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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?
Never, at the current rate. The maintainers of Linux (the current standard-bearer of open source) are infighting, bashing, selfish, attention-grabbing individuals. If you look through the last year of Slashdot articles, I'm sure you can find at least 10 or 12 articles relating to infighting on lists. The public doesn't like to hear about the creater of their operating system doing bad things (see the Halloween docs: the first computer news to make the mainstream news). Tone down the hobbyist bent of Linux, and maybe someday we'll be talking about how the stupid Slashdot article that said open source would never be mainstream like we talk about the infamous Bill Gates "64K is enough for anyone" quote.
The whole idea of sharing of intellectual property is pure communism.
Every piece of code has a bit of the programmers intelligence encapsulated in it, sharing it for free would be soo wrong.
Only money drives technology.....open source does not gaurantee money...and may affect the technological welfare of the world in the long run. :)
Open Source development is done on free time, except for the lucky few who are sponsored.
This is a myth. Most open source is sponsored. Since this is invalid, all the rest of your conclusions are invalid too.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.