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Breaking Down Barriers to Linux Desktop Adoption
Jane Walker writes to tell us that in a recent interview with SearchOpenSource.com Jono Bacon takes a look at why some of the reasons people give for not switching to Linux might not stand up under closer scrutiny. From the article: "For example, they fault Linux OpenOffice desktops for not having all the features in Microsoft Windows Office, even though few actually use all of the Microsoft stuff. So, in essence, they're saying they want desktops cluttered with unnecessary features."
People reject OpenOffice and reject even Mac, because they don't know any different. They have been "programmed" to use Microsoft Windows, therefore, until they are told different, they will continue to use Microsoft Windows.
We can sit around all we want and say stuff like "when people get tired of (malware|viruses|spyware|whateverelse)" they will switch to (Linux|Mac).
It's just not true. People will switch when they are told to. Nothing else. Until Companies FORCE people to switch, there will be no switching.
when windows 3.1 was new, there was a saying that was going around. What sells windows? Three things; applications, applications, applications.
I believe it is because most people are comfortable with being part of the herd.
90%+ of the desktops out there are Windows. If you have a problem, even if you cannot get it fixed, you'll be among other people who have had problems.
With Linux, you have to expend effort to find such a group of people.
What benefit is there for any particular individual to do so?
So, home users won't migrate until businesses do. And for a business, there are real benefits to migrating to Linux. Which is why more businesses and governments are.
This "out of the box" argument has always confused me. Especially in light of the fact that the original poster was talking about absolute availability of drivers, not just whether it ships in the box.
There are a lot of devices out there without ANY Linux drivers, such as recent ATI video cards, various wireless chipsets (and NDISWrappers is only a partial solution to some of them, especially if you need to do more advanced things like netstumbler), etc.. that's not even counting the stuff like the USB video encoders and the like.
This whole "out of the box" argument seems to be a smokescreen put up by people that don't want to argue about absolute driver availability.
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It's harder to go out on a limb and go open source if you are the person making decisions.
The real reason why the general public isn't moving to Linux is simple: Nobody wants Linux.
Now before you string me up by my pinky toes, listen to me for a moment. Consumers don't purchase something they don't want or need. If you go into the store and see a flashlight, you won't pick it up unless you have no flashlight and absolutely NEED one. And even then you'll probably look for the cheapest one that meets your needs. One of those needs may be familiarity. If Brand Y is cheaper than Brand X, but you can't figure out how to turn it on without a manual, you're going to purchase Brand X.
Now consider for a moment that you're walking by the flashlights and see one that loudly proclaims "No Batteries needed!", "Super Bright Halogen Performance", "Tiny, Palm fitting size!", and "Laser Guided Beam!" Suddenly that flashlight is appealing to your baser instinct of "cool". Even if you don't need a flashlight at the moment, you're going to pick it up, look it over, and perhaps even convince yourself that you need a new flashlight. Then you'll get it home and read the manual to figure out how to turn the blasted thing on. You're then going to share your experience with your friends and family who may catch your enthusiasm and grab one of the new flashlights next time they're in the market. (Consider the fact that ThinkGeek has made an entire market out of "cool" objects that you don't need.)
Linux appeals to techies who want to try a new OS, but it doesn't universally impress people as being "so cool they need it". Ergo, they don't need it, so they don't get it. (It's really a matter of they don't *want* it, but they think in terms of needs.)
The same thing happened to Microsoft when they tried to get people to move to Windows. No one wanted the Microsoft Kool-aid. DOS worked just fine, and no one was going to switch to windows unless they had applications that required it to run. (And they usually grumbled about that.)
Enter Windows 95. Microsoft convinced the public at large that Windows 95 was SO important, that thousands of customers who didn't even have computers lined up to purchase this wonder-product. Sure, they were disappointed when they realized they needed a computer, but the millions of others who already had one, happily installed Windows. (Some even purchased expensive memory or hard drive upgrades just to run Windows 95.) Whether Win95 lived up to the hype or not is a different matter, but consumers were enamored with exploring the new features in this OS. (Almost) All of their old programs ran, and they could run these snazzy new Win95 apps that looked nothing like those ugly old Win3.1 apps. It was a revolution!
So what does Linux give consumers to make them want it? Cool features that Windows doesn't have? Not really. (At least, none that the consumer sees.) Pretty graphics? Nope. Linux lags behind, often showing ugly text screens. How about "killer apps" that exist nowhere else? Nope. Either they're ported to Windows, or they're just a rip-off of something consumers already have. So what does Linux have that makes the average consumer WANT it?
Absolutely nothing.
That's why I suggested technology to take Linux far out into the lead. If Linux can get there before Microsoft and Apple, it might actually have something to offer consumers that would make them want it. Otherwise it will continue to lag behind as the red-haired step child of the Desktop world.
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There are logical reasons to reject a Linux/OpenOffice.org desktop.
.doc as its native format. Yeah, it can open them and save to it, but people don't want to have the hassle of selecting .doc when saving (yes, people are that lazy), worrying about if it looks right saved, etc. They just want it to work and they don't know as much about computers as Slashdot readers. They don't want to have to think.
.) that Windows just wins. Yeah, there is a flash plugin for Linux, but it isn't installed with many distros and it isn't as good as the Windows version. Yes, you can get gstreamer to play mp3s and such, but it isn't as good as the Windows equivalent and there are tons of proprietary codecs that it doesn't support and won't support anytime soon. Not to mention the games and other proprietary software that doesn't run on Linux. So, for consumers, Linux often doesn't look like an upgrade because it doesn't do many of the things they are used to computers doing.
1) OpenOffice.org doesn't use
2) Linux is different. Anytime there is something different, there is a cost of switching (you have to learn something new which costs you time - time you could use doing something better). Now, if Linux ran 2 million times faster, it would be well worth the effort to learn it since it would greatly increase your productivity. But Linux isn't amazingly better than Windows - I use Linux as my primary OS, but the difference is marginal, not night and day. Plus, there are consumer things (streaming audio and video, flash. .
People buy Windows with the expectation that "anything I want can run on Windows". There is a lot of great Linux software out there, but it just isn't the same as being able to head to BestBuy and grab the latest version of Civilization and be playing it that evening. And please don't say things like "Well, there's FreeCiv" or "They could use WINE" because we all know that it isn't the same. Also, please don't say, "they can replace iTunes with Rhythmbox" because they also are not the same.
The fact is that there are many logical reasons NOT to switch to Linux. Linux is great, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it beats Windows at every turn. There are many things that Windows does better (whether this is an outcome of market conditions or something inherent, consumers aren't going to care - telling the consumer that proprietary codecs and archaic market conditions are the things to blame for why they can't play their iTunes in Linux or watch a video online isn't going to make those files play any better and consumers don't care, we care but consumers don't).
Let's live in the real world where we can fight to get rid of the problems in both Linux and the market for operating systems so that we don't have to go around waving our arms saying "Linux Rules" - consumers will know it for themselves.
It's a shame that people in the OpenSource community get so easily worked up when people say they want "unneccessary" features. All it tells me is that no one has taken a really good hard look at Office.
Office alternatives are never going to unseat office until a few things happen:
1) The ease of use and development of a databse similar to Access is created. I've used a lot of databases, and none of match up feature-wise to Access. Yes, I know, there's more powerful databases out there, and ones that can do X. But none out there use the native Operating Systems widget set to build applications.
2) The interoperability of the various Office programs is unmatched. The ability to use a custom Database built in Access to pull information from the corporate server, which then uses Word to display reports, and Excel to put the information into usable formats is currently unmatched, and a bigger "unnecessary feature" than OpenSource developers give it credit for.
3) A long, hard, cold look needs to be taken at Office. As long as people continue to beleive that Word is "just a word processor" and Excel "just a spreadsheet", and Access is some "database throwback to the 90's" then you're never going to make any headways against office. The Win32 API/OLE/ActiveX/Acronym of the Day combo is a much more powerful set of tools than most people give it credit for.
4) Hardly anyone buys Office for home. Most of them pirate it from work. As long as work drives their usage of Ofiice, it's going to stay entrenched. As long as companies continue to use the "unneccessary" features of Office, nothing else is going to manage to make a dent.
Reeses