Linux Needs More Haters 617
Corrupt brings us a ZDNet column by Jeremy Allison, who says Linux could benefit from more "tough love" in order to improve its functionality and popularity. Excerpting:
"As Elie Wiesel said, 'the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.' LinuxHater really doesn't hate Linux, despite the name. No one takes that much time to point out flaws in a product that they completely loathe and despise. The complaints are really cries of frustration with a system that just doesn't quite do what is desired (albeit well disguised). A friend pointed out to me that the best way to parse LinuxHaters blog is to treat it as a series of bug reports. A perl script could probably parse out the useful information from them and log them as technical bug reports to the projects LinuxHater is writing about. Deep down, I believe LinuxHater really loves Linux, and wants it to succeed."
I think he hates it... (Score:1, Insightful)
...but has to use it for some reason. If I were him, with all this 'let's listen to our haters' strategy, I would start suggesting "improvements" that would kill linux once and forever.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not every user is going to be a developer, that's why developers need to listen to the critics, because the critics don't have a developer's hat.
THAT is one of the things that makes OSS great.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
They could spent 9 months learning the code, the build instructions, how it all fits together, creating their patch, testing their patch, submitting the patch, then hoping and praying that the project accepts the patch--
Or they could put in a bug report than the project maintainer can fix in 5 minutes, since he's already done all that work.
Which one sounds more efficient?
Of course, the real problem is that (most) open source projects don't read their bug trackers, even if the public is putting in bugs. I estimate around 75% of the time the bug never even gets assigned. This is after expressly asking users to submit bugs when they encounter them. I've given up, and I'm sure I'm not alone on this.
It's an awesome blog (Score:5, Insightful)
LinuxHater's blog is aweseome, and I say this as someone who deeply loves Linux and GNU and all that is based on them. His criticisms are very well thought-out, not just stupid name calling, but clear, effective, technical, and explicit complaints about everything that is wrong with free software. He coats it with sardonic and bitter vitriol, yet beneath that tough exterior, there are the complaints of someone who has evidently spent a lot of time poking around the system, down to its gritty internals, and has found everything that could be improved about it.
Even Miguel de Icaza loves LinuxHater's blog [tirania.org]. I recommend that any free software enthusiast spend some good time reading the blog. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder how you can make it all better.
Spot on (Score:2, Insightful)
I think he's right about LinuxHater and right that we should be thankful for that kind of criticism. Pointing out flaws in a more public manner and in a way that makes it accessible to a larger audience can help shape opinion and get the flaws fixed.
Sure, LinuxHater could try to fix the bugs himself but I think that would be a lot less effective than what he's doing right now.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:4, Insightful)
Even with all the warts, OS X is what Linux wants to be - and is stumbling miserably in many ways. As long as developers only work on what interests them, Linux will be hindered. Few coders really want to roll up their sleeves and do the dirty work of writing 4,000 printer drivers, GUI front ends to countless mundane command line functions or software ordinary people want to use in daily life. That's what Apple pays themselves to do.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's silly to expect people to take time to learn how to cook before complaining that the Linux stew lacks something.
But it's fair to ignore complainers who just say "it's bad" without giving anything useful.
Tis sounds crazy, but it is true (Score:5, Insightful)
I know lots of smart developers who have tried Linux and ported apps to it, just to expand their knowledge of the operating system and learn how to port stuff and to keep their skills up-to-date. But most of them fallback to Windows. The more pragmatic ones switch to OS X because it is just like a Unix OS, but with far greater usability.
At one point I kept a blog of all the troubles I had with using Linux. Most of the items were really simple things that made it very difficult to use. But often even constructive comments were met with disdain, so I gave up. No sense in complaining to a deaf audience.
This all comes back to the zealous Linux pragmatism where truly constructive criticism is turned into that with-us-or-against-us mentality.
Missing the article's point (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article and I thought, "Well, that sounds like a good idea." Too often when anyone mentions ANY of GNU/Linux's shortcomings (which, to be fair, are far less in number than Windows's), they are labelled a troll and are either attacked or ignored.
So what happens? The comments for this story include gems like "Not that much to complain about" and "Linux + GPL what is there not to love."
Legitimately easy-to-use GNU/Linux distributions such as Ubuntu didn't happen because of the GNU/Linux Yes-Men out there. It happened because the people at Canonical listened to complaints from people like GNU/Linux haters and tried to address the issues.
Or for that matter, flip the situation around. It seems that many users on Slashdot love GNU/Linux and hate Windows. If someone wrote an article saying that Microsoft should listen to the issues of Windows haters to help improve their product, wouldn't you think it was a good idea?
Re:By that note... (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdotters must all be MS shareholders and Vista early adopters!
Don't underestimate the power of the *BSD side.
--
I don't hate Windows, I just love UNIX.
People who love UNIX, shouldn't use Linux.
Re:Not that much to complain about (Score:5, Insightful)
Er, I think you need to go and read the Linuxhater blog. You may find your experience is not typical.
My current status is: I installed Ubuntu Hardy to try it after giving up on Debian 5 years ago. It's pretty nice, but whenever I take my Thinkpad out of its dock, it crashes. Windows is much better: whenever I plug the Thinkpad into the dock, it crashes.
Linux is user friendly (Score:3, Insightful)
it just chooses its friends wisely.
I mean there are always alternatives, you could even use MacOS. (not windows though)
I do have a bit of an issue with some developments. Some supposedly user friendly Linux installations /etc. To control the config file control process you have to edit certain configuration files in a hard to find location.
think they should also be fool proof. Like certain NAS solutions, or maybe even Ubuntu which I'm using right now. There really are machine generated and machine controlled config files in
People, this is counterintuitive! Call me old fashioned but if I change a config file in /etc I mean it. I don't need some clippy like demon thingy to tell me that I can only edit its own configuration. It should be able to read the darn /etc file if it is that smart. If /etc isn't expressive enough invent something else and don't leave old stuff around.
There you go, got your two minutes of hate now?
doesn't work with volunteer programmers (Score:2, Insightful)
The only people how can affect the quality of Linux is the distro makers: by including or excluding packages. However, those who feel snubbed can just go and produce their own distro. While that is their right, it doesn't help weed-out the software that is either poorly written, badly designed or is similar to something else (how many CD-burners does one operating system need?). You find that software is propagated by those with time, rathe rthan talent.
If there was some way to inject commercial realities into the linux work - not necessarily by charging/profiting, I feel the quality of the end product would rise, due to the competition and differentiation that would come about. Though how you do this, I have no idea.
Re:Linux is only free if your time is worthless. (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't Turn Blind Eye To Complaints (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux lovers should be grateful that anyone bothers to provide free criticism. Commercial vendors spend big bucks on focus sessions to acquire the same information.
One troubling trait exhibited by some Linux devotees is their insistence on responding to any criticism of the software by touting it's free software/open source roots. Frankly, that's little consolation to someone who's pointing out why they're unhappy with the software. Why should the model used to develop and distribute software mollify users when they see inadequacies in that software?
Of course, linked to that is the really annoying challenge to "Just fix it yourself! You've got the source!" That's an absurd claim. It's either premised on a wish to rid the Linux community of anyone who is not a bona fide developer, or it is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to be a competent developer.
Linux is a great OS and the best desktop distributions have nothing to hide. But, nothing ever gets better when people deliberately turn a blind eye to complaints.
Not to mention.... (Score:3, Insightful)
that nobody (outside MS) has that kind of skill wrt windows, at all. And that complaining rarely helps, if ever.
Re:It's an awesome blog (Score:1, Insightful)
He's good, but he's not always right. As an example, he claims that in Linux, the assumption is that the percentage of people wanting each window manager is about equal. Wrong. I think that if you ask the average Linux user (even a fanatic evangelist) you'll be told that at least 90% of all Linux users use either Gnome or KDE, and that all the others are for people with specialized needs, or for the developers to play around with. Nobody is pretending that Fluxbox (let's say) is as popular as Gnome, or that it should be. However, if you're using "trailing edge" hardware and need to fit into as little RAM as possible, it's probably one of your best choices.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:4, Insightful)
They could take off the critic's hat and -fix- the things that they complain about.
I mean, isn't that one of the things that makes OSS great?
And there is the fundamental problem with Linux -- the "geeks only" attitude of so many of its proponents. The lawyer who wants an office system, the granny who has just heard that they can video-conference with their grandchild halfway around the world, the schoolkid who wants to get their geography assignment done -- most potential Linux users will never have anything to contribute to Linux except advocacy, and as long as any requests for help are met with "fix it yourself" suggestions or a pile of technical gibberish (heck, I am a coder, and I struggle to understand most of the supposed support on offer) then they will stay with other systems whose developers do understand the needs of the non-technical user. That way they'll never be more than potential users, and Linux won't even get their advocacy.
Re:Not that much to complain about (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the reasons I like Linux so much is that there's so little to complain about. Everything just works. Occasionally there's a driver hunt or compatibility issue, getting a scanner to work, but overall, once it's set up and working, smooth sailing.
I don't mean to offend you or anyone else, but I think you might be a bit overly-optimistic. There are a lot of valid complaints about Linux. Not that I see a lot of constant show-stopper bugs in major distros or anything, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of smaller problems, annoyances, and missed opportunities to do things better.
I'd say Linux does a very good job at loads of things *relative other currently available operating systems* (i.e. other operating systems have their share of problems, too). But computing in general still has a lot of room for improvement. If any Linux developers out there think Linux is perfect and feel like they're running out of things to improve, let me know. I can help you find things.
That was the way Windows used to be. Everything would install and just work, while the Linux tinkerers spent hours chasing down compatibility issues and combing through HCL's.
I'll grant you that Windows was a good desktop OS for its time, back around 2000. At the time, nothing was doing a better job of meeting most users' needs. But it has always been far from perfect, and each version has had plenty of technical/design problems..
Tough choices (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I still use Linux quite a bit and have a lot of love for it. In fact, I tend to think that if everyone used Linux it would start to rally suck, because then we'd see tons of crappy, 3rd party binary blobs doing god-knows-what and preinstalled crapware from the big PC vendors, just as one can see on practically any windows machine.
So maybe we should ask ourselves, "do we actually want to dominate the desktop market?", rather than "how can we dominate it?".
"I love him so much," yeah, whatever (Score:4, Insightful)
The message is not simply, "Linux needs to improve," but rather "Linux will never be good enough."
Most experienced Linux users probably have it in them to respond to inane trolls with precision and objectivity, but when a troll with a sense of humor, good writing skills, and some domain experience comes along, everybody cowers and plays along. Hey, the popular guy is here, everybody play cool.
Too many Linux users are caught between their love for straightforwardness and cutting-edge technology on the one hand and their lust for popularity and respect on the other. Linux Hater is not here to make you laugh. He's not secretly using Linux and enjoying it. He's the guy who sold you out for cooler friends in tenth grade, idiots.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately that's one thing a lot of Linux advocates fail to get: Not everyone has the ability to alter the code to "fix" things.
This is especially important for the types of Linux advocates that are pushing for "Linux on the Desktop" and other non-specialized applications. You are trying to push Linux onto people who can barely turn a computer on without electrocuting themselves - do not expect them to "scratch their own itch."
What we need are fewer self-righteous asshats who can actually put themselves in the position of a novice and try to understand their needs - or at least listen to them without condescending retorts. Windows, for all it's shortcomings, tailors specifically to novice users (ie the vast majority of computer users) and that's why it's so popular. Cry monopoly all you want but until you fix your usability issues you are not going to make much progress.
=Smidge=
Re:It's an awesome blog (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't agree. Look at Friday's post, no real constructive criticism there. Just HAHA look at the lusers!
Now look at Thursdays, complaining about too much choice. He's ignoring the fact that every desktop distro makes a working set of default choices. Whether you use Ubuntu, Mandriva, Xandros, or whatever, you'll have a desktop environment, browser, music player, etc, etc chosen for you. And just what does he think we're going to do about having too much choice? Tell people they can't code window managers any more? Again, this is not constructive criticism.
Back to Wednesday, again just poking fun.
On tuesday still nothing useful. Google using linux isn't a reason for you to, sure I buy that. But it's not a reason not to either.
Virtual desktops, I dunno about OS X, but he suggests VirtuaWin for windows. UGH! It's incredibly slow, it doesn't guarantee the order of windows after a desktop change, and it doesn't support mouse wheeling. Makes you wonder if he's used virtual desktops for any length of tim on any OS.
Make uninstall, that's what autopackage is for. Enough said. Most of the rest is just arguing that Windows isn't all that bad, which is true, but it's not a criticism of Linux.
Monday, is more of the same. He does a good job knocking down arguments against windows, but very little actually criticising linux. Which is to be expected really, Linux is at least as good an OS as windows, the only place it really lacks is in application support. And if he wants to fix that, he should be arguing for linux, not against it.
Re:just one thing (Score:4, Insightful)
It'd be really helpful if more distros complied with the FHS and LSB out of the box.
Re:It's an awesome blog (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not that much to complain about (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I use Linux on a headless box to manage my network connections but even that took some doing. The difference in difficulty in setting up a Linux box and a Mac is often quite clear. Sometimes linux is easy to set up. Sometimes it "Just Works" but I think we need to get that up to like 90% of the time.
I'm a big fan of Linux but there's some pretty obvious deficiencies and many Linux aficionados are often the first to pull the so-what-it-shouldn't-be-easy-but-there's-a-way-to-do-it-from-the-CLI. I want Linux to become a mainstream desktop OS.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. Not even close. How are these for corporate sponsors: Redhat, Novell, Sun.
What makes Windows and OSX so popular are applications that are commercially supported. That's it. Look no further. Without applications, your OS, no matter how fancy, is useless. I rememeber when I got my first computer, I turned it on to see C:\>. It was useless to me without apps that I could use (I was also introduced to warez that day).
Now, I know that there are alot of apps for Linux, but the installation and use of them are not as seamless as those for Windows or OSX. What I would like to see, and perhaps this is already available, is a set of agreed upon application practices, written by distribution maintainers, that developers follow that standardize the interface, the population of the OS menus, the distribution of files, etc, so that it app installs are seamless. Yes, it would be a PITA to support each distribution of OS, but quite frankly, that could be automated. And then have app developers actually follow the guidelines.
That would go along way to streamlining apps in Linux.
THE most important thing to make linux easier.. (Score:3, Insightful)
All distros must REQUIRE a graphic sudo dialogue system (a-la osx) in order to distribute a file manager.
File managers are there to manage files, and not just on your own user space. There is nothing more annoying than having to drop to shell level and type furiously to do something which on mac can be done with a few drags and drops.
Most people don't even know how to do that, and all they see is "operation not permitted".
Think about that for a minute... Because there is no option to authenticate (out of the box), joe user is put through the same scenario with his files that you get put through when some company surprises you with a DRM scheme.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's an awesome blog (Score:4, Insightful)
This was his answer on the question about how Windows was more prone to hacking and viruses whereas Linux was more secure. He does make some goods points but then he loses his audience by being a troll like this.
You can't have it both ways. If you want an audience to respect what you have to say, you can't turn around the next second and just be emotionally illogical and say 'because I say so'.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:5, Insightful)
The for-profit model has a built in advantage in that once the people controlling a project decide making a change is a priority they can FORCE the people on the team to do it. OSS is exactly the opposite; if nobody feels like fixing a bug it doesn't get done, or it takes more time. There are strengths and weaknesses to both systems.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
true, I've found instaling apps in Linux to be easier than Windows once you have a binary distribution that is packaged.
I think perhaps the problem isn't the apps that are out there, but the development of them. Microsoft produces more development tools than there are days to figure out how to use them, and they produce documentation that is really good (assuming you want to be a WinCE or .NET developer nowadays). If I could develop my apps for Linux with the ease I could develop for Linux, there would be more apps and more uptake for Linux.
The mass of boring, specific-solution apps out there dwwarf everything you can get commercially. Windows is built on the premise that it is easy to create apps, and that supporting them is easy even if the original developer leave, you'll be able to find another who can take up their code because they will be familiar with the technology used to produce it.
This, I feel is one of the reasons for Java having so much uptake - it was well documented, and if you wrote a Swing app, you knew your investment in it would be safe.
Of course, momentum and installed base helps a lot, but Windows cannot ever compete with free.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Linux is only free if your time is worthless. (Score:1, Insightful)
The comment is more related to, instead of trying to get your computer to do what you want, you're doing something else with that time. Whether you get paid for that alternate use or not. If i have to spend 1 hour to get my printer working, thats 1 hour NOT spent printing, which is what i wanted to do in the first place.
Re:It's an awesome blog (Score:5, Insightful)
Miguel de Icaza is not that much of a free software fan, though.
I think of them like the Count Dooku of software development. The guy has a vision, and doesn't care about how to get there, even if it means putting all of us at risk.
... and worse still... (Score:3, Insightful)
(Explanation: many many internet cafe customers at least from my experience here in Athens Greece really want a videophone appliance, and access to some social networking sites - they don't care about the OS. Even more to the point they've learnt just enough by *rote* to talk to their kids - even resizing windows or copying files phases them. Anything other than a clone of the whatever windows messenger is a no no for them).
Observationally it breaks down like this:
Egyptians - mostly yahoo msgr, 6arab.com
Moroccans,Tunisians - mostly windows live
Filipino - yahoo messenger, friendster.
Bulgarians - skype, mIRC
oh , and even if you get past the messenger level, how about font/language support for my friends who speak amharic, sinhala etc?
Good luck with that
Incidentally, one of the driving factors in upgrading Vista to XP (at least in my experience) is that many new first time users are *already* using XP in an internet cafe. (A quick comment here to enlighten the more abstracted slashdotters - the change in Yahoo Messenger 9 moving the webcam button from the toolbar phases about 60-80% of users the first time).
Andy
Times are changing ... (Score:0, Insightful)
Back in my day we called them Microsoft zealots ... Start a spiteful blog today and be hailed as the Oedipus of Linux.
Re:It's an awesome blog (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a little funny that you point out how there are not too many choices by pointing out how many distros you could choose from that give you different default choices. :-)
This is a general theme he talks about in other places, and he keeps saying how free software is so difficult to get into, because very few things are standardised (or if you prefer, there are many different standards). He keeps comparing this to the non-free world, where there is Windows out of the box or MacOS X out of the box, and it's one way, and most people like it that one way. It's true: most people are what I call 12:00 blinkers. Remember those digital clocks on old VCRs that would blink 12:00 until you went out of your way to set the clock? And when the power went out or you unplugged it, you had to set the clock again, all for what seemed like little to not benefit? What a chore! So just leave the 12:00 blinking, and that's what most people did. No desire to make a choice that didn't seem to impact their lives in any meaningful way.
I read that argument a little differently. He is in fact saying that Google using Linux is a reason for you to not use Linux, because Google has very specific needs to meet than yours or your granny's (ah, yes, the proverbial granny).
No. Not enough. Did you read the rest of the criticism? What about when you want to use something that isn't packaged, as often happens, because you want a newer version or simply because the one you want just isn't packaged for your distro? Then you have to muck around with make uninstall, and he's correct that that's not fun at all.
So you disagree with the arguments he makes about nonstandardisation in free software, the problems with preferring source to binary distribution, bad UI design choices in both GNOME and KDE, problems with upgrades in Ubuntu's model (either the whole OS gets updated, or nothing at all, or only parts of it through great user strife), and so on?
In fact, I would personally argue that application support is the least of it, but that's only because I don't have the needs of all the non-free software other people need (but perhaps you do have those needs yourself). There are lots of things wrong with the way the whole free software community is designed that could use some rethinking. Those flaws have to be pointed out, not praised.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
What I would like to see, and perhaps this is already available, is a set of agreed upon application practices, written by distribution maintainers, that developers follow that standardize the interface, the population of the OS menus, the distribution of files, etc, so that it app installs are seamless.
Mega dittos, Rush. I think OSX is gaining a lot of ground because the installation of apps is trivial: drag the thing from the disk-image file to your app folder. Of course its almost as easy in ubuntu, where you select from a pre-defined list. But linux definitely needs a common mechanism. RPMs, apt, and yum simply don't hack it. Though package management seems like a good idea, it quickly locks a user into specific versions that must be compatible with specific libraries. I think the difficulty of installing apps, the difficulty of patching the OS, the lack of standard distribution practices, and the inflexibility of package management systems can make otherwise embracing users a little hostile towards Linux. In fact, I'm starting to feel a little hostile myself and I'm one of those Linux evangelists.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes Windows and OSX so popular are applications that are commercially supported. That's it. Look no further. Without applications, your OS, no matter how fancy, is useless. I rememeber when I got my first computer, I turned it on to see C:\>. It was useless to me without apps that I could use (I was also introduced to warez that day).
As soon as a post like this appears on /., it's almost guaranteed you'll have a dozen or more replies saying "But Linux has all the packages you could ever need! Just look at any package manager!!!oneoneone" so I'll chime in with what I perceive as being a bit of clarification.
As far as the end user is concerned, provided they're not a hardcore gamer this is quite correct.
But a lot of people own PCs for reasons other than just the sake of owning a computer - and these reasons are quite often business related. Be it "one PC in a business which employs 3 people", "30 PCs in a business which employs 30 people" or "1000 PCs in a business that employs 1000 people", the problem is the same.
Linux apps which do the boring stuff aren't there. The payroll, accounting and small business automation systems which may never sell more than 1000 copies don't exist. Or if they do, they're seldom well maintained examples of everything that can go right with F/OSS. Hell, virtually every single Exchange alternative out there (and today there are many) appears to either work out just as expensive as Exchange or to have completely missed the point regarding "100% full interoperability with Outlook or a client on a similar par".
Consider the business owner's perspective. They want a tool to help them do a job, not a religion. Therefore, reasons which are badly thought out at best (eg. "Anyone can support it!" - right, so who's this "anyone" and how come the Yellow Pages isn't full of such "anyones" offering their services because it sure is for Windows systems?) to downright ludicrous ("You can always pay someone to add the extra functionality!" - right, so my business which turns over just enough money to keep a couple of people employed and is much the same as 100 others in terms of IT requirements has to waste months agreeing requirements with an expensive software developer to get a single system which when all is said and done won't be any better than something off the shelf and will cost a small fortune in both time and cash for added functionality in the future, with the added bonus that if this individual developer disappears off the face of the Earth shortly before something goes wrong, I'm totally screwed?) are plain silly.
Similarly, arguments like "We can't implement 100% interoperability with Exchange because it's proprietary" won't result in a small IT consultancy saying "Ah, poor you. Never mind, I'll just tell my clients that they can't have the functionality". They'll result in the small consultancy saying "I'd like to buy a copy of Windows Small Business Server please".
Re:It's an awesome blog (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep... sometimes he trolls just to troll. On one post he proclaimed ...
This was his answer on the question about how Windows was more prone to hacking and viruses whereas Linux was more secure. He does make some goods points but then he loses his audience by being a troll like this.
You can't have it both ways. If you want an audience to respect what you have to say, you can't turn around the next second and just be emotionally illogical and say 'because I say so'.
Most modern "viruses" (read: trojans) don't do anything which requires Local Admin privileges in Windows - and hence, Linux equivalents wouldn't need root access. Linux is only one common email program which chmod 700's and executes attachments which look like they're executable away from being just as much of a malware breeding ground.
Re:Linux is only free if your time is worthless. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) I consider the vacation time I get at work insufficient, so I often take unpaid time off (management is cool with that). If I were using a Linux system at home and were to spend a significant amount of time trying to fix it rather than doing the things I intended to with my time off, this is indeed time I could otherwise have been paid for.
2) I maintain a few Linux boxes at work. If I spend time debugging problems on them that commercial software would have fixed, this is company money spent on getting OSS to work. Perhaps a commercial product would cost the company $100 out-of-pocket, where debugging and configuring the OSS product would cost $500 of employee time.
3) I consider my free time much more valuable than money earned. I value a non-working Saturday more highly than a working Saturday with double overtime pay. Personally, I consider time-spent-at-my-discretion-at-a-reasonable-standard-of-living my baseline goal, rather than bank balance, with the money I earn at work serving as an enabler of that. If I get a raise, I consider it an opportunity to take a few more days off rather than to get a few more bucks. So, everything that costs me discretionary time, where I feel I'm not getting much out of it, is very detrimental to my bottom line. If it means that I'll spend 50 fewer hours configuring and debugging my system, I'll gladly plonk $200 for Windows at the stupidly cheap rate of $4/hour of free time.
Re:The Pleasure of Hating. (Score:3, Insightful)
If Jeremy is correct, then the author of Linux Haters has chosen what is possibly the least likely route to garnering interest from Linux developers.
I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a former Linux enthusiast turned hater after all his complaints were answered with a "Fix it yourself" reply from arrogant devs.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:2, Insightful)
"There is absolutely nothing that is more seamless and braindead simple for installing, removing, and managing your system than apt."
Sure there is. Download a windows program and run it. It just works. Try doing that with a tarball or some debian package. Doesn't work the same way. I like Linux, but don't pretend it's as easy for average users to install stuff.
Apt-get, synaptic and the like are nice, but it's not exactly easy to find stuff in there and more importantly, separate out the meaningful stuff from the other junk.
Re:"I love him so much," yeah, whatever (Score:1, Insightful)
'The message is not simply, "Linux needs to improve," but rather "Linux will never be good enough."'
Maybe because of years of filing bug reports and being told to go fix it yourself, RTFM, or some other trite cudgel used by some in the F/OSS developer community to attack their users. Could it be? Hmm...
Re:Don't Turn Blind Eye To Complaints (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem however is that most free criticism sucks. I mean, look around, most of the criticism towards distros is that there are too many of them, arguing that instead There Should Be Only One(tm), ala MacOSX, completely missing the point of Free Software.
Yes, there are a few sane minds among them, like the ones who argue for Free Desktop standards to be more widely implemented, and for the large DEs to standardize it first, implement it later instead of the other way around, but those voices are quickly lost in the noise of those who want Linux to turn into a second-rate copy of a propietary OS.
And then you've got all the morons who believe that the Free in "Free Software" means "Free an in free labor", quickly proceeding to troll $OSS_PROJECT_X's forums about how the developers are so lazy since they hadn't yet fixed the bug he reported *five minutes* after he had filed it, who are the cause that the "go fix it yourself" reply got so popular in the first place.
So what's the best way to deal with it? beats me, but what's certain to me is that the current situation, of having so many people complain about idiotic things, is what's driving developers towards ignoring all non-dev users' requests, and that if we can find a way to deal with that, Free Software would improve at an even faster rate than it currently does.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:3, Insightful)
I do agree that Synaptic suffers from "yellow pages syndrome," where it can be hard to find something if you don't already have an idea of where/what it is. Add/Remove Programs attempts to fill this hole, but it would be nice if there was a better selection of index applications for it, there's a lot of stuff that's not listed there.
But all that having been said, you pretty much lost me on "download a windows program." From where? How do you find it? How do you know it's safe? How do you upgrade it later? How do you ensure that it plays nicely with the rest of the system? With apt, all these things have been done for you. As noted above, I agree that there are issues yet to be addressed, but the free world is so far ahead of proprietary software in the area of installing and managing components of your system in a consistent and sensible manner that it's pretty ridiculous to even try to make the comparison.
And again (this is a drum that I love to beat), why is that? It is because of freedom. Freedom is the killer app, apt is just a interface for it.
Re:OH SHUT UP (Score:5, Insightful)
That goes along with the mantra of Linux, as LinuxHater pointed out: if something doesn't work in Linux, convince yourself you don't need it.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:2, Insightful)
true, I've found instaling apps in Linux to be easier than Windows once you have a binary distribution that is packaged.
Windows application and/or driver installation requires the application/package and a double-click. You then choose a typical install which does literally everything for you or a customizable one. Done.
No Linux distro I have tried has EVER followed as simple an installation process. Fedora, Mandriva, Ubuntu, DSL- Each had its own quirks, almost all of which required shell commands. (In fact, I believe all required it.)
For the *average* user, the Linux process is far from desirable.
This doesn't mean *I* am not a user or fan of Linux; it just means I am not your average user much like most of the people here.
If Linux developers could all agree on an install process that was 100% GUI compliant, (but still retained the OPTION to do things from the shell) irritated Windows and Mac users would flock to Linux in droves.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:3, Insightful)
It gets even more fun on 64-bit Linux. Any eccentricities with the system (perhaps I installed something with make instead of an RPM, or perhaps it had a Python installer, or perhaps I didn't properly remove a library I wasn't using) and all of a sudden, new apps I'm installing will occasionally try to call the wrong version of the same library. Perhaps it's calling the 32-bit version instead of the 64-bit. Perhaps it's pointed to the wrong one of three different versions of the same library. Perhaps I have two different versions of the 64-bit library because I have two different programs that each want a different one (because I wanted a version of something that's newer than what my yum repository offers), but one isn't particularly vigilant about putting things in the right place.
Pretty soon, half of the things I install require me to rejigger who is pointing to what for libraries.
Yeah, it may well be that I did something improperly a while back (RTFM, and all that), but I don't think it's too much to ask for a freshly-installed app to bring with it the libraries (or at least the capability to find the libraries) that it needs to work properly without my intervention. I don't think it should matter whether or not I installed everything consistently with the same package manager.
As for
It still boggles whenever I'm on OSX, how I can just drag lots of apps over and they work... no installer, registry entries, library dependencies. Or at least none that I'm aware of.
Re:OH SHUT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
If an app isn't supported, don't use it. Big hint here: Use Ubuntu Linux. It provides automatic updates.
That's one of the other issues any user coming from Windows or Mac always runs into with Linux: Application X isn't supported or Driver Y hasn't been written yet.
For people such as those here on /. the prospect of making that app work or building a driver from scratch is often an enjoyable challenge. For the rest of the 99% of the world's computer users, it's an instant deal breaker.
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes.
I haven't gotten into a Linux fight around here for awhile, because I've said all I have to say on the subject, but basically, this is it.
Businesses need specific software, not free hobbyist knockoffs. "It's almost as good, and it's free!" does not really impress business owners, who write off business expenses as the cost of doing business. Fiddling around with stuff they aren't 100% on is not really what they want to do. I say this from experience of setting up my parents' business. They want--they need--whatever everyone else in the business is running. And it doesn't run on Linux. It doesn't even run on the Mac. It runs on Windows.
And you just nail it with the "anyone can support it" comment. I'm a geek, and I find FOSS "support" to be a giant, frustrating time sink. Reading manpages written by people far above your level of competency with the OS or the software package, and who isn't a technical writer by trade, and who probably flunked freshman comp in college, is not what most people have in mind when they say "support."
Neither do they have in mind posting on a forum and waiting a few days to get 100 messages with a handful of people actually trying to help--but with totally different advice--a bunch of people calling you a n00b, and the rest just the helpful people and the rude people fighting. That isn't support. That's a waste of time.
No, when a business owner says "support," he/she means "someone I can call who can fix it now."
When something goes wrong with some of the enterprise software my dad uses, I call the company, talk to one of the guys who wrote it, and he tells me how to fix it. Five minutes on the phone, and the company is back to making money. Even if a FOSS equivalent existed, which it doesn't and which it won't, you wouldn't be looking at 5 minutes of downtime. You could easily be looking at 5 days. That is simply not acceptable.
Linux is a toy. Linux is a religion. Linux is a lifestyle. What it is not, however, is an OS for the vast, vast majority of computer users out there. Not by a long shot.
Re:OS X (Score:4, Insightful)
Bingo. And they already use those applications on windows and OSX. No doubt if Adobe released photoshop for linux, some of those people would switch, although I doubt it's anything like a significant number. But even if it was, say 5 percent of their userbase ( which, since linux accounts for less than 1 percent of the desktop market, is probably a huge, huge overestimate), so what? They already use Adobe products, on windows and OSX. What does Adobe gain by selling them the next version on a different platform? They would have bough it anyway on their old platform.
No, what will get adobe and all the rest to port apps is a large installed base of customers who are chomping at the bit to buy their software. For that to happen, we need OEM linux machines on sale in PC World.
Re:Don't Turn Blind Eye To Complaints (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but...
Criticism garnered at professional focus groups isn't likely to differ from that garnered in the typical online Linux gripe session.
Gripes from users may strike developers as something less than sane, but all of those people are saying something that matters to them. However silly or pointless a complaint might seem, it is something that may very probably keep someone from using Linux.
In the commercial world, developers are not the only people with a voice in deciding which complaints are addressed and which are not. If management believes a complaint is hurting sales, I suspect it will be addressed, no matter how trivial or inane. Given their nature, many Linux development efforts may or may not mirror that behavior.
(Anecdote: Once upon a time, I led a number of requirements gathering efforts for some software efforts as well as overseeing testing each iteration with users. At least 8 of 10 of their comments were repetitive, cosmetic, silly, etc. But, they established the baseline for the software's acceptability. Whatever I thought, or the developers thought, the users would have rejected the product if we had not addressed their complaints.)
Finally, I think I have a reasonable view of the purpose of Free Software, but I'm convinced that the only users who take that into consideration are already Free Software converts. I.e., judging Linux from a Free Software point of view assures Linux remains a Free Software enthusiasm.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OH SHUT UP (Score:4, Insightful)
This problem of the grizzled old expert using a fresh new Linux distro is a considerable one.
Some of us aren't fully aware of how far away from the CLI the newer distributions
have gotten... even when we are using them ourselves. We're used to old habits
learned a long time ago from before a lot of the current bells & whistles were
created.
We don't bother with a lot of the "shiny and new" stuff because we don't need to.
This can lead us to giving other people a false impression.
If you aren't completely comfortable building from source then it's probably not
a good idea to bother. If something isn't packaged by your distro yet then it's
probably a good sign that it's still a little too raw. It's still a little "too beta".
Free software means that you can see how a project progresses from the very
beginning. You get to see stuff in Linux before you would in other Operating
systems. Not everyone can handle dealing with a project before their is a
proper build. Package managers exist for a reason.
OTOH, anyone can choose to overcomplicate things. Some people excel at this.
Re:No. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What kernel bugs? (Score:3, Insightful)
If we had an open-source build system that could target .app, you could have more control. Pass whatever ./configure options you like, and then install the resulting .app easy as pie!
I've really never understood why Linux sticks with the old /bin, /etc, /lib, /usr/{bin,etc,lib,share} conventions instead of switching to a .app-like system. It's just technologically better to support both .apps and an equivalent system for shared libraries, and I can only see one reason to hold back from such basic usability: backwards-compatibility.
Re:Or perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't Turn Blind Eye To Complaints (Score:3, Insightful)
And perhaps Free Software is missing the point of the user criticism, too?
When your users are complaining, they're telling you something. I always tell the people I work with - "don't give them strictly what they ask for, figure out what they *need*, and give that to them." To do that, you have to listen to what they're saying, and understand what they're trying to tell you. Spend a few minutes with them, listen to their problem, ask them for more details - it's empathy, pure and simple. See the problem from their standpoint.
If you can't make software that's accessible to your users, someone else will, and that other piece of software will eat your market share. If you enjoy coding for the sake of coding and don't care about having users, don't accept bug reports. If you accept bug reports, listen to your users, and use that feedback to make your software better. 10 enthusiastic users > 100 indifferent users who only use your software because it's the least shitty alternative and just can't wait for something better to come along.
Re:Don't Turn Blind Eye To Complaints (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, and that just highlights the advisability of having someone other than developers review bug reports and feature requests. It's those people who should parse the poorly worded complaints, reroute those that were misdirected, etc., etc.
And, yes, commercial developers only pursue bugs that are believed to promise a net return. The flip side is that commercial developers pursue bugs believed to promise a net return, and that benefits the widest range of users. When returns are based on sales, anything that drags down sales gets moved to the top of the list. Free software developers also expect a return on their efforts. It's not just, usually, increased sales. They make a parallel calculation matching the cost of fixing a bug versus the value that will return to them.
Commercial vendors also do not need to deal with developer egos getting in the way. When a bug report goes straight to that code's developer -- who either didn't catch the bug or did and ignored it -- it's human nature to interpret that report as criticism.
Bottom line, I guess: The Linux community has ample evidence that allowing users to feed bug reports/feature requests directly to developers does not result in more widespread acceptance of Linux.