A odd feeling...
A odd feeling started creeping up on me a few months ago... A feeling that I was wrong. Wrong for 10+ years. Wrong in the fact that I thought was on the right side of the operating system wars. Wrong in preaching in forums that "righteous path" of open source. Well maybe not wrong in promoting open source, but maybe not all "high and mighty" in doing so.
This "high and mighty" feeling is what brought the "wrongness" to my attention. Most Linux users know the feeling. Looking at a fellow classmates laptop running windows then looking back at your laptop running debian then thinking to your self. "I am clearly smarter than him!" Whether smarter is the technical ability required to set up Linux or the fact that you think your system is safer or promotes the egalitarian ideal of free software. All of us Linux users have been there.
But are we really all that great for using it? Proclaiming Linux's absolute power over windows? That everyone should run linux. From your grandmother down to your sister?
It all sorta hit me.
As I was obsessed with ubuntu, I had downloaded the latest beta. It was perfect! Everything was clearly laid out, no program clutter that plagues my other favorite linux (redhat/fedora), it was stable, quick, and worked with all my hardware. Except for downloading a few codecs and changing the default crap-colored brown theme, I was set.
But then... I thought, this is as good as it is going to get. This is the most feature full ready to use Linux yet, and it was running on me desktop. This OS clearly wasn't going to take the world, certainly isn't going to take down windows. There is no support for windows applications, no REAL games, no really easy tools for photos, music, or video. At least compared to Mac/PC side of things. As great and user friendly as ubuntu is, can it really get any better and address those problems??
No!!! It's certainly not ubuntu's fault or any other linuxes (linuxi?) fault. Linux as a desktop os is just not meant to be. On the Business side... Imagine if a large data processing company decided to switch to linux, thousands of employee would need to be retrained. OO.org Is similar to MS Office, but not exact so it would require retraining... Sometimes we forget that everyday people (non-techies) cannot pick up things as quickly as we can. The simplest change will require retraining with these people. Add on hiring new linux staff (the three guys that run the servers wont cut it) to the cost of training and companies are looking at the not so "free" side of linux. Imagine the millions of companies across the world taking that risk.... yeah right
On the home front.... brand PC makers are not going to sell linux PCs in stores, because EVERYTHING runs on windows. Companies are not going to put themselves in the situation where "you bought this machine here and none of the software we sell here will run on it."
Its like selling a CD player that doesn't play cds to lay people.
Overall I have a new perspective on the whole windows vs. linux thing. All the windows bashing and chest pumping we do is just screaming in the dark. For all the processors processing and the hard drives crunching, linux is a drop in the bucket.
The community has too lofty of goals, but that isn't a bad thing in and of itself. Its when the community begins to not be able to smell its own shit that it turns rotten. I look at the comments on digg, slashdot and other sites in a new light now. Most linux promoters just sound stupid. Clearly not thinking for themselves "WINDOWS BAD LINUX GOOD". Applies to every situation for them.
I think these types of people began to creep into the community when linux became easier to use. They were not back there in '96 compiling the kernel over and over again to get the sound or whatever hardware wasn't running at the moment to work.
The linux community has become like the Mac community, a sort of technical elitism that distorts the real truth and REAL possibilities of open source. Too many cheerleaders and not enough informed individuals thinking for themselves.
This "high and mighty" feeling is what brought the "wrongness" to my attention. Most Linux users know the feeling. Looking at a fellow classmates laptop running windows then looking back at your laptop running debian then thinking to your self. "I am clearly smarter than him!" Whether smarter is the technical ability required to set up Linux or the fact that you think your system is safer or promotes the egalitarian ideal of free software. All of us Linux users have been there.
But are we really all that great for using it? Proclaiming Linux's absolute power over windows? That everyone should run linux. From your grandmother down to your sister?
It all sorta hit me.
As I was obsessed with ubuntu, I had downloaded the latest beta. It was perfect! Everything was clearly laid out, no program clutter that plagues my other favorite linux (redhat/fedora), it was stable, quick, and worked with all my hardware. Except for downloading a few codecs and changing the default crap-colored brown theme, I was set.
But then... I thought, this is as good as it is going to get. This is the most feature full ready to use Linux yet, and it was running on me desktop. This OS clearly wasn't going to take the world, certainly isn't going to take down windows. There is no support for windows applications, no REAL games, no really easy tools for photos, music, or video. At least compared to Mac/PC side of things. As great and user friendly as ubuntu is, can it really get any better and address those problems??
No!!! It's certainly not ubuntu's fault or any other linuxes (linuxi?) fault. Linux as a desktop os is just not meant to be. On the Business side... Imagine if a large data processing company decided to switch to linux, thousands of employee would need to be retrained. OO.org Is similar to MS Office, but not exact so it would require retraining... Sometimes we forget that everyday people (non-techies) cannot pick up things as quickly as we can. The simplest change will require retraining with these people. Add on hiring new linux staff (the three guys that run the servers wont cut it) to the cost of training and companies are looking at the not so "free" side of linux. Imagine the millions of companies across the world taking that risk.... yeah right
On the home front.... brand PC makers are not going to sell linux PCs in stores, because EVERYTHING runs on windows. Companies are not going to put themselves in the situation where "you bought this machine here and none of the software we sell here will run on it."
Its like selling a CD player that doesn't play cds to lay people.
Overall I have a new perspective on the whole windows vs. linux thing. All the windows bashing and chest pumping we do is just screaming in the dark. For all the processors processing and the hard drives crunching, linux is a drop in the bucket.
The community has too lofty of goals, but that isn't a bad thing in and of itself. Its when the community begins to not be able to smell its own shit that it turns rotten. I look at the comments on digg, slashdot and other sites in a new light now. Most linux promoters just sound stupid. Clearly not thinking for themselves "WINDOWS BAD LINUX GOOD". Applies to every situation for them.
I think these types of people began to creep into the community when linux became easier to use. They were not back there in '96 compiling the kernel over and over again to get the sound or whatever hardware wasn't running at the moment to work.
The linux community has become like the Mac community, a sort of technical elitism that distorts the real truth and REAL possibilities of open source. Too many cheerleaders and not enough informed individuals thinking for themselves.
posted by GreyGhost at 10:00 AM
7 comments
