
reflexreaction writes "This article on NewsFactor does a decent job of covering some of the issues facing Open Source Software (OSS). It points to Linux's growth area, non-mission critical projects in mid-sized companies, and its main weakness, the desktop. It also briefly discusses Linux's potential growth into mission critical applications if scalability issues are addressed. Quick easy read. My favorite quote from the article "Linux on the desktop is toast.""
I use Linux on my Desktop. Have done since 1996, in fact.
But recently, I've noticed doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers and programmers using Linux on their desktops (I'm in Europe, and therefore there is a chance that the situation in America is different). The "Desktop" is not one market. Linux is already satisfying lots of desktop needs.
It's like AI - every time one of the problems in AI is solved, someone says "that's not AI"...
There are many many people who prefer a linux desktop to a windows desktop.
If people are afraid to try somthing new, or a proprietry application isnt available doesnt mean its a failing of the free software movement.
Gnome is a beatiful thing.
Something I see a lot of at work:
Some of our larger clients, the ones with hundreds of desktops, who on the surface would benefit most from moving to linux, are hamstrung by the applications they use.
Typically in a larger organisation, the "desktop drone" is running a piece of client software which interfaces with a piece of server software.
Inevitably two things are true...
1. It's windows - client and server.
2. The developer has no interest in porting to linux.
This, in addition to the old "no replacement for exchange server/outlook" chestnut, is the major reason large organisations don't move away from windows.
Drives me nuts.
Prisoner #655321
"I am sorry to say so, but Windows beats the crap out of Linux for easy configuring." You think? Find me someone who's used neither before, and get them to give you an impartial view of the "control panel" systen. Sure I know much of that inside-out on everything from win3 to 2k and back, but then I also know my way around /etc on more than one distro, and I know which I *prefer*.
An example - I plugged the USB lead of my new printer into my windows machine and then clicked "print" from my application and it all worked with *no* configuration required. Even for someone like me who has been using linux for years it's still a challenge to make this kind of thing work with linux at all, let alone with no configuration.
Similarly my adsl connection just works with windows, and requires hunting down the driver and rebuilding the kernel with linux.
The point is that you don't even need the control panel much of the time in windows any more.
Sig is taking a break!
Linux has some of the best desktops. I use WindowMaker on every machine and I install it as the default on every machine. Even people new to computers settle into it within a few minutes. It is far better than KDE/GNOME/Windows/MacOSX. I've never edited a single WM config file by hand either.
Unfortunately, they are the absolute worst kind of people you could ever sent to do desktop stuff.
What I think you really mean is that they are too interested in porductivity and not enough in interesting little icons. Well, most secretaries are interested in productivity too and they don't give a shit about GUI theories that spout all kind of ways to "interface with the user": they want a clean simple fast method of telling their computer what they want it to do next.
The reason why MacOS X is currently the most successful unix desktop
Is that it's preinstalled on Macs. Reactions to it are mixed at best but, just like Windows, the users are locked in and frankly Apple isn't interested in whether they like it or not. Jobs made it pretty clear that the desktop was changing and the users could like it and ask for more, please Sir.
They don't have 30 years of anti-newbie, RTFM baggage they've got to get rid of, and no one has a problem saying the word "folder" instead of "directory".
There is a lot less anti-newbie feeling than there is a dislike of being told that useful and productive tools that need some time to master are less important than pandering to simpletons that can't handle difficult words like "directory". Explain again why "folder" makes more sense; particularly the bit where I open a folder and find more folders inside. Which metaphor are we using here?
To get to the point that the mac community is at, linux developers will have to undergo a radical attitude debugging.
Assuming they wanted to get to that point, where their market is shrinking and the hardware they use is grossly overpriced for the performance and there hasn't been a new application of any note for a decade.
Unfortunately, fixing people problems are a hell of a lot harder than fixing technological ones.
How true. It is much harder to get people to try thinking instead of just following the latest pronouncements of the Gates and Jobs of this world. Imagine if people using computers felt they had a chance of arranging their desktop to suit themselves instead of some expert with a joke degree in Human-Computer-Interfaces. Or even, Jobs-forbid! an actual choice in which desktop to use! Jesus Christ! The sky is falling, the users have choice; the unified user interface is under attack!
Basically, to hell with you and to hell with people that want their users to be good little sheep. Linux on the desktop does every work related task I've had for four years now ranging from graphics to web design to large document preparation to programming and if you want to pretend it's not happening it's no skin off my nose. I'm not depending on a financially insecure company with a terrble track record for supporting its users when things get tough.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
People are stupid. It's the biggest obstacle to Linux.
As it might be true, that's one of the things I love about Linux. Once and for all I can enjoy an OS where the community behind it isn't just a bunch of newbies and generally stupid ppl. When I go to a message board looking for answers, I usually find the answers, not the usual "why doesn't this work?" questions that can be found in "normal" boards for Windows users.
It's only becoming a service economy because it's the latest buzzword compliant business plan.
./ instead. LOL.
Well. Far be it from me to believe all of those economists who are all largely in a agreement and have things like PhDs from well respected instutitions. I guess I should just believe some yahoo on
The service economy is a reality. It's a nation-wide economic trend that transcends software. Professional services are growing at an incredible rate. Look it up.
>Linux companies are trying to go service orientated, doesn't mean it's a great idea.
This isn't about goodness of ideas, but higher level economic forces. Your reference to "all these Linux companies" misses the picture. There are huge numbers of knowledge-worker service businesses in existence now, as we speak; they've been there for a long time, and have established and proven business models.
Think "contract software development".
Now, consider this. Should my company sell my last years project, or bill me out to a client for $160 an hour? My company can pull $320K annually on my service work. Getting $320K after expenses on my software may be a stretch, considering amortized business costs, and so forth.
Or they can "open source" my software. What's this do for them? 1. They don't spend a $1 Million in product/market development fees. 2. This creates goodwill for the company. 3. Next time we're proposing work to a client, the whole *company* gets to say "Yeah, buy our services, we did XXX product on open source."
In case your curious, I'm not speculating. This is really what's happening. I'm there, in the thick of it, and know what's going on.
Contract software guys love this sort of stuff.
C//
Mandrake 8.2 has given me the proof that Linux is ready for the desktop. I just wiped my 128M G3 Powerbook clean and installed Mdk 8.2 on it. While it will run OSX, it runs dog-slow. KDE however, runs like a pleasant dream (and I have more apps now!)
I got all of the vindication I needed though, when one of my semi-computer-literate (he knows just enough to get himself in trouble) friends saw it yesterday. He loves to taunt me about my Linux zealotry, and because of him I have often doubted (forgive me Tux!) the "readiness" of the Linux desktop. I had left the room for a minute, and when I returned he was toying with my laptop, running games and digging through the menus. (Next time I'll lock the screensaver!) He looks up at me with a big satisfied smile, and says "Leave it to Apple to finally make a user-friendly Unix!"
Having never seen it, he just assumed it was OSX. He absolutely refused to believe it was Linux, even after I pointed out the penguin on the desktop and the little "K" button in the corner. Never again will I doubt.
In present time that's probably true. But this is largely habit. In past times, when source was available, it was common to get customizations either in house or via contract. When a company is selling a closed source product, they seem to be quite unwilling to make customizations for one particular customer (reportedly even for very large ones) and you can't ask anyone else to. So you get in the habit of living with what they offer.
This has it's plusses and minuses, but I prefer choice. Even if in current time everything balences out equally, when I project futureward I prefer to have the source available. That way I can't be coerced.
OTOH, I am not and have not been a manager. My manager prefers Windows. He doesn't seem to read MS licenses, or think he need to. (I think he assumes that the courts won't enforce anything too vile.) And he goes to meeting where MS salesmen talk to him, and comes back convinced that he was right. So, in a way, your argument about "how things are" matches my experience with management. I just doesn't cut any ice with me. And it won't. I find MS licensed software to be unuseable, and will refuse to install anything that has a license like what I've seen of the XP license. (But then I can retire whenever I decide to. And I will before agreeing to that license. With an explanation to the company lawyer (which he will probably ignore, sigh!).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.