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Will Open Source Ever Become Mainstream?
Prabhu Ramachandran asks: "I am a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley and as part of a course project I am trying to gather comments on the following question: Will the Open Source and Free Software communities develop software that will find widespread adoption amongst the mainstream, or is such software, by its nature, suitable only for sophisticated users?
As part of my literature survey I found an academic perspective that seemed to indicate that open source projects do not reach the mainstream because the developers tend to listen only to their smartest customers. There also seems to be a lack of detailed documentation and an easy-to-use interface which normally attract the not-so-sophisticated users. I would like to hear the thoughts of Open Source developers and others on this issue. If you would like to view my references or the comments posted on a website hosted for this purpose, please visit my website." There have already been some interesting comments posted on his website. What is your take on this issue?
"There also seems to be a lack of detailed documentation and an easy-to-use interface which normally attract the not-so-sophisticated users."
:)) and college and university students/grads -- who _must_ have studied user interfaces at some point!! (I hope -- I studied them in high school.) My point is, I think user-interfaces are have improved and are improving. The foundations of UNIX-like systems allow for modular additions (like X Window System) and take a look at the huuuge amount of work going into KDE and Gnome. Yes the command-line stuff is UNIX stuff - can't be avoided, but it can be _built upon_, and this is happening.
:)).
In regards to the user interface, I find _many_ (no, not all) open source contributors are computer programmers (duh
So I think this aspect of open-source is on the rise. I'm a Debian user, but I checked out Redhat Linux version 8 the other day, and wow! I don't run a desktop on my Debian machine (pwm baby!) but the Gnome desktop under Redhat is astonishing! It is a _USER_ desktop, WITHOUT all the Windows shit (you know what I'm talking about -- legacy support since 1982
I'd consider putting the new Redhat on my ma's machine and spending a few hours showing her the ropes. I have no doubt it'd go well (but don't challent me to it just yet -- I'm still finishing up my exams).
Pine may have been used commonly way back in the 90's, but my university stopped using it in 1996. It was POP3/Netscape Mail all the way after that.
Apparently you've never tried, or you HAVE been trained on, Photoshop or Quark. I've used computers for almost 20 years now (and I'm 28), and I've had just as much trouble getting Photoshop to do what I want, as I've had with The Gimp.
These are applications that do complicated things, and sometimes that just can't be dumbed down to intuitive.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
And there it is. As someone who does not prefer any particular system or philosophy over any others, I can't believe how inexplicably high-and-mighty OSS pundits act around each other and the public at large. Not only is such bravado wildly unearned thus far, but is also hilarious to the outside world when coming from a group who "owns" less than 1% of the desktop market. You can trumpet all the server percentages you like, but the only people who care are the ones who already know.
As much as I have been (and will be again) shouted down for saying so, I know several people personally who have tried Linux or OSS, perhaps even liked it, but veered sharply away as soon as it came time to get help. Many of you people are just jerks and there is utterly no way to excuse a philosophy that seems to include ridicule as a way of attracting clients. The principle of having to deal with people like RMS and his followers, even if it means getting arguably equal software at zero cost, has itself cost OSS "clients" and probably does so every day.
A weak analogy may be the recently deceased XFL football league. Some of the modifications made really were pretty neat, but the overrall public dislike of Vince McMahon specifically and his loudmouthed sideshow mentality overshadowed the game itself. As a result, many passed judgement based upon the unlikeable central figurehead instead of the product itself. Similarly, I (and countless other non-political geeks) loathe Stallman and everything he touches and I, for one, admit that it colors my view of FS. I am not alone.
So, will OSS ever hit the mainstream? Maybe, but it's going to mean losing that enormous chip or at least the people who own the shoulders.
-
Inventor of the term 'pardon my French'.
Open source projects like Mozilla and OpenOffice, on the other hand have a friendly self-documenting 0-learning-curve interface; simultaneously they're the software items that open-source advocates tout will break the mainstream barrier.
What it comes down to is a matter of interface and documentation. From the user perspective, open source software has worked like this:
read manual -> practice -> read more -> use
Mainstream software works more like this:
try using -> use
Mainstream software is not something I'm going to have to study in order to use; rather it's something that I can learn by trying out.
Fortunately open source software is already becoming more intuitive. For example:
I use Red Hat 8. How do I...
Menu > Internet > Email
Menu > Internet > Web Browser
Menu > Internet > Instant Messenger
Menu > Graphics > Scanning
Menu > Office > Writer
Menu > Office > Diagrams
Menu > Preferences > Background
Anyway, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the open source paradigm; it's all a matter of choice of interface, and one can see already that in the newest distributions--like Red Hat 8.0--that the interface is becoming more acceptable for mainstream use.
There are so many trolls on this thread I have to chime in.
There are a lot of brilliant researchers working on this very question. Rather than ask slashdot, perhaps we should look at the question in summary and hypothesize that that successful open source software seems to have a development dynamic -- distinct from that of most industrial software -- that allows some systems to grow at a super-linear rate for prolonged periods. We should all consider that this phenomenon worthy of additional investigation.
"If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't call it research." -- Albert Einstein
Amen brother... Let me lay some experience on ya.
.gov she works for would not accept it. Who will support it? Is there a # we can call if it breaks?? Is training material availiable??
.gov and since there was no database connector for mysql (was one for MSsql2000) building that connector would have been another issue in developing it.
.gov sites run on MS, but case in point, it's not because they have underqualified admins.
You would be surprised by how many military web servers are running IIS. There are a lot of underqualified administrators out there and the military is no exception.
Ok I happen to be married to someone that runs a lot of goverment websites both internal and external. Last year she came to me asking about content management...
I took it as an oppertunity to preach about how well postnuke had worked out for me, citing it's run without a hiccup 2 years straight without a glitch (check my sig)
The sad thing is though, the branch of the
That was just for the web portion of it. Trying to convince them that a totally FREE linux/php/apache/mysql solution was better than M$ was like pulling teeth. Even though we could show them it ran on windows, it was so foriegn to them that they just flat out refused it completely.
There was other issues too, they have an ancient database on this branch of the
There's both good and bad reasons why some
Talk about jumping in at the deep end! Antialiased fonts are brand new to Linux, and although it's the best at them (no really, compare some screenshots, it beats OS X hands down), not everything supports it yet.
To get Mozilla with antialiased fonts, uninstall the current Mozilla RPMs and use these:
Redhat XFT RPMS
On RedHat, it's that simple. I dunno what you were trying to do, but hopefully this will make it easier for you.
verybody hears so much about Linux so they install it only to be disappointed to such an extreme that they'd never want to bother again (I know that I do not).
Well, I'm sorry that you expected Linux to be perfect and then it wasn't. Remember that on Windows XP (at least on all the installs I've ever used) it doesn't even antialias most text, so that's hardly a mainstream feature. But yes, point taken. It's not perfect. It'll never be perfect, that's impossible. It is getting better very fast.
Linux will be ready for the desktop when Gnome or KDE drop dead (I can't wait) and some consistency settles in.
Not going to happen. It's called competition, it's natural, healthy and good, and it happens in every other part of life. We manage somehow. As for UI consistency, that's improving in leaps and bounds too. In fact in RedHat 8 the differences between KDE and GNOME apps are marginal, mostly hidden. What was lacking in consistency for you?
"I had the day off today so I installed Redhat 8.0 (SURPRISE!) and tried to get Mozilla 1.2 up and running with anti-aliased fonts. I wasted the whole day and I am glad to be back on Win2K"
i ll a1.2/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/RPMS/i386/
/. talking about their existence and mentionning Xft. I then went to ftp.mozilla.org and searched in /pub (but that already requires some knowledge that joe user doesn't have).
l a1.2/Red_Hat_8x_RPMS/xft/RPMS/i386/ /path/to/directory, replacing path/to/directory with the correct path of course (for example, /home/sri/download/mozilla). .
I agree that it still isn't as simple as Windows or MacOS X but, at least in the case of Mozilla, and judging your level of computer knowledge from your post you should have been able to find the right RPMs.
First, the RPMs for Mozilla 1.2 with antialiased fonts and for Redhat 8 are here:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/moz
It took me les than 5 minutes to find them on the Mozilla ftp server but only because I saw a post on
For a guy like you the problems are:
1. While there is an entry for the Redhat 8 antialiased enabled RPMS, it says "RPMS for Red Hat Linux 8.x with Xft support", so you need to knows what Xft is before knowing that it is what you are looking for.
2. The ftp directory for the RPMs does not lead directly to the directory containing them but to a grandparent directoy containing a RPMS and a SRPMS directories. Given that most people who want these RPMs probably don't want the source ones and may even not know what these SRPMS are. Conversely, somebody who knows that he wants the SRPMs probably has enough knowledge to try and go up one or two levels to find the right directory.
3. Given that the RPMS directory only contain an entry for i386 it would be less confusing for people less knowledgeable about Linux to find themselves in that directory when clicking "RPMS for Red Hat Linux 8.x with antialiasing support". Again, somebody needing RPMs for another Redhat 8 platform should be knowledgeable enough to click that "Parent Directory" link.
4. There are many RPMs. To know which ones you need, you need to know the CLI command rpm -qa|grep mozilla, otherwise you need to download them all. In any case this is confusing for joe user.
5. You need to know that you can install them using the command rpm -U mozilla-* as the root user in the directory in which they are.
To me, it took me less than 10 minutes, excluding the download time, but while I am no Linux guru I know my way around it.
So if you want to give it a second chance tonight or tommorrow do the following:
1. Log in Redhat 8 (root user or not).
2. open a terminal window.
3. type: rpm -qa|grep mozilla
4. Open mozilla.
5. Go to the page: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/mozil
6. Download the same packages whose name the preceding command gave you but with the new version number. Make sure to note in which directory you saved the files.
7. Wait
8. Either open a terminal window (if you are root) or open a terminal window AND type the command su, which will ask you for your root password, to log in as root.
9. Change your directory to the one in which you saved the RPM files. This is done by using the command: cd
10. type rpm -U mozilla* . Alternatively, if you have other files there than the one you just downloaded, type rpm -U mozilla*1.2-0*.rpm
Voila.
Sorry if this list seems condescending or flamebaiting you but I tried to make as few assumptions as possible. I just assumed that you know how to use a keyboard and other basic computer skills, that you know how to open/launch a new terminal and that you know how to download a file on your hard drive using a web browser.
Hope this helps.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
In my field(s) of study (bioinformatics, genetics, evolution, organismal and molecular biology), I can say that the open source movement has NOT been adopted by the majority. However, I have recently come across the R project (particularly Bioconductor.org ) which is HIGHLY respected by many MS-oriented biologists from a wide scope of fields. Many computational tasks which are limited to those who can fork out $6000 per year for a license, can be performed on R (for free). Although the learning curve is somewhat steep, I've found the documentation to be exceptional and have been able to execute my needs within a day or two. It has also come to my attention that many graduate students and professors across the country are actively learning R. Granted, many of the users of R are probably "sophisticated"- familar with SAS, C, or UNIX- but it seems to me that open-source is congruent with the peer-review process that so many academics are familiar with and value. I think, if we can introduce it to enough people, and explain to them WHY the open-source method (as opposed to proprietary software) is invaluable, it will become mainstream. R seems to be leading the way in academia at least...
God: "An inordinate fondness for beetles." -JBS Haldane-
That's BS.
/var/log/rpmpkgs /var/lib/rpm to somewhere else /var/lib/rpm /var/log/rpmpkgs`
1 - Take the package list under
2 - move
3 - mkdir
4 - rpm --initdb (to create a new database)
5 - Go where all your rpms are and rpm -i --justdb --noscripts --notriggers --nodeps `cat
Voila! You just recreated your rpm database from scratch...
Sweden is there with the US. Our very similar neighbour countries Norway and Denmark has very succesful programs for looking in to open source, and it is quite wellknown and used both by businesses and the governments/schools, at least partly.
;-)
In Sweden, most people still hasn't heard the word. This country is sadly waaay behind the others.
Then if we look a bit further (not far) towards Germany and France etc, they have gone even further. But Sweden? No way. This "Linux" thing, is that an American product? Is it made by a US company? No? Then we don't want one.
This country is sadly spoonfed what the US uses, in terms of software (well, movies and junk food too). It is one big MS shop. So, OSS geeks, if you want to make a difference, could you please help us out here?
Notice that I did not say "M$". People who that is the lowest life on the ladder, right below leet script kiddies (and probably half the age), and they are the ones hurting OSS. What CEO are you going to convine to switch from "M$"? Make them take us seriously.