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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?
Most of the net and probably most corporate and military servers runs apache and sendmail on GNU/Linux/BSD...
It sounds like this guy is talking about end-user applications that would be used by "normal people".
How many open source success stories are there, where the open-source solution is so clearly superior that it's used by everyone? Uh, zero.
Well, how about open source application that are good enough to compete with proprietary software? Uh, one. Mozilla, perhaps.
How many are "up-and-comers" that just need good word-of-mouth to take over from a proprietary solution? Uh, zero. (IE is already free-money)
The only one that I can think of MAYBE for the latter category is Gimp, and the user interface on that thing is so horrible as to be useless for anyone but a true geek (at least, the last time I used it which was admittedly a while ago).
Bottom line, I don't think proprietary software has much to worry about at this point.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Wow. There's a recipie for failure.
-Peter
Open Source software is already mainstream both for regular users (look at Apple's OS X) and developers (look at all the work IBM's been doing in this area). What else is there to be done before it is considered mainstream? Grandma submitting a kernel patch by sending in a diff? W
1) Mainstream = "The biggest/largest/greatest".. then probably no
2) Mainstream = "Widely accepted and used amongst normal people" then yes.. this is today.
Look at companies like IBM and Dell.. would you call them mainstream ?.. most likely.. So if they offer PDAs/Servers/Workstations with Linux or any other OSS product on.. then it is mainstream already.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
First off, the motivation of a an open source developer tends to differ from that of a closed source developer. The closed-source developer is doing it at least partially for the money, so they have a great incentive to make it easy for customers to use. An open source developer generally creates software for some other reason. It is not that an open source developer wants to make things hard for people to use it, but since it isn't a goal it tends to be overlooked.
My understanding of the general flow of open source projects is that somebody writes some code for their own needs. They think it is cool, so they show it to some of their friends who may also be developers. The friends have some suggestions and pass it on to some of their friends. Soon you have a project written by developers for developers. If somebody else wants to use it, that's fine too.
Obviously, not every open source project starts this way, but the enduser generally isn't the first consideration.
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
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Open source -- as we know it today, has so many things wrong with it I can't even begin to tell you..
:) (yes, those things cost money -- sometimes money needs to be spent).
1> Documentation is usually 2nd priority. In my world, if there's no documentation, there's no product.
2> The product is usually 2nd rate. Because there's often no money on the line, my experience has been that the programmers take less accountability for their efforts. Big bug? Guess you have to wait until the programmer (or someone else) gets around to it. Big bug in a program you paid thousands of dollars for? My experience is that enough screaming can get you a patch in very little time.
3> The user interace is lacking severely. Bigger companies hire people who specialize in usability to the design the UI. Open-source projects have HORRID user interfaces (A perfect example of this would be Request Tracker -- the software rocks.. the documentation sucks, and the awkward user interface effectively makes the product useless for large-scale deployments).
Open-source definitely has it's place. It's fabulous for the "quick fix it" jobs and the "I've got lots of time on my hands to figure it out and fix any problems I find" solutions. Sadly, however, my experience has been that this stuff is only truely free if your time is worthless.
Don't get me wrong.. I love open-source software. I wouldn't be able to do my job without it -- but with these drawbacks, it will never take the place of the mission-critical elements where I can hold someone responsible with I don't get what I need.
-- People who hate Windows use Linux. People who love UNIX use BSD.
If you want to see mainstream adoption of open source, you have to look outside of the USA. If you follow the Linux news sites you'll see lots of foreign organizations, particularly governments, looking to make big switchovers to Linux and other open source software. Bill and Steve have been doing a lot of travelling lately, offering what basically amounts to bribes to keep these organizations on Windows.
So yes, the world has already started the mainstream move to open source, but the United States is the last place you'll see this effect -- because we're too heavily entrenched in Microsoft crap to be among the first.
This parallels other technology shifts. Why do other nations have wireless networks that are so much better than those found in the USA? Because they didn't become heavily entrenched in landlines the way the USA did, so they were able to leapfrog. It's the same way with software: fewer installations of Microsoft crap mean an easier deployment of something else.
Just give it time. Basic economics will work it out.
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My Answer: It's their prerogative. I use open source software because I like the philosophy, and I am computer literate enough to handle its inherent insanity, but I also know people that like the philosphy behind the free software movement, yet don't want to use it because it sucks(i.e. isn't as easy to use).
does this bother me? Yeh it kind of does, but I understand the rationale behind my choices, and I also understand the rationale behind theirs. Since this is all about freedom (isn't it?) shouldn't the developers also choose what they want to focus on, as though they want to use their code themselves? Damn straight they should.
I see the occasiaonal annoying post on here that goes along the lines of 'why don't we have a unified linux?', 'why don't we have easy to use this, or easy to use that?' The reason is simple. Freedom. If you want mainstream acceptance, go to a commercial software vendor and try to prvoide a product more people want to use, and use the money they pay you to make it better.
Open Source development is done on free time, except for the lucky few who are sponsored. That makes it a hobby and hobbies are for fun.
Dealing with non computer literate people is not fun; it is work. Given this contradiction I doubt that "pure" Open Source will ever become mainstream.
However, I can see the possiblity of the hybrid open source / commercial groups succeeding in that area. These organizations (such as SuSE) pay people to do the boring stuff like write documentation targeted at non-techies and so forth.
Mainstream :
: : :
Apache, Sendmail, Pine (used in almost every university of the country), GCC.
Potential Mainstream with primary need:
Mozilla - word of mouth and improvement in stability
Ximian Evolution - word of mouth and hands on use.
OpenOffice - word of mouth, universal office document format
Linux -
for the general internet browser
better GUI, fonts, documentation, games and more applications.
for the new power user
better GUI, fonts, documentation
for the professional
better documentation
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
While I'll admit that copying in X isn't exactly the most friendly thing, I found myself using Gnome and having the same kinds of complaints that I have using windows. Namely, there's a bunch of stuff that makes no sense to me as to why anyone would want things to be that way. I don't understand why windows is mainstream. I avoided it in college, and now that I use it more often at work, I bang my head on my desk in amazement at how difficult it is for MAINSTREAM users to use. Anytime I FIND a problem in windows, I can't ask anyone how to fix it, because most likely, they don't know. Why does Alt-F4 in Powerpoint XP close only 1 window, when ALT-F4 in any other office app closes all the windows? Why does hitting the OUTSIDE X in powerpoint XP close only 1 window? That's right, if you somehow ended up with 1000 powerpoint presentations opened, you would have to click 1000 times or hold down ALT-F4 until they all went away. Mainstream users seem to be able to put up with this sort of behavior though. And when I used gnome and saw how utterly similar it was in all the pain aspects of windows, I had the cynical thought, "Let 'em suffer with their easy-to-use interface."
I'm the "lead" of a couple open source projects that will never be mainstream, for two reasons: (1) The products target application developers (not lay-men) and (2) I don't have time to donate for the sole purpose of helping "stupid" users.
While reason (1) kind of makes my posting a little off-topic, reason (2) I think is true of a lot of open source projects - including those for products that do not specifically target the tech-savvy.
The reason is that open source is nearly always built from "donated" time, and most of us coders just don't have enough time to spend on such low-priority (as we see it) things as making the product easy for "dummies" to use. Sometimes I struggle to even respond to mailing-list questions that are obviously written by "dumb people" - I just think "it's not worth my time"!
This attitude probably even affects open source projects that are actively trying to target the mainstream. I'd imagine for most developers it's a constant battle between their personal attitude/desires and the project goals.
I'd say Mozilla and Evolution are the two best examples of success in making open source software that is usable by the main-stream. Kudos to those developers!
I believe it will be the companies which package the software and pretty-up the UI and features who will deliver it to the consumers (think IBM, RedHat, The Kompany, etc).
I think it's unrealistic to think that everyday computer users will become more computer savvy (why should they?). So don't expect to see grandma checking out freshmeat.net any time soon. But now that Walmart is selling Linux preinstalled on lost cost computers the doors for exposing non-technical people to open source are open.
The use of published, universally accessible standards are exactly what makes open technology flourish over proprietary systems. Think VHS vs. Betamax. Think Internet vs. Novell. Think 8086 vs. Macintosh. Free and open standards always beat proprietary technology.
"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?"
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
infighting, bashing, selfish, attention-grabbing individuals
You've never worked on a large, *closed source*, commercial, proprietary software project before have you?
I wonder if you've ever worked at a major commercial software firm? You will find egos and back-stabbing tactics to make your head spin. IBM has so much management and so many turf wars, it's a wonder they get anything done at all.
There are groups within Microsoft that refuse to release source code to other groups in Microsoft even when those other groups can't figure out the API's without it! "It's our code and you would just fork it and mess it up!" Seriously.
Just because the OSS infighting is public doesn't make it unusual. It's mild compared to some of the in-house stuff I've seen.
Doesn't the Tivo interface indicate that open source in general and Linux in particular is not just ready for the mainstream, but already in use by the mainstream?
Or are you talking about GUI's? The Tivo gui is proprietary, as is the Apple GUI (another example of an opensource project out in the mainstream).
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Just most isn't. A good example is something like CDex. It's a small open source free software project that is relatively mainstream. The reason it is so successful is because it serves a useful function, is for windows, is easy to use and easy to install. It is also one of, if not the, best CD audio ripping program there is.
The reason that OSS isn't mainstream is because most of it is for linux, most of it is hard to use, and most of it is hard to install. Most of these have to do with the nature of being for linux.
Stuff like Mozilla, gAIM, CDex, etc. can become mainstream. But Open Source programmers make things for themselves, and generally don't have the public in mind. Companies that make commercial software have a primary concern of profit. They will only profit if their software can actually be used by lots of people. OSS programmers don't have this as their primary concern. When they do their software will become mainstream.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
So what is preventing this from happening? Microsoft
- Microsoft has a monopoly in operating systems.
- Microsoft does not bundle any open source software with its OS (although it has plundered open source, returning nothing when the OSS license allows (BSD))
- Microsoft prevents large computer manufacturers from selling PCs with other OSes. (The "Microsoft Tax")
All that users get is a Windows computer with no source. Many users are content with this.Widespread open source adoption will depend on the efforts of distributors, such as RedHat, and the downfall of Microsoft as a monopoly. Open Source software will not stand on its own merits (although I believe that it could).
As someone who's written several free applications that "compete" with commercial apps, I can say with authority that I'm not interested in bringing down the commercial vendors. In each case I saw a problem that wasn't being addressed the way I wanted, solved it for myself, and if anyone else wants to use my solution, they're welcome to it. If they want to use one of the commercial alternatives, they're welcome to that too. Makes no difference to me. The question, "How can I make my package so attractive that other people will choose it instead of the competition?" has nothing to do with why I develop open-source software.
Some might say, "Well, yeah, and that's the problem with open source. You'll never appeal to a mass audience that way." Which to me is like walking up to a lion tamer and telling him he's never going to grow any oranges holding the chair like that. A statement which is both perfectly true and utterly beside the point.
Unless it's made illegal, I'll keep writing software and keep releasing the source code no matter what the rest of the world thinks of the concept of free software. I'm not doing it for them.
Before I drone on about why open source software is the way it is; open source is mainstream just no one knows it.
How many people surf the web without querying a DNS server running Bind? How many send email and have that email get touched by a sendmail server or some other open source application? How many people visit web sites running Apache with PHP and MySQL or Postgresql?
People are using open source software every day and have no idea they are.
I hope open source software doesn't start pandering to the lowest common denominator with regards to the intelligence of it's users. That is the beauty of open source software, it's for people that want to do cool shit rather than do something easily. It's a question of power over ease of use. What is easier to use Notepad or Emacs? Notepad is much less sophisticated and much easier to use. Emacs is extremely powerful but requires a tremendous amount of affort from the user to learn all of it's features (and I still don't know half of it). Now granted Notepad wasn't designed to replace emacs, but I think my point is still valid.
What many people fail to recognize is that because open source is not Microsoft, it doesn't need to gauge it's success in the same way. A commercial software company has to sell a certain amount of software in order to have money to pay all of it's people, support the users and create a new version. Open source has none of these limitations. Open source software is successful when people use it and benefit from it. My open source project gets about 600 downloads a month, is it successful? I think so.
Everyone is always looking for some measuring stick to gauge the success of Open Source as if millions of people using it aren't enough. People talk about success meaning that your grandmother can use it. The open source community is selfserving; we make software that we want, not software your grandmother wants. We make software that is not that user-friendly but kicks ass if you take the time to learn it.
LoRider
While it's true that Libre Software developers work more closely with the users who contribute back to the project in some way, and those users tend to be the smarter, geekier users, the biggest difference between free and proprietary software is that free software encourages users to become smarter.
/. is not the forum for full-blown research papers as comments, so I won't defend my thesis further.
The value in learning the nitty-gritty details of a proprietary product are lost when the vendor makes incompatible changes to scare off potential competition. The proprietary vendor wants no help from the users. He wants his users to send him money on a regular basis and not ask questions unless they will pay for answers.
The Libre developer doesn't give a rats ass what the user does with her software. That's what makes the software free. The developer prefers to get something back for her effort, so she has a motive to make her software approachable and to provide her users with means to contribute back to the project, and often that means encouraging the user to get smarter, directly or indirectly.
This is a gross over-generalization, but
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.
I'm sure you were thinking bigger than this, but just about everyone who owns an Archos MP3 player and who has tried the Rockbox OS has switched to it.
5 9&mode=thread&tid=100
Slashdot covered is a while ago: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/04/00182
The Rockbox OS replaces the standard OS on the MP3 player. It's completely open source, and yes it's completely legal, too.
Version 1.4 is out now. Except for recording functions that are due in the next version (and may already work in the daily builds) and a few file functions, Rockbox does everything the shipped OS does, and does it better, and does alot more. Rockbox supports threading, where the Archos OS freezes to think all the time. Rockbox supports text files and new fonts and many languages. Archos OS supports 1 font and 1 language and no text files. Rockbox also allows one to customize the while-playing screen to display any and all info about the song. Rockbox is also much better at handling play lists and randomizing them. The one time I tried to make a playlist with the Archos OS my MP3 player froze for over an hour.
Certainly, if all the people who were pirating actually had to pay for Photoshop, they'd probably consider Gimp instead. Some might still have found they need it, but most would settle for something free, or something cheaper. Unless you have ethical or juridical (think:companies) concerns with not having a legal licence, Photoshop is, and presumably will be superior to Gimp for a long time.
"Free" copies of Windows, MS Office etc. is what is keeping free software from the markedplace. And I think Microsoft knows this. Noone is going to feel that they've "hurt" Microsoft by not adding another 0,000000001% to their bank account. I don't think there's much software that a majority needs and would be willing to pay for. 50%+ don't need Photoshop. But if they can have it anyway, why not. It's like having an off-roader without ever going off-road. It's not that you actually do it, but that you could do so.
I know. At a work place I had to make do with Paint to make some simple figures, because there was no budget to get me anything better. Ok it was simple lineart, but still... I'd want nothing more than to install Photoshop/PSP/whatever, but I couldn't.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If you could buy something in a Texas Wal-Mart a couple of years ago, would you say it deserves the name "mainstream"?
:)
If yes, then it's too late for Linux to escape, because I've done that.
Nicely boxed, manual-included Linux distros have been around for years (in national chain stores), and "open source" covers things a lot less radical, like say the Phoenix browser. Lots of Windows users don't think of themselves as too far from the mainstream justs because they're using a better browser than IE
tiothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
What's wrong with software for "sophisticated users?"
Nothing.
Somewhere, pundits have declared that Open Source and Free Software must appeal to the masses in order to be a "success."
If anything, the desire to attract the masses is a primary reason why commercial software stinks. It's bloated, complex, and wasteful -- because it tries to be everything to everyone.
Open/Free Software, on the other hand, lacks the financial incentive that dilutes creativity and effectiveness in commercial products. "Free" has many connotations, including the freedom to be original and precise.
Open/Free software can not be treated as a monolithic block; "popularity" means very different things to developers of various projects. Where KDE and Gnome care deeply about being popular, many (many) other projects do not.
Freedom is about choice -- some projects chose to chase popularity, while others focus on being the best available tool for a discerning audience. Trying to declare a goal of "popularity" for all Open/Free software is myopic at best and counter-productive at worst.
All about me
Microsoft has done what they had to do to penetrate an uneducated market for their products. Open source has the luxury of listening to the power users for the simple reason that as more children grow up with everyday computing from an early age, this demand will increase dramatically. Bottom line, people that are over the age of 25 today, and this becomes more pronounced as you get to the age of 35 are either barely machine literate, or at worst do not know how to operate a mouse. It has become eerily similar to simple reading literacy rates, 30-50 years ago in this country. We take for granted the high literacy rate in the US because it has been a mainstay of our society for so long. In another 20 years, computer literacy will be the same way. Go ahead, ask any 18 year old today what life was like before the internet. Unless they grew up in the bottom 5% of the socio-economic spectrum, you'll hear quite a bit of, I don't know. The balances are just begining to tip. This is not to say that Open Source today is user friendly, but to say that computer users will only become more sophisticated as they start earlier.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
If this were practical, then wine would also be practical. Wine has been trying for years to emulate (loosely speaking) the Win9X kernel, et cetera, via reverse engineering. They couldn't do it. They've made amazing strides, and done miracles, but their target was moving, and most of what they needed to know was cleverly hidden. MAybe once Win9X is dropped by MS, wine will eventually be able to catch up to it, and make a perfect-enough emulation.
Linux itself started this way, as a reverse-engineered version of Minix.
The Minix source was published, so reverse engineering was doable. There weren't any undocumented APIs. Look also at FreeDos, a libre implementation of MSDOS. Freedos had the advantage of a much simpler and stationary target. Windows 3.1 still won't run on it (that's ok, since they have other GUIs which will). Then there was DR Dos. They wrote a pretty good DOS replacement (simpler than making a new WIN NT), but MS managed to torpedo them.
The original question was:
``Why don't we just write our own copy of Windows? It'll be, like, compatible and everything.''
I just don't think that's possible. If you can write something which runs the Reader Rabbit games without crashing (anymore than real Windows does), let me know.
See what I've been reading.
..way back in the olden daze, you used to be able to buy 'a car'. cars where large and weird looking, had personalities of a sort, but were 'square". people wanted pizazz, they wanted "more",including more power.
Enter the geeks.
Car geeks chopped channelled and lowered cars, made them high compression and short stroke, tweaked this, tweaked that, result-hotrods.
Flash forward a coupla decades, "hotrods" become factory built, you could literally walk into the dealer and drive out with 400+ HP "hotrods".
Did detroit do this on their lonesome? Did some marketing guy thunk this up all by himself? Nope, it took millions of young car geeks simply doing it to the consternation of staid marketing, eventually-and I mean eventually-they bingoed to the phenomena. They were partly driven by-surprise-the car geeks-the kids in a lot of cases- turning into the engineers at the plants, working on the assembly line and talking cars on break, at the dirt tracks all over, this drove the industry in a direction it didn't want to go at first, they were square and wanted to stick with the gold old tried and true bloatware boats, but eventually the sheer mass and enthusiasm of cars as cool and powerful enablers of humans took hold and the main stream acceptance of "hotrods" became as much a norm as anything else.
Computers aren't any different. Young people today who are the hotrodders-the tinkerers, the geeks, will be driving this industry. We ARE at exactly that point now near as I can tell. It's not going to be anything else BUT the enthusiasts because they are the ones going into the hotrod computer industry. The masses who just play games occassionally and do email and work as drones in some office and don't even 'get it" with computers are just along for the ride, and that's it, evne the 'bosses' now who don't get it will be forced into it as all their people below them startytelling them the same thing over and over again. The establishment controls the now but aren't the ones who will drive what is accepted, because they lack the enthusiasm.
People with enthusiasm make the new software, overclock the hardware, design the custom cases, think up new ways to "do things", and as such will automagically become "the industry".Money will get there somehow, one little company at a time, one new box that is tried as an "experiment" at bigco to shut up the young sysadmin, one piece of open source adopted over closed, it'll just happen.
They get jobs, they are given tasks, the way their brains work they will always migrate to what they are the most enthusiastic about, DESPITE being ordered otherwise to remain square and "normal". They are fanatics, and will have their way, it's just human nature.
To use a very old expression that fits, it's not the dog in the fight, it's the fight in the dog.
So to answer you, yes, the enthusiasm for open source is a factor of ten or one hundred times the level of the enthusiasm of the borg or closed source. They will win then, it's just common sense and a logical conclusion. You might argue about the timing, that's about it. I am guessing we are almost exactly at the tip over point. Most industry "experts" are saying closed source and the borg OS will dominate for years and years and years. I disagree. I disagree a lot.
Remember, the same exact guys said that about the dotcom stock market boom as well. Open source has gone right through the dotcom boom and while all sorts of other things techish evaporated, it just kept on cruising, didn't it?
Look at the enthusiasm of users, not from any paid industry experts as to trends. Experts get paid to parrot already established market forces, the term "shill" is over used, but the basic idea is still correct. Look around corporations in the trenches, where is the enthusiasm at? The young folks entering the workforce now grew up with computers, they didn't learn them as adults. It's not a chore to them it's not hard drudgery. Those people are open source enthusiasts by and large, mostly all do things like file sharing and mods, they code for fun as well as money, they really push envelopes. And they are overwhelmingly adopting open source, so...there ya go.
who only got her first computer this year uses my Mandrake/KDE box right alongside her own Mac without any problems. In fact she prefers it because of the wide range of software freely available for her to use and she's asked me to build her one.
It's got all the pretty icons, buttons, clicky things the Mac does. They work just as well. They're just as "intuitive" to her and the Linux box actually crashes a bit less often than her Mac.
It lacks a bit of "fit and finish." Geeks seem to always leave off at the "rubbing out the finish endlessly" stage, but KDE has made particular strides along that line recently and don't look to be slowing down.
Open Source software is already perfectly acceptable to "Joe User." There's nothing "geekier" about Kword than there is about MS Word.
This is not the same thing as being accepted however. Although the press still seems to take cracks at the "geekiness" of OSS those cracks are almost always a couple years out of date and tends to harp on the CLI even though that's a none issue ( and the same press praises Apple for putting the command line back. Go figure). They effect the perceptions of said "Joe User" though.
Given time though I'll bet you anything that in the future the idea of a propriatary OS or WP will seem just plain doofey to the average Joe. Times change and perceptions change and OSS just keeps getting better and better without ever "forcing" expensive and pointless updates. Schools are starting to use it and as Apple proved getting it into the schools creates a user base. That's why Bill will send Steve to "Joe Blow Elementary School," or even go himself.
You never saw Jack Welch going there because they used Phillips lightbulbs instead of GE.
Here's a test you can do if you're so inclined. Take two Windows boxen and a KDE box and load up Word/Kword/OOWord in one of each. Take an average Joe and set them down to play with each. After he's played around for an hour or so ask him which one he wants, this one for $400 or one of the other two for free? Bet you the only functional difference he sees between the three is the price.
Ok, what's the catch with my mom? *I* installed the Linux. Not her.
But then she didn't install her Mac OS either.
KFG
Thanks to SUN which initiated a Gnome usability study; there are now explicit usability projects http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ for Gnome and http://usability.kde.org for KDE. I feel that Gnome and KDE developpers have began paying attention to what heir usability contributors are saying, and there have been some (albeit) small steps in the right direction. But things will sure need some time to happen as is the always the case with open source. Open source need time. I am using Mozilla 1.2 right now, and it realy rocks ! IE 6.0 has been really left far behind ! in my opinion
There also seems to be a lack of detailed documentation
That's it for me in a nutshell. Forget the "mainstream" -- the lack of good documentation renders a lot of otherwise nice software useless in the IT workplace.
Look at it this way: if you pay an admin $60/hr., every hour he or she spends struggling with your fragmentary docs or (much) worse, reading the source to figure out what's going on, reduces the cost-competitiveness of your software versus a commercial product by $60. In a big project, multiply that by the multiple admins and developers who have to struggle with it, and it's not long before your free-as-in-speech software is much more expensive than the free-in-no-way commercial alternative.
Forget the broader social issues, forget the long term. Management does not think that way, and they have compelling incentives not to. And most of all, forget the dollar cost of the software. Cost of software is almost always trivial compared to the cost of the labor required to maintain it, even with expensive packages like Oracle and (may god pity you if you have to deal with it) Interwoven. The real question from a "straight" business perspective is: how long will it take us to have Package X up and running smoothly? From a business perspective, that's the whole issue.
The idea that businessmen can be persuaded on a large scale to make decisions on something other than relatively short term ROI calculations is a fantasy. That's what federal regulation is for. If you want to move product -- and that includes free software -- you must understand your customers' needs and satisfy them better than the competition. Free software, by and large, does not do this.
"Intuitive" GUIs only become a major issue when you're talking about non-technical users -- not that it wouldn't be nice for plenty of server apps. When it comes to ordinary end-users, you can probably skip the docs because they won't read them. The GUI becomes absolutely critical then. Again, stop thinking about whether the end user can figure out the interface, or whether it's documented -- ask yourself, "Is my free package as easy to use as the competition's non-free package?" If your answer is no, go fix your interface problem.
Finally -- and slightly off-topic -- the notion that point-and-drool idiot-proof interfaces will cripple a program is nonsense. Sure, some things don't translate to GUIs well, but a lot of stuff will, and you can still provide a CLI/config file interface to the advanced users.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
- Your average human being:
- Knowledgeable folk:
I, for one, am perfectly content with the current state of affairs; the former community can stick to its foolish and lemming-like ways, while the latter and more important will continue to use OSS, which is already mainstream to them.These people, originally feerful of computers and other things associated with magic, have been succored into buying and using computers because of flashy and glittering promises made to them either by corporations through advertising or from boastful or misunderstood friends/family members. They have very little patience; they want computers to do what they want, and they want it done immediately. A good many of them have given into the superstition that computers are some sort of life form capable of making deicisions and doing work for them, often becoming extremely hostile and bitter when the opposite becomes obvious, though they continue to deny the fact. These people, however, are not picky, and are willing to accept quick-fix solutions and botch jobs which would have otherwise been found unacceptable if they had actually done the work. Therefore, they flock to software that is easy to use and that gets something done (though what, they care little) regardless of reliability or effectivity. Therefore, this "mainstream population", flocks to over-priced software, often convinced that you get what you pay for (an example of faulty logic, their favorite kind); they are not concerned with open source software, usually either not knowing what it is or already having been convinced by their "friends" that it's somehow unhealthy.
These people range from hobbyists to professionals, generally having a good understanding of the form and function of computers. They buy computers with precise knowledge (usually) of what it is they want their computers to do for them, and how they are going to get that done. This computing culture has a great deal of experience with open source software, which has always been present throughout its development with good consistency. It's perfectly acceptable not to use open source all the time, and many might prefer commercial products of particular virtue, though most probably favor some open source programs to others. Only a small portion of these people are open source fanatics, the rest simply using open source software because it is particularly useful for their purpose. Needless to say, a great deal of open source software is considered mainstream among this group.
Throw rocks at MS and the other closed source companies all you want (and they definitely deserve it, as we all know), but the bottom line is that when your weekly paycheck depends on getting mainstreamers to pay good money for your software you have a very different view of the world than when you're listening to the geek crowd and pleasing just your peer group.
We all know the reasons why Linux won't ever make it on the mainstream desktop--crappy docs, too much required tinkering, spotty hardware support, and not enough compatibility with the programs those would-be customers really want to run. There's one more reason, one that the /. crowd is loathe to admit: Windows has finally become a really decent OS. Sure, it took them way, way too long to get there, and it's still far from perfect, particularly on the security and privacy fronts, but WinXP is solid and highly usable.
There was a time when it was a race: Could Linux (already highly stable) become usable before Windows (acceptably usable) became stable? The race is nearly over, and Windows has such a huge lead that it will take a techno-miracle for Linux to catch up.
I think the open source model, at least its most popular implementation, has proven that it can write great software but is unable to make it 'mainstream.' This is understandable if you take a look at the number of great programmers working on open source and compare that to the number of graphic and UI designers as well as product managers. Yes, every project needs good management and not every programmer is a good manager or designer. A manager must decide what features are needed, how to make the user's experience consistent, and how to unify the goals of the project. Often this isn't done in open source programming and you end up with overlapping, hard-to-use features and multiple ways to accomplish the same task. Some would call this power, I call it confusion.
I'm assuming that by mainstream you mostly mean it has a good UI. They've made great strides but I think the problem is one of control. Even a large distributor like Red Hat doesn't have much control over the contents of the individual packages. They just don't have the manpower and the business model to allow them to customize every software package to fit in with their vision of the end-user experience. So you end up with a distro that ships with 5 or so shells, 2 good window managers with completely different interfaces, and thousands of free applications each with their own quirks, UI, and configuration file. Folks, this is not mainstream. It's not the fault of the developers, it's a problem inherent in the open source model.
Now switch gears.. if our word 'mainstream' means widely used, well it already is. Look no further than Apache/PHP. Also tons of mainstream, non-free software includes free components such as OpenSSL. There are also individual packages that I would consider mainstream such as VirtualDub. Maybe Grandma isn't going to use it, but VirtualDub is widely accepted as a great package for video processing.
Many of the open source arguments fail to mention, from what I have seen, is that every Rehat Linux distro comes with no fewer than two programming languages, and if you want it all, there are many many other languages which come with a typical Linux distro, MS would be loathe to load upon thier own OS distro.
Those languages are already there ready to rock and roll, for those who want to fully customize their computer using shells sripts and the like; and I am talking only about bash commands and perl, not some of the other languages such as gawk and the like. Of course many like me have seen their fair share of glazed over eyes when you look into those eyes to tell them these as reasons for using Linux.
These are fantastic, wonderfully flexible mechanisms for people to make their computers do what they want when they want in the manner they desire, in a secure and stable manner. Last time I looked, I had to rely on MS's thinking on the subject, which is basically, we know better than you and what works well for you, so no perl for you.
Now, I will grant you not every human being on the face of the earth would like to learn programming, and I believe that a simpler Redhat distro targeted towards those who want an inexpensive OS so they can do internet stuff would probably be a better in for the Linux community to expand Linux for the average user.
So I guess the answer would be, Linux will probably not become mainstream for the average computer user. MS with their Xbox and this coming concept of a universal household computer appliance (all running MS products exclusively of course) will see to that soon enough. But Linux's existance has been demonstrated not to be tied to MS's concept of what computing will be, but rather what it should be: the freedom and the absolute right to tell your CPU which code to run and under which language.
I happen to be the tech person at my family's company and I am sold on Linux and open source solutions to business matters, and am moving our business computing towards Linux and away from MS for our basic tasks.
I guess I have rambled on about all this. But every chance I get I try to get people to try Linux, frustratingly to little avail, not, albeit, owing to the quality of Linux product, but to the deviously simplicity of MS products.
Jeez, probably shoulda shut up. Oh well...
Dawn of the Dead
Everyone is missing the single biggest and most obvious reason that Open Source projects don't generally reach the masses. There is no marketing!!! The masses don't buy what's best. And they don't even manage to buy what they need most of the time. They buy whatever the flashy ads tell them to buy. They buy whatever the retail tie-in's dump right in front of their face when they walk in the store. They buy whatever the commissioned salesperson tells them they need to buy. And that's why Open Source solutions don't hit the big time. Nobody is spending millions (or billions in the case of some large commercial software vendors) to put Open Source solutions in front of the masses. Ever seen an ad for RedHat on network TV? Didn't think so. Do I even need to ask if you saw an XP ad during it's launch? Didn't think so.
What I'm seeing now is that more and more offices are converting to Linux for servers especially for file sharing, printing and emails. What's really surprising though is that interest is also picking up on OpenOffice. We're getting more and more calls daily from companies looking for OpenOffice training for their staff.
I guess that covers business mainstream. As for consumer mainstream, it's not quite there yet. RH8 is coming close, but I'm still having problems with a lot of consumer devices. People don't usually buy on features not by OS. They ask for things like, "I want a colour printer to print my photos, that I take with my digital camera". Then they expect a simple installation disk and almost plug and play setup with nice "easy" instructions.
So until you rush out and buy a digital camera, and it has linux intructions in the box, you're not likely to see it adopted for the consumer mainstream just yet.
Every time this discussion comes up, the presumption appears to be that free software lacks mainstream appeal because of interface issues. While such considerations play a role, de-facto standard proprietary data formats and communications protocols play a far greater role in establishing the entrenched 'mainstream' computer interface with which people are familiar. Unless and until people wean themselves from their dependance on .doc, .xls, SMB, .NET, .mov, .wma, etc. they will find themselves locked into the familiar "mainstream" operating systems and applications. That is the crux of the matter, not pretty buttons and widget layout. With the MS anti-trust farce behind them, and palladium ahead of them, expect no mercy on the proprietary format front. Free software has a very tough row to hoe. Which is why free software's ultimate victory will be so much the sweeter...
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
If by "mainstream" he means dominant and common, Uncle Sam gave us the answer, illegal monopoly. Yep, if free software came installed on PCs right out of the box and enjoyed it's obvious price advantage, it would be dominant by now. There's nothing more difficult about maintaining a Linux box than an M$ infected computer that the end of anti-competitive practices would not prevent. New M$ junk won't even run on some of my computers. As someone else pointed out Apple has taken Open software and sold and supported it without any technical problems. We can also point to the fact that there are just as many, if not more happy Linux users as there are happy Mac users.
It's happening anyway. Despite the best efforts of the "entertainment" industry to push DRM, people are turning from M$. They are willing to put up with the possible inability to listen to new music formats (WMA) and watch digital movies for the sake of ownership of their computers and their information. That is mainstream! Joe sixpacks is not going to go for the $1,000 stereo that breaks every two years that is WinXP. If that's all Joe is interested in, he may abandon computers alltogether for set top boxes. The rest of the computer using population will continue to move towards free software for it's superior tool sets. It's so simple even a dumbass like me can see it.
What kind of graduate student would be asking questions like this and holding forth such eleitist attitutdes? Let's look at the page. Hint one, name of course, " New Product Development." Product? Oh Lord! He's a Mechanical Engineer like me. Here's some help, Prabhu,
Good luck with your paper.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Why didn't you start a business supporting Postnuke for the government? You could have offered a training program, manuals, and support for the installation. Instead of offering to help them save a small licensing fee (note, $200k is the cost of two $60k/year employees for a year, not the small fortune you're making it out to be), why not offer them what they were looking for?
You could have bid at $100k/year + $25k/year support contract and $25k/year in training, saved them money, and started a small business. You had your first client.
Instead of complaining that they didn't want to save money, you'd have a business started. You could line up a few other government departments and been all set.
Nobody wants open source. People WANT solutions. Offer to sell them solutions + support. Don't talk about free, talk about "cheaper, more powerful."
Geeze, people willing to drop $200k on a solution aren't interested in "email some kid in Sweden for support and maybe he'll respond."
Alex