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?

Comments

Fix the Interface!

[alue]

I think you're confusing the open source paradigm with one of its traditions. Open source projects have traditionally developed software that's efficient but hard to use, hence its attractiveness to a relatively intelligent crowd--or at least one that can accept tedious documentation-reading. Consider GNU Info, GnuPG, Emacs, Vi, lynx, Tex/LaTex, or even the manual page mechanism.

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...

• write email?
  
  Menu > Internet > Email
• browse the web?
  
  Menu > Internet > Web Browser
• send instant messages?
  
  Menu > Internet > Instant Messenger
• scan a document?
  
  Menu > Graphics > Scanning
• write a document?
  
  Menu > Office > Writer
• draw a diagram?
  
  Menu > Office > Diagrams
• change the desktop background?
  
  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.

Re:It IS mainstream already

[t0qer]

Amen brother... Let me lay some experience on ya.

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 .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??

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 .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.

There's both good and bad reasons why some .gov sites run on MS, but case in point, it's not because they have underqualified admins.

Re:It IS mainstream already

[IamTheRealMike]

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.

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?