Why Linux Vendors Need To Sell More Than Linux

the one and only by h2k1 · 2012-01-31 11:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

slackware!

Re:the one and only by WhiteK · 2012-01-31 12:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

No please. I fully understand that it may please some "I'm so good" geek, but it's not nice for people. This is the problem with Linux in general. It is fully done by people who cannot market themselves or their products. As much as geeks hate marketing, it is needed. Not only for products, but also to other people. You want to know why geeks lack with women? Because they cannot market themselves. And no, that doesn't mean only pushing yourself. Bad marketers do that. It is about making yourself more likeable and subtly noting what user gains (be that either from using Linux, or being your girlfriend). Yes, you may think it sucks. But people in general are just for thinking for themselves. Sooner you realize this the sooner you enjoy living. People are self centerous. That does not mean it's bad - it just means they're human.

So what the hell does "Slackware, still the best after all these years" tells me? Nothing at all. Why is it best? What do I gain by using Slackware? How would it be better for me than using OSX? Steve Jobs understood this. He cared about user experience and clearly told people why it is good. Even Ubuntu fails to do this. And no, people aren't going to spend time trying to research such things unless there is absolutely need. I enjoyed tinkering with these things as teen. Now I have better stuff to do. Either tell me what I gain from using Linux, or I'm not even going to try it.
Re:the one and only by icebike · 2012-01-31 13:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

No please. I fully understand that it may please some "I'm so good" geek, but it's not nice for people. This is the problem with Linux in general. ... Either tell me what I gain from using Linux, or I'm not even going to try it.
Actually Slack is never intended for the entry level user.
Ubuntu is. 98% of the time anyone who has ever used Windows or Mac can install Ubuntu and have it fully functional out of the box, or bittorrent.
They do market themselves, and have done well with that over the years.
Ubuntu is the Gateway Drug for Linux. It might not be where you end up, but its where most new users start out.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of others that install and run fine out of the box or the download. But Ubuntu you have heard of. The others, maybe not.
Further, Ubuntu, SuSE, Red Hat have a business plan, a way to make money. Even the most die-hard fan gets tired of working for nothing, and gets tired
of doing everything the hard way.
As to what you are going to gain, its an easy sell for the home user who has ever even once lost his entire computer drive to malware or viruses.
If everything works the same, no learning curve and the malware risk is virtually gone, you'd be surprised how many will use it, if someone else
installs it. (Which, by the way, is exactly the same as windows. Most Windows users never install their own OS).

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Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Re:the one and only by mSparks43 · 2012-01-31 19:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

Most female geeks I know take home 6 figure salaries..
Most Male geeks I have met struggle to make rent.
imho, the reason most male geeks don't meet female geeks is women on 6 figure salaries don't mingle with guys who struggle to make rent.
How the world has changed.

Depends on your definition of "marketplace" by zooblethorpe · 2012-01-31 11:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

Is there any room in the marketplace for just a straight-up Linux distro anymore?

That depends on what you mean by "marketplace". If this includes free, then sure -- we've still got Slackware, Debian, Mint, and I don't know what all else.

But then, the question is loaded, and presumes that Mandriva's fall is solely due to the marketability of a Linux distro. But looking at the history, Mandriva was never that well run as an organization, with fits and starts and general policy confusion. For all its warts, Canonical's stewardship of Ubuntu at least has a direction. I suffered through many months with broken repo settings and no clear fixes as Mandrake/Mandriva went through a couple of its identity crises and infrastructure paroxysms, and these ultimately prompted me to leave them behind.

--
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."

Re:Depends on your definition of "marketplace" by Richard_J_N · 2012-01-31 12:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

Indeed - Mandrake made stupid decision after stupid decision. For example, when they were doing really well at the dotcom boom, they wasted all their money on a failed diversification into e-learning.
Then they asked the community for support, which many of us gave, by selling club membership and DVDs. The stupid thing was this though: I had to pay $60 for a DVD I didn't want (after downloading the release ISOs weeks earlier), and I suspect Mandrake only got about $10 of that. I would have been happy to give them $20 for every release, if I knew that the money would go to more than just production and shipping of DVDs, and the included "commercial apps" which I also didn't want.
Another problem was lack of support of the released distro. For example, if you wanted to run the latest stable release (not cooker), but happened to purchase a printer with support in upstream CUPS, you couldn't always get it to work in the stable release. Bug fixes rarely got backported either, so the stable release that everyone was supposed to run always had bugs in it that were fixed (but only in the cooker release, which was frequently broken).
It's a shame: Mandrake did some really good stuff, including excellent documentation, a good set of KDE and Gnome defaults (including a unified theme), they supported i586 while most Linuxes still optimised for i386, had a really outstanding graphical installer (back in 2001 and before), and were deservedly at the top of the list for newbies, with tools that provided help, rather than dumbing down.
Mandrake also improved several defaults, for example in Debian/Ubuntu, the Webroot is "/var/www". In Mandrake, it's "/var/www/html". When serving a simple file, this means /var/www/myfile.html (Debian) vs. /var/www/html/myfile.html (Mdk) - but it puts the webapps in a sensible place: Mdv use /var/www/mediawiki, /var/www/bugzilla etc, whereas Debian have to put it into /var/lib/ iirc. (On the other hand, Mandrake's Postgres configuration is weirdly in /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf, whereas Debian put it in /etc/postgresql, where one would expect it. )
Hopefully Mageia can do something exciting; personally I've been running Mageia 1 for 8 months, and it's good, but not yet revolutionary.

OS's are... by blahplusplus · 2012-01-31 11:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

... the most boring part of the computer for 90% of the population. You have to have something your end customers actually care about. I look at things like steam and I don't know why Linux devs didn't think of creating a platform around linux to begin with. While power user computing is great for the power users, the great unwashed really just want something ridiculously simple and easy. There is really no real reason to use linux. If I were trying to sell linux, I'd create a plaform like steam and sell non-drm'd software. Open source really has to start 'charging' for it's software if it hopes to be sustainable in creating apps/things people want in the future. Money is not a dirty word. You can still make money with open computing. With all the copyright bullshit linux could have a good opening if they'd just get on the ball and create a business out of it.

Linux suffers from being suffocated by geeks who really don't grasp that the user doesn't want to have to think, the user wants a magic box that adds value to their lives. This is why things like Steam took off and 'app stores'.

Re:OS's are... by Korin43 · 2012-01-31 11:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is why things like Steam took off and 'app stores'.
This is why Linux has has "app stores" for over ten years. Users didn't like package managers until they had to pay money to use them.
Re:OS's are... by 0123456 · 2012-01-31 11:48 · Score: 4, Interesting

Wow. Sounds like you're still running a Linux distro from 1993.
I liked the Windows update thingumy recently when I booted into Windows for the first time in ages. Even though I waited over ten minutes, Windows wouldn't connect to my Wireless LAN that Linux connects to in a few seconds, but it was bugging me to install upgrades, so I said yes because I assumed it must have previously downloaded them and I might as well do something useful while I was waiting... but once I told it to install them it tried to download them and then told me it couldn't download them, which should have been obvious because there was no network connection.
What a horrible excuse for an operating system Windows is...
Re:OS's are... by Telvin_3d · 2012-01-31 13:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

Users didn't like package managers until a couple companies had the bright idea to make versions that were more than a glorified command line.
Steam and the Apple App Store are to dpkg (and similar tools) what an office suite is to notepad. Things like visual previews, robust searches and categories, and comprehensive descriptions are more than cosmetic improvements. They are the difference between a good idea and a mature implementation.

Diversification by girlintraining · 2012-01-31 11:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

Oh, you mean like how Microsoft bundles Office with it's distro? You know, the one they call Windows.

I can see an argument being made that people don't want an "operating system", they want a computer. And when most people say computer, they don't mean the box. That's what geeks say. When an average person says computer, they mean all the applications, peripherals, internet access, etc., that all gets packed into the magic box.

Linux and its supporters have never quite managed to grasp the Magic Box school of thought. Until they do, they'll never be a competitor. This is a cultural problem, not a technological one. Look at Apple. First we ignored them, then we laughed at them, then somehow, overnight, OS X became a contender and Apple became a massive corporation. How did that happen?

Hint: Apple doesn't sell 'operating systems' or 'ipads' or whatever. They are selling an experience. And if you ask the average person what the Linux experience is... they'll look at you, facepalm, and say flatly "I couldn't get the damn thing to work."

Linux vendors need to sell an experience, not a product. It needs to be well-supported, preconfigured with everything the average person wants on a computer (or whoever their target demographic is... IT managers, server lackies, whatever...), so all they do is push the button and there it is. It. Just. F*cking. Works.

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#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie

Re:Diversification by viperidaenz · 2012-01-31 11:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

Apple don't sell computers, operating systems, ipads, iphones or experiences, they sell social status.

Lack of a business model by vakuona · 2012-01-31 11:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

Most Linux distros lack a sustainable business model. They expect people to pay for something they can get for free.

Not in the business place by s.petry · 2012-01-31 11:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

RedHat and Suse are both a success because it's not just a distro. It's also a support structure for the OS, which is what businesses need.

Many times, a technical person looks at it and does not care. "Let me use my favorite distro this week.". But what happens when that person leaves the company and a new guy comes in with experience in a different distro? Sure, we can catch on as techies.. it's what we do. But it's a gap to get there in time, which can cost a whole lot of money.

I'm sure Redmond does not mind as many fragments as possible. Honestly it's hurt Linux much more than it's helped as far as business adaptation.

Lets face facts: Execs want numbers, not quirks. Show them how much money they can save by going with RedHat, response time on support issues, security information for SOX and E&Y auditors, etc.. and that's your ticket in. "My Gnome tool bar roxxors in Favlinux 6.0zers" is not something businesses want, need, or look at.

Frags are fine for the geeks that want to play. I'm sure there are some good things that come out of those and get added back in to the stream for Business Linux. I can't count any, but I'm sure someone has some. Just keep it out of the VP's office, and get them a supported version of Linux.

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-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

It's not the code, it's the talent by Zero__Kelvin · 2012-01-31 11:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

It is not about "cloning the distro". Anyone can download the tree in its current state. The value added is in the talent that maintains the codebase, makes improvements, applies the latest security updates, implements bugfixes, and helps the product evolve. In the case of Mandriva, there is Mageia, which is made up of many of the maintainers from Mandriva who have anticipated trouble and decided to break away from Mandriva. In other words, Mandriva the company can die, and Mandriva the product essentially lives on as Mageia.

--
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun

Re:It's not the code, it's the talent by Dahamma · 2012-01-31 11:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

Your reply really reinforced the GP, not contradicted it.
He's right, there isn't a market for a *commercial vendor* selling a desktop Linux distro only (which was the question), because people can just copy it for free.
Your example just explains how you can not only copy the resulting distro, but the source as a new project. It's yet another reason a commercial desktop Linux vendor is doomed - any derivatives get the aggregate efforts of the original without paying for those efforts, meaning they can distribute it for less with only as much additional effort as they want to put in (down to zero in both cases if they choose). The original vendor makes no money for their "value added", and doesn't survive.
That may sound like a knock against open source projects, but it's not. It's a knock against people who naively think they can make money selling the open source software itself, rather than support, training, enterprise integration, etc that a company like Red Hat does to earn their income...
Re:It's not the code, it's the talent by Dahamma · 2012-01-31 12:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think you are totally misunderstanding the OP and me... breaking it down, it is that simple:
1. Mandriva wants to sell a desktop version of Linux with various minor support features no one cares about.
2. People (probably you included) decide that's really not worthwhile to pay 50 euros for it, and instead download it for free.
3. Mandriva now has no revenvue to pay the developers, etc. and goes out of business.
4. As you said, developers leave to a derivative distro they work on as *volunteers* (and probably go find another, possibly unrelated job to pay the bills).
In the end, without significant value add that can't easily be copied, it's not going to work out. Net result: commercial Linux desktop venture ist kaput...

Selling Support and Services by xzvf · 2012-01-31 11:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

RedHat, Suse and Canonical all sell support, not Linux and other Open Source software. You pay for RedHat (the most successful FOSS vendor) to have access to RHN for package updates, someone to call for support, training and certification, and a conduit back into the FOSS community. Suse is similar. Canonical still has a way to go in the enterprise space but has a solid financial backer, and is making money using FOSS to provide services. In fact you can include Amazon, Google and a host of others as successful companies that leverage FOSS to provide services.

I've been using linux for years by stevenfuzz · 2012-01-31 11:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

And every major version update still fucks up all my video card configurations (not to mention a bunch of other stuff). Try explaining to your wife over the phone: "Sorry baby, you shouldn't have hit update while I was at work. It's simple, just open up the terminal on the desktop, SSH to the laptop and replace xorg.conf with xorg.conf-backup". Her responding being, "This computer is stupid. Why can't we use windows like normal people?".

Re:If its not RedHat... by Junta · 2012-01-31 12:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

RedHat can (mostly) handle an in-place upgrade. Sufficient numbers of RH users *cannot* when something 'weird' happens, therefore it is simpler for them to tell everyone to clean install since RH actually has to answer the phone and handhold all the users and can't tell them to go away when they lack the resources to sort it out on their own.

Debian can (mostly) handle an in-place upgrade. When a debian user can't figure out how to make it work again after dist-upgrade breaks it, well tough. Google and forum around, and no one *has* to deal with it, even though usually someone does. If debian were forced to hold the hands of some of the users I've seen, they'd stop talking about dist-upgrade too.

AIX is extermely conservative, moreso than *any* linux distro will ever get away with. Given the scope, conservative development, the expected customer skill level, and the resources behind it, of course they can achieve *both* commercial support *and* robustness of in-place upgrades.

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.

Re:If you want the short answer by stevenfuzz · 2012-01-31 12:27 · Score: 5, Informative

I am sitting at work using Ubuntu with Unity as we speak. Honestly, I like that I can do everything in 1 or 2 clicks or with the keyboard. I think it's ironic that there is this rally cry to evolve Linux into some more usable and advertise-able OS, yet when someone like Canonical decides to go for full-out evolution, those same people immediately reject it. So it goes...

FOSS, including Linux, does have a killer "app" by quixote9 · 2012-01-31 12:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's called user control and privacy. 99.95% of people don't care about that too much, but every Megaupload that happens inches people a bit closer to realizing that no control is maybe not all that free.

It's interesting that the Department of Defense in the US is using more and more open source software, even while lots of people are saying "My data? Who cares?" Once control is worth something to you, there's no real alternative, ultimately, to FOSS. Or writing your own custom software.

Re:Mod Parent Up by unrtst · 2012-01-31 17:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

For most users, the fact that a whole bunch of stuff works right out of the box with little or no effort to bring it up is a huge selling point.

I honestly thought that was the start of a list of things you could say in favor of a linux desktop, but, by the end of your paragraph, I'm starting to think you actually meant Windows just works right out of the box. Is that what you meant? And, if so, have you setup either Ubuntu or Windows from near scratch recently (near scratch, as in, bought a new pc even)?

Anecdotal story, but I recently setup a netbook for the girlfriend... took me weeks (prodding it here and there and letting it churn). Took me two days just to get Windows updates caught up (for the first time)... the download was plenty fast, but all the reboots and suddenly there's more to update were just crazy. Removing the bloatware... more time (and it was an asus, which supposedly doesn't ship with too much bloatware in comparison to most). Adding bog standard programs she'd need... tons more time (B&N reader; itunes; vlc; firefox; chrome; thundirbird; nero; sims3; PvZ; etc). And most of those have some silly updates that, for some reason, didn't come with it to begin with. Importing the music and video collection... holy crap that took a long time. Setting up backups... uh, WTH? why isn't there something easy to use for that shit yet? Tried tweaking Windows 7 start menu so she could find the handful of apps she'll actually end up using... near impossible (I ended up following a suggestion from MS and creating a folder/drawer thing on the start bar that listed shortcuts I put there - what a hack). Then many hours poking at the bluetooth a2dp support, and I just gave up on that one (so she could wirelessly stream to the receiver... and, fwiw, that worked plug-n-play from my linux desktop).

And, I know this isn't really MS's fault, but to top it off... I bought Sims 3 for her (she love it); It installed, updated, and ran fine (a tad slow, but fine). A week later, and every time you start it, it freezes on the "update" screen and won't let you even click cancel! Found a work-around... disable the network, and it'll start up and run. You can feel free to say that would happen on other OS's, but I can't recall any software I got from freebsd ports, gentoo portage, debian apt repos, ubuntu repos, fedora/redhat rpm repos, etc that ended up in that situation. Even proprietary stuff like Quake 3 for Linux that I bought way back in the day... community came out with patches to keep it working.

"The ability to buy almost any software title and have it work on Windows...", I totally agree that's a huge selling point.

The ability to use the software you have as long as you like an however you want... well, that seems like a pretty damn good thing too.

Being able to search/browse in one software interface (ex. synaptic), select some stuff, and click go and they'll all be installed AND UP TO DATE WHEN INSTALLED is a HUGE selling point. And debian-based distro's update - "sudo apt-get update && sudo reboot", go to sleep (or just get coffee... doesn't take that long), and it's done.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not entirely knocking Windows. There's a reason they have so much market share, and it's not entirely due to their monopoly practices. I bought the damn thing knowing what it was, and it's what I wanted for this situation. It's the first copy of windows I've bought or used in about a decade (besides a corporate copy or two for occasional use on a vm), but the experience cemented my belief that, even though Ubuntu is jacking the shit out of what I want, it's still far more appropriate for my usage than Windows, and I can always distro hop again.

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Why Linux Vendors Need To Sell More Than Linux

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