What Open Source Can Learn From Apple

Linux and open source have long struggled to gain acceptance from the wider (read: non-technical) audience. This has improved in recent years, but still has a long way to go. Columnist Matt Asay suggests that perhaps open source projects should attempt to emulate Apple's design philosophy, with whoever succeeds becoming the "winner" of the hearts and minds of the vast majority of users. "Some projects already accomplish this to some extent. The strength of Mozilla, for example, is that it has figured out how to enable 40 percent of its development to be done by outside contributors, as BusinessWeek recently wrote. The downside is that these contributors are techies, but the upside is that they're techies who add language packs, accessibility features, and other "niche" areas that Mozilla might otherwise struggle to deliver. This suggests a start: enable your open-source project to accept meaningful outside contributions that make the project reflective of a wider development community. But the real goldmine is broadening the definition of "developer" to include lay users of your software. The day that I, as a nontechnical software user, can meaningfully participate in an open-source project is the day that open source will truly have won."

Comments

Re:Linux users...

[jedidiah]

> But we have to accept the awful truth: many Linux users would be using Mac OS X if they weren't a misers.

I own 3 Macs. MacOS runs on none of them.

I run desktop Unix because I LIKE UNIX. If I wanted a "free operating system", I
could just use the same bundled shovelware that everyone else uses. It's no less
free than Linux is from the common man perspetive.

I would have bought a $400 PC Unix back in the day if only it ran on a common PC.

I like Unix because first and foremost I want things to "work". "Looking pretty"
is a secondary consideration. Thus I am more concerned about the crude red-eye
tool in iPhoto and unconcerned about the byzantine menu structure of Gimp.

Gimp gets the job done. iPhoto doesn't.

All of the "consistent" in the world won't make up for that.

Unix and Linux by extension is "function over form".

Apple is "form over function".

It's a good idea to look at MacOS (and everything else
for that matter) and see what good ideas we can steal
but the idea that we need to make Linux into some sort
of proper MacOS clone is just assinine.

If any of the KDE/GNOME guys want to swap me a Revo for one of my minis I will be happy to oblige.

Re:It's not about contributers

[girlintraining]

Apple has always expounded that they have "guidelines", not "rules" or "laws" or "requirements".

Yes, and corporations repeatedly tell me they value my privacy, business, and happiness, so they install cameras everywhere, add hidden fees, and outsource customer service to countries where english is a second language and the most common word used in conversation with them is "what". What Apple says and what Apple does are two very different things. If it was all just a few guidelines, they wouldn't have such byzantine approvals processes for every piece of kit they make.

Re:More whining from fashion designers

[Actually, I do RTFA]

The iPhone was specifically designed to be a smart phone. Not only that it was the iPod touch that followed the iPhone.

You're right. I stand corrected.

they got the phone right the first time. I own a first generation iPhone and am completely happy with it. I'm not even compelled to upgrade (AT&T is a different story). The industry has barely started to catchup (there might be something to the Pre, etc).

I had a Windows CE smartphone in 2005. It too had a touch-screen. I've use an iPhone. Honestly, the Windows CE phone wins in my mind. I don't know what they did that required catching up to, except they were good at building buzz. I suppose they have a lot of application developers, that's the only thing they did well, and it's not technological.

Because you'll ask, areas where my Windows CE phone won: Input, it had handwriting recognition and a stylus, so it could put a full keyboard up and I could poke at it. For that matter, it had a stylus and stylus holder, for precision pointing. It had an SD chip reader and video player. It was unlocked, so I could add codecs. It had good calander/notes apps. It could open Excel and Word docs for me to see and edit. I could set the ringtones to a random mp3. It had AIM, although I used that infrequently. I forget the rest.

What did the iPhone do other than multitouch that other phones didn't?

Sure the eMate was a flop, but you're talking about historic Apple Computer, not Apple Inc. proper

Same company.

And the belligerent blogger made a point. I have a hard time seeing a point to the iPhone. It seems a lot like the iPod, an expensive version of a regular device, hearlded as revolutionary because some people apparently never bought a smartphone/mp3 player before.