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Old 06-01-2015, 12:00 PM   #1
jeremy
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Why Doesn't Everyone Love Linux and Open Source?


Quote:
If Linux is so great, why has it not replaced Windows, OS X and other closed-source operating systems completely? More generally, why do people still write and develop proprietary software, if open source is a more efficient, user-oriented and secure way to code? Those are important questions about the big-picture significance and future of free and open source software, and they're worth thinking more about.

I do not mean those questions to sound pejorative, or dismissive of the idea that Linux and other open source software is actually good. Open source has distinct benefits for both users programmers and users, which make it superior in many ways to closed-source software.

Chief among those benefits is that open source development is often more efficient in many respects, because it is decentralized and does not require burdensome bureaucratic structures. That does not mean it's cheaper—on the contrary, the Linux Foundation has for years been touting evidence showing that IT professionals with Linux skills tend to earn more money than those who lack such expertise—to develop open source software.

Yet it is arguably a faster and simpler way to write code. After all, there's a reason that Microsoft (MSFT) releases new versions of Windows about twice a decade, while new editions of the Linux kernel—as well as all of the apps that complement it—are churned out multiple times a year.

Open source is also theoretically better for users. In the closed-source software world, the only way users can influence which features developers include in the code they write is with their purchasing power. In contrast, most open source projects make it easy for users to communicate directly with developers, or—even better, in developers' eyes—to contribute code to the project to implement the features they would like to see. You certainly can't do that with Windows, unless you work for Microsoft and have access to its source code.
More at Var Guy...

--jeremy
 
Old 06-01-2015, 02:04 PM   #2
notKlaatu
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People like the warm, secure feeling of corporate guidance, and they do not like having to learn new things (and most of us have been taught, to some degree, something other than Linux).

As a Linux user, I try to show-by-doing that one can live life without the backing of a corporation, and that learning is both fun and easy.
 
Old 06-01-2015, 05:12 PM   #3
neonsignal
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Many people think that the value of their business is keeping their technology private. They have a false sense that ideas are rare and development is easy, where in practice it is just the opposite. They don't realize that real value lies in the quality of their employees and the trust that their customers have in the business. Keeping things proprietary actually works against that.

Last edited by neonsignal; 06-02-2015 at 05:10 PM.
 
Old 06-02-2015, 03:03 AM   #4
ugjka
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There are people who don't love linux and there are people who have never heard about linux. The former is the minority and the latter - majority. If they taught linux in schools things would be very different.
 
Old 06-02-2015, 02:05 PM   #5
John VV
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most people are "sheeple" ( say that 3 times- xkcd)
http://xkcd.com/1013/
or
just can not be bothered to LEARN something new
or even be bothered to learn anything

Last edited by John VV; 06-02-2015 at 02:06 PM.
 
Old 06-02-2015, 04:49 PM   #6
Ratamahatta
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Remark: I'm on Sid, so I'm kind of an extremist - read my post with that in mind!

There are people that use Access as a database. While the DB backend can be reproduced, the forms and macros are not so easily to copy, as can be clearly seen when trying to use Open/Libre Office with an Access file. The switch to linux is not quite possible here without financial effort. And there are other programs that people tend to get themselves dependant on because they are not willing to spend their money more wisely in the first place. (As in system-independant data storage.)

There are no commercials for linux. Masosoft and Crapple both do advertising quite a lot and Masosoft has a tradition of successfully masking otherwise obvious flaws that way.

And then there's discontinuency. Like (for example) the removed feature of gnome that would on login reopen the windows that were open at logout. (Just an example, goes for others just as well.) Bottom line: All Linux developers mean well but some do less good and so screw up for all as users are repelled. (Most can't tell the difference between the GUI and the OS.)

The main reason in my opinion is the sentence commonly abbreviated as "RTFM". (Everyone who ever used that kept someone from using Linux properly and so actively hindered the spread of linux.) That of course in connection with the severe lack of easy-to-understand documentation. (To all who don't quite agree: That is the kind of stuff that made Ubuntu so popular even though canonical tries to become the new Masosoft by making access to non-canonical software as hard as possible. The stuff where you don't need to read though 80 more pages of related documentation and google for examples, but just follow the outlined procedure step by step.)

To all still reading:
I had Windows ME installed on my first IBM-compatible computer. Some say that ME stood for "more errors", and that definitly was true in my case. Switched to SuSE 8.0 almost instantly.
Apple could have had me as a customer (I used Atari until 2001) but the backwards Hardware (ONE-button mice!) and software (OSX layout is still very similar to 1980 Atari GEM) and Antennagate (including how poorly customers were treated) and trivial patent abuse (in Germany) prevented me.

Last edited by Ratamahatta; 06-02-2015 at 04:57 PM. Reason: typos and clarification
 
Old 06-03-2015, 06:14 PM   #7
Steve R.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ratamahatta View Post
There are people that use Access as a database. While the DB backend can be reproduced, the forms and macros are not so easily to copy, as can be clearly seen when trying to use Open/Libre Office with an Access file. The switch to linux is not quite possible here without financial effort. And there are other programs that people tend to get themselves dependant on because they are not willing to spend their money more wisely in the first place. (As in system-independant data storage.)
My situation exactly. My solution (still in progress) replace MS Access with PHP/HTML/CSS, Currently, my browser approach is read-only. Would be nice if there was a Linux equivalent to MS Access.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ratamahatta View Post
There are no commercials for linux. Masosoft and Crapple both do advertising quite a lot and Masosoft has a tradition of successfully masking otherwise obvious flaws that way.
That was going to be my major point. Microsoft and Apple have an aggressive campaign of informing the public of their products. Linux just doesn't get promoted. I just ran across some articles on MS WIndows 10. Those articles did not mention Linux as an alternative operating system.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ugjka View Post
There are people who don't love linux and there are people who have never heard about linux. The former is the minority and the latter - majority. If they taught linux in schools things would be very different.
Quite true. Public Schools, Libraries, and local governments would be excellent places for Linux based systems.

At my old job, before I retired, they could have saved significant $$$$$$ with Linux over the MS Windows system. The most used piece of office software was MS Word. Buying the full MS Office suite, for each staff person, was a complete waste of dollars. LibreOffice (Open Office) would have been a great free solution.

Last edited by Steve R.; 06-03-2015 at 06:25 PM.
 
Old 06-18-2015, 09:19 AM   #8
grayghost2
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I think I am a typical MS refugee.
Since Win3.x

Previous attempts to try Linux was met with almost total disdain.
- my questions on the Libre Office forum (particularly Calc) were pretty much ignored
- there was an elitism to Linux and as a newbie I felt unwelcome

The reason I recently (10 months) installed Mint Mate on an old Acer laptop, is ...
- a busy active forum
- friendly and welcoming
- endless cheerful help for newbies like me
- an ethos that is newbie focused
- clear instructions and videos for newbies
- I want to be prepared well in advance for when Win7/8 OEMs becomes extinct in a few years time

I see MS style of "computing" will be more one size fits all -- bloat and "features" I don't want.
As Win7/8 travels into extinction I dont want cloud based OS, nor do I want to $hell out every 12 months for an OS.

In my experience most people don't think (my wife is not even remotely interested in learning something new ... IT)
- like when she drove her car home with an empty radiator and seized the motor in our driveway.
- she knew it was making funny noises but wasn't savvy enough to stop and check under the hood.
- an expense that could have been avoided.

For years I told her to back up her PC ... when her HDD crashed she lost 25 years of family history.
- she asked me to rescue the photos etc ... tough they are gone!

And unfortunately most people live in another world. Forums are full of lazy people making stupid mistakes.
- why would they want to leave MS ? Its comfortable and familiar

My perception of Linux was it was elitist and too hard to learn. I had to be an experienced geek ... already.
MS will always be there but I want to control my IT experience.

Last edited by grayghost2; 06-18-2015 at 09:26 AM.
 
Old 06-18-2015, 09:38 PM   #9
frankbell
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I think that most Linux geeks fail to realize how intimidating the idea of installing an OS is to the great preponderance of computer users.

You and I can do it almost in our sleep, but, to most users, the computer is still a magic box. They may know how to use quite deftly the applications that they like to or must use, but they have no idea of what goes on underneath that fancy GUI desktop.

Persons who go to Best Buy when they get malware like YTDownloader on their machines are not likely to boot to a USB stick or optical disk to nuke and pave their machine with a new operating system. (For one thing, if they knew what was going on, they wouldn't go to Best Buy, but that's another story.)

Linux will remain a backwater in which geeks swim until persons can bring home Linux machines from the store as easily as they can bring home Android tablets.
 
Old 06-19-2015, 06:57 AM   #10
Captain Pinkeye
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Quote:
...that Microsoft (MSFT) releases new versions of Windows about twice a decade
Well, you can't expect to be taken seriously while making these kinds of statements, can you.


Firstly, the article is just a collection of "many ways", "arguably" and "theoretically". Nothing more than opinions. But from this personal belief, all these thoughts, the grand argument emerges:
Quote:
For all of these reasons, open source stands out as a better way to do software.
Huh, OK.

Secondly, "love Linux" and "love Open Source" are two very unrelated statements. The only paid-for piece of software on my Windows system is guess what: Windows, with some freeware-but-proprietary-licenced applications that suits me better than FOSS ones, like foobar2000 or Nitro Reader. But Firefox, Sumatra, MPC-HC, Peazip, Artha and others are all open source projects that serve me greatly.
But would i return to GNU/Linux? No. I was using it for five-six years. Now, after one-or-so year on Windows, i can't see anything that GNU/Linux OS does better that i would need or want.

Arguments that the Windows users are "too retarded to learn" or "too retarded to make a choice by other means than a commercial" are just sad and tell more about the Linux community than the Windows one.

GNU/Linux is great thing to encounter and lets you realize some useful things which you can apply in other OSes (like that the user account is a good thing, for example). But no, i have zero reasons to go back, for now.

Now everyone loved Unix in its heydays, too.
 
Old 06-22-2015, 05:27 AM   #11
rootwanabe
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Point and click driver search and install is the biggest headache..you tell someone (like me) to blacklist and remove this and start X and we're like ???WTF???

The number one caveat to linux adoption is graphics compatibility. As a newb I have had to deal with trying and eventually giving up on having 3d capability on this linux machine with my Nvidia 8600GT.

Because of the above problem, I am still running a Win XP machine just for gameplay.

It would seem that every time I try "Nvidia non-free" when booting or installing, I get a blank screen..So far that means EVERY distro that I have tried has failed in getting Nvidia drivers to work except one.
There was one distro (sorry I cannot remember which) that actually had the Nvidia drivers show the desktop, but it was too blurry and 640x480 and I could not change it.
 
Old 06-22-2015, 10:13 AM   #12
cynwulf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by frankbell View Post
Linux will remain a backwater in which geeks swim until persons can bring home Linux machines from the store as easily as they can bring home Android tablets.
+1

Increased market share is not a worthwhile goal for a FOSS operating system anyway.

Linux for the masses is Android and other embedded devices. Preconfigured Debian with a fancy desktop is only a replacement for windows until it breaks and the end user cannot fix it, has no support and is left with a useless system.

It's also not much use to the end user who wants to run proprietary app xyz in order to make a living (or because they're convinced they need it) only to discover it only runs on windows or OSX.

What many Linux users need to get to grips with is that, yes you have a nice free OS, you can use it, you can install it and configure it - that's enough.

@rootwanabe: I assume you've installed windows and installed all of the motherboard chipset, audio, LAN and graphics drivers in between the several reboots and never experienced so much as a hiccup?

Driver installation in Linux and other *nix systems is in fact simple, as the drivers are already installed. I can take a hard disk from a Linux system and just plug it into another system with the same architecture and different hardware and it will boot and be usable.

Proprietary AMD or Nvidia drivers are another matter. As these are proprietary software and not part of any Linux distribution, you should direct your complaint to the vendor.
 
Old 06-22-2015, 10:22 PM   #13
Myk267
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Open Source kicked my dog!
 
Old 06-22-2015, 10:51 PM   #14
dugan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cynwulf View Post
@rootwanabe: I assume you've installed windows and installed all of the motherboard chipset, audio, LAN and graphics drivers in between the several reboots and never experienced so much as a hiccup?
You need to put in trigger warnings when you ask people to relive that that level of trauma.
 
Old 06-23-2015, 03:16 AM   #15
fatmac
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Quote:
Now everyone loved Unix in its heydays, too.
..& still do, in its various reincarnations.
 
  


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