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An Open Source Guide For The Average PC User
prostoalex writes "The regular Yahoo! News feature Tech Tuesday this week is dedicated to open source software for the home user. Open source for all spells out the open source ideas for a regular PC user, while providing some helpful links to some popular software. The open source PC is a guide on most popular open source apps that would be common for a home user to have. Is open source for you? discusses shortcomings of open source software and cases when it's not recommended." From the article: "Never fear, counterculture types. You can still liberate the code, and experience many other perks, by becoming part of the open-source movement.
With the steadily increasing number of open-source applications on the Web, there are more projects than ever to check out, covering nearly every imaginable application: from word processors and e-mail applications to media players and video games."
>>That would be the chapter about running more inferior, costly solutions?
You mean, custom, business-specific, fully supported 24x7, money-back guarantee if it fails, applications, right?
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Not really. The roads are full of people who have no clue how to drive a car with a clutch and a manual transmission. If you suddenly told them that they would not only have to do that, but change their own oil and adjust their own valves, their little heads would explode. Not that most of them couldn't do it with the proper training, It's simply not what they're used to.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
No doubt educating people is the first step. When Not many businesses know about advantages of linux. These kind of books/articles should help them. I think to promote the use of linux, the commercial companies like RedHat, Novell, IBM should make these books/articles available for free. They should setup seminars for users to understand that there is an alternative OS and it is easy to use and gives more advantages than the MS Windows. This should give them more business in the long term.
Business-specific == About 500% over priced with an all encompassing NDA.
Fully-supported 24x7 == By a group of former telemarketers in God knows what corner of the world who have never used the software.
Money-back guarantee == Have you read your EULA lately?
Well, I guess it's just another series of "starter" articles regarding open source. My main beef with the articles is that none of them compare Windows with Linux very directly. Are most of the people reading this article aware of the copious amounts of spyware/adware their machine is riddled with (security issues)? How about the fact that my P2 400 MHZ computer works great under Linux and could barely chug along with Win2k (i.e. don't worry about buying a new computer every time a new version of Windows comes out)? And I don't care if Yahoo wants to play favorites with certain distros, but can they please explain what a Live CD is and link to Knoppix or Ubuntu?
Yes, I do realize they're not in the business of OSS advocacy, but it would be so easy for the author to engage the average computer user (i.e. "get your pale-faced neighbor to burn you this Live Linux CD - it will NOT change the rest of your computer in any way")
The licensing points seemed pretty useless in an article about what the average PC user cares about--using their PC and not spending money if possible. An honest approach would be, "half the junk on your system is illegal. The other half is monitoring you. Nothing is free so stop taking your little pirate gifts from hackers and take some time to use clean, legal, community software." That wouldn't happen in that publication but the fact that this article even ran is a good sign.
Laws are for people with no friends.
what did scarface hate the most?
I use apps because they are good, not because the man told me to. I'll buy a commercial app if it does what I want and I'll use an opensource one if it's better and free. Choice is good
did you forget to take your meds?
The "average" PC user doesn't give a flying fuck about the "Open Source" movement or Linux or whatever.
Actually, the MAJORITY of PC users could absolutely care less about Open Source. I know of two people (they are related) that are open source/Linux advocates. Everyone else I know would be burdened by using non-standard software, whether they pay for it or not.
MOST people feel they don't pay for OS or Office software because it is normally buried in the "buy price" of a new PC. Since the buy price of a new PC is affordable for most people, there is no clear compelling reason to use software that is not supported and can be "forked" into a million different version just "because you can".
Come on, people.
----- Open Source = More Secure (mmmmkay)
Who sells those? Do they even exist? I've certainly never seen or heard of software with a non-gimmick money back guarantee.
I'm sorry to violate orthodoxy but,
The average user does not care about open source. They care about FREEWARE.
Thats not to say I don't care about open source... its just not as compelling to Joe Sixpack.
For those who want simplicity and reliability, commercial packages may be your best bet - at least for day-to-day work. But if you're willing to experiment a little, and put up with some technical challenges, there is a wealth of programming - for free - in the open source community.
This is a fallacy. Alot of OSS is developmental and experimental and truly is buggy. Some OSS is top-quality and fully useable (linux, firefox, gimp, etc.). It is a fallacy to believe that commercial software is somehow better. Some commercial software is fully useable (photoshop, MS Office, etc.) but there is alot of commercial software that is absolutely crap. Even software made by respectable companies will often present 'technical challenges' (for instance, software bundled with hardware devices, etc.). With commercial software, the price may give you a hint as to quality... but ultimately you have to do some research and try to make an informed decision about what to buy. With OSS, you again have to do some research before deciding what to use (although you have the bonus advantage of being able to quickly install all of the choices without any financial commitment).
I don't think commercial software is automatically simpler and more reliable. The great number of OSS options is admitedly complicated, but it is silly to think that just because something costs money, it must be better than the free alternative.
It's fairly trivial to do something that can help educate the average PC user about OSS, as we can see from this article. The challenge is getting them to care.
I believe OSS suffers from "Apple Advertising Syndrome." I've heard it said before that if Apple actually ran advertisements that showed a Mac and PC working side by side, saying "Watch as this Mac does exactly what this PC does, but it's faster, more usable, and easier to look at, and you can get MS Office, email, calendaring, IM, etc." they'd sell a lot more. OSS needs the same sort of thing, but they need to tout that great "Free" price tag. MS Office vs. OpenOffice is a great example. The only reason the average PC user would even consider leaving something like MS Office for OpenOffice is that it could do exactly the same thing, but cheaper or for free. Period. I don't personally know a single person that uses OpenOffice instead of MS Office, and it's all because of network externality. Is my copy of Office busted? I'm sure someone can help me fix it. I am sure that if I just click "Save," everyone else will be able to see this document, because everyone uses MS Office. No worries. The only way network externality can be defeated is with something incredibly tempting and convincing, and no amount of usability or features pumped into an application will make it one millionth of one percent as tempting as saying "Hey, it works just like MS Office but it's free!"
The average PC user doesn't care about "Free as in freedom, not free as in beer." Free as in beer is what will get the software out there.
I guess the most unfortunate part is that increasing recognition of OSS to "average PC users" won't add a single person to those contributing to the source. Average PC users consume, not produce, applications.
I may be underestimating the public, but I honestly don't think the masses know what you're talking about when you write an article and assume the reader knows what "source code" is.
However, he completely overlooks those applications that have equalled or surpassed their commercial counterparts (like Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and so on).
That depends on your definition of surpassed. If you mean more features/stability...yes. If you mean easier and more intuitive to use...maybe not.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
"going to come back and complain that you trashed their PC."
The problem is that with most modern software, it introduces remotely exploitable security holes if it's not kept up to date, and if your friend doesn't have a firewall. What will happen when they install Firefox 1.0.1 from the CD for example? They'll be instantly asked to install another version and might think that its strange that the "new" program they just put on already has a "problem" with it.
I acknowlege and agree that stable versions must be provided, but it would be nice if they offered an "updated" folder on it too, making note that it's untested but should work similar to the other tested software on the disc.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Speaking as a representative for the average computer user, I will try to explain the average pc user to the F/OSS crowd. Please note that I do not have a great deal of free time to carry on a dialog after this is posted. I will however try to reply to any serious questions as time permits.
First, as average pc users, we don't really care about the whole F/OSS concept. We will never write code and we couldn't care less about the philosophical purpose behind what you write and distribute for free. Of course we can relate to free beer; that gets us excited. But more than just free software, what we want is software that just works and doesn't make us jump through hoops to make it work. We want to be able to pop in a CD or download a file and click something to make it work. We don't care what is going on under the hood. As long as it's not sending our credit card numbers to thieves or revealing our porn to our wives, we simply don't care how or why it works. If one organization could sell or give us a master program that did anything we wanted it to do, we would be very happy, clueless campers. We would not care in the least if an evil monopolist was controlling the entire computer industry - as long as our email, chat, photos, music, games, banking, and porn just worked.
The adventurous among us, that have investigated this F/OSS concept, have simply been intimidated or confused by the overwhelming amount of indiscernible information we're faced with. We've downloaded several of the so-called easy versions of something related to Linux, but we've ultimately given up because everything takes a lot of research and fumbling to get it working right. Every time we look for answers to a question about how to do X, we're faced with cryptic messages about compilers, command lines, wrappers, shells and whatnot. We don't want to know how to compile anything. We don't care what a command line is. We can't tell the difference between a shell and a GUI. Why should we have to? Quite simply, we are not interested in being programmers - we have other interests, jobs, and time consuming responsibilities.
Now the really, really determined amongst us will seek out knowledge by frequenting newsgroups, forums, or websites devoted to this free software. Unfortunately, the predominate thing we see happening in these areas is a bunch of infighting and bitching about how one distro is better than another, or how Microsoft is Satan incorporated. There's always a lot of talk about security and clueless users but, rarely is there any real substance that actually helps moving us clueless users into a more secure environment; at least not without requiring us to take a couple CS courses.
What's worse is the general attitude amongst a lot of the F/OSS community, which seems to believe they are somehow intellectually superior to those of us in the world that choose to spend our time learning something other than operating systems and protocols. As we see it, we don't expect you to know how to perform open heart surgery; or perhaps how to knit a woolen sweater, yet you are able to benefit from both of those, thanks to our hard work. All we ask is that you likewise provide us with a product which we can use without needing to know how you produced it or how it works.
In closing, it's not that we don't appreciate the efforts you put forth, we just ask you to remember that we are average users. Our skills and aptitudes vary widely. Also remember that we will gladly adopt anything that makes our lives easier, more productive, more secure, or just more interesting. What we will not accept however is the premise that we must devote an inordinate amount of time to learning how to install, use, and maintain your software; no matter what the perks are. There are at least two companies which already sell us stuff that just works; for the most part.
Joseph Sixpack - Representing the average pc user from Americas heartland since the day before yesterday.
The "average" PC user doesn't give a flying fuck about the "Open Source" movement or Linux or whatever.
The MAJORITY of "average" PC users,
at least the ones I've met,
actually like
free software
no viruses.