How Not To Sell Linux Products 451
An anonymous reader writes "Roblimo looks at why so many Linux products fail in the marketplace, and decides it's not because Linux users want everything free, but because most products they're asked to buy are either poorly marketed or don't work well. He has some good advice for anyone trying to sell stuff to Linux users, except it really applies to *all* computer products, not just Linux." (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.)
Why They Sell Poorly? (Score:5, Funny)
We demand you delete this article (Score:3, Funny)
Linux failures are because of doubleplus ungood MS FUD and the hated Billgates
Violating groupthink is a thoughtcrime
Signed, the
Re:We demand you delete this article (Score:5, Insightful)
The main point of the article was not that Linux sucks, but that many companies "do not get it". I.e.
- they take any old trash,
- port it to Linux,
- hope that it sells just by virtue of it running on Linux,
- and if it doesn't they go back and wine in their corner about the cheapness of the Linux users (rather than looking at their own mistakes).
- ===> it's almost as if they wanted to have their Linux product fail, so that they can go back to Windows, and tell management "see, Linux is not yet ready for prime-time"
Yes, the article stated several times that often free Linux products are better than some of these commercial "Linux" "products". This is hardly a "Linux suxors" message, on the contrary.Re:We demand you delete this article (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We demand you delete this article (Score:4, Informative)
It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not a very large market, and we're the pickiest of users, mostly because each of us thinks we can do it better.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but, apparently, according to the article, we can.
Re:It's true (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of the makers of these poor products could just as well be selling patent medicine.
In fact, in software terms, they are.
KFG
Skins... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's because so many developers (and this applies to small/amateur developers on the whole) focus on skins, supporting skins, creating ghastly skins, skin ranking systems, user-submitted skins (often even more ghastly), and anything related to skins, all of which are entirely irrelevant for almost all software.
Case in point: SpyBot -- brilliant piece of software that I downloaded recently. However, why should there even be "new cool Skins" for a little application that removes spyware from your computer?
Re:Skins... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Skins... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you need them? Nope. Should there be a default behavior that looks like most of your other apps? You bet.
But, if there is any merit to your product at all, sooner or later someone is going to want to skin it (or complain about not being able to). This, as a software developer/vendor, is a measure of your success.
If anyone gets that, then they will probably "get" that offering skins from the get-go is a way to fake that love. Companies love to fake the love. It's another tool to move the product, and to generate more consumer acceptance (however misplaced it may be).
It's the oldest trick in the book; fake the "cool" factor to cover up the weakness. Shallow, a waste of resources, a marketing sham, all of that. But the damn strategy works, especially if you have a competing target you can infer is now "uncool".
Does the product stand on it's own merits? Chances are it doesn't, or at least doesn't stand out as being vastly superior.
But, you can skin it!! Coooool.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Badly as I wish I personally could do both, I'm forced to confess mastery of neither.
[picks up broom]
Oh, well, back to sweeping...
Re:It's true (Score:5, Interesting)
this hints at the whole reason why opensource has the potential to totally change the computer/it business model. and why so many companies are failing at it.
it's all about product vs. service. since computers have been around the vast majority of companies have been product based. they sell wordprocessors or mainframes or videogames. this makes sense, of course, because the traditional economies have been product-based too. build a widget and sell it. simple.
opensource has the potential to move this to a service based economy. if the product itself is opensource then it is... free. you can't sell it successfully if people can just pluck it off a tree! the response should be to move the money-making into the service area.
okay, maybe "service" is a bad word (since it conjures up the image of low-pay, low-challenge tech support jobs). a better word is "solution". sure there are a lot of companies that claim to be "solution providers" but few really are. the successful companies are the ones that take free software, tailor it, combine it with other free wares, integrate it, document it, deliver it and support it as a unified "solution".
of course a lot of us can roll our own solutions - but a purchased solution can offer a lot of advantages that home-builts can't:
there are some companies that operate on this model. the old red hat did it with rhn and stronghold as just one example.
so. to the opensource companies out there: i have a dozen problems a day and a credit card. sell me a solution! please!
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
They are no more or less evil then MS in intention, both want to generate a money stream that doesn't depend on products but on contracts. IBM's business model and philosophy however are served by OS and basic applications being comodities and OSS has proven to provide that.
MS on the other side tries to achieve this by trying to provide all comodities exclusively and getting people to basicly rent it.
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's true (Score:3, Interesting)
That logic would see them sell Windows versions of both..
I have worked for IBM for 11 years, so I have a bit of a clue what I am talkign about here.
1 1/2 decades ago, IBM was inyterested in OS and application software as a commodity because it allowed them to sell hardware, server software and services. Now it allows them to sell (as
Re:It's true (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I think it's a perfect word. Like customer. Serve your customers. That's what it's all about. It may not have an aristocratic air about it, but capitalism isn't about aristocracy. It's anti-aristocracy. It's about service, not rule.
We are, almost all of us, in some way "in service," just like a "house girl." Our task is to perform tasks for others. For pay.
"Providing solutions" for "consumers" or "Enterprise" is marketing doublespeak.
Got a problem? Perhaps I can be of service.
KFG
The obvious problem. (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, so you just bought a $50k server to run a $50k installation of, say, Oracle. You have 2500 employees and the lifespan of the beast is five years. That's $1,600 per month (not including interest). You could save $800 per month by using MySQL or PostgreSQL, which is about thirty two cents per month, per employee. Your SysAdmin/DBA, on the other hand, will cost $6-8k per month or about $2.80 per user, regardless. Say you have an application suite developed for six months (hah
perhaps unsolicited email is the marketing answer (Score:5, Funny)
I think the conclusion is very obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I think the conclusion is very obvious (Score:5, Funny)
Better yet! If everyone stopped selling Windows products, and gave away Linux (which should be free) products instead, Linux Product Sales would... oh... never mind.
Re:Only the Consumer Can Stop Windows (Score:3, Funny)
Damn, you're probably right.
Still, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling when I imagine all Windows users -- American, European, everyone -- stealing Windows.
-kgj
well DUH (Score:5, Insightful)
Christ, that's usually why ANY product fails.
What is a Linux product? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or is TiVo it?
Linux products are all over the place, usually concealing the fact that they are based on Linux. Just because Linux and its standard UI are not popular in consumer devices doesn't mean that Linux itself is not used and the products based on it aren't successful.
Appliances! (Score:4, Informative)
Walmart can sell Lindows PC's, and sure, they're interesting, but let's hope that's not what people think of then they think "Linux products". The thing is, despite the candy interface, when you do run into a problem the learning curve is too long.
I've used a Linux desktop exclusively for over a year now, and I'm happy with it, but when I tried to get my wife (a former IT guru) to adopt it it was a total flop. Admittedly, Debian is not your best intro to desktop Linux
Appliances, competing in well-defined niches, are a natural for Linux and they tend to beat their closed-source competitors. THAT'S what I call a "Linux product".
-hp3
Re:What is a Linux product? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is a Linux product? (Score:3, Insightful)
it's a selling point.
Why can't linux?
For the most part..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For the most part..... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Yes, they would also use phrases like "Linuxy things", but that's OK, they do what they do, and the planet's big enough for that.)
They would, however, also call this market segment comparatively miniscule... which is why that whole world domination thing has a problem. The hivemind here may want to get comfortable with that.
Almost, Re:For the most part..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm not a real linux geek, but...
I *hate* when something is difficult for no good reason. A 'monumental effort to get where others have gone before, and anyone with enough time can get' is a monumental waste of time.
RANTThis isn't like the NYT crossword puzzle. The point of the install is not to just have done it. What's so fun and challenging about wasting orders of magnitude more geekhours installing than the documentation/packaging would have taken?
It often seems that developers are masochists. It is not reasonable making people play Where's Waldo with the source just install stuff.
While it's not cool to complain that your free widget wasn't a good enough free widget[ unless you're gunna do something about it]- That only works for those already invested in it.
On the other hand:
/RANT
Finally, a heartfelt THANK YOU for all the great and not so great FREE software. And, oh yeah, I still brag about it...
Or is it the other way around? (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing that may change this...I wonder how different OS-X applications are from gnome/KDE apps. Certainly if the vendor uses Qt there is not much difference, but what about using the native toolkits?
The reason I ask is...so many multimedia apps are being ported to OS-X, and Mac users (especially multimedia types) demand stability and dependability.
As more windows apps are ported to OS-X, many by vendors who swore they would never port to unix or linux, is there any chance of these high end apps migrating the extra step to Linux?
Re:Or is it the other way around? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Photoshop. It is God-like. It is Big. It is (too often) Complex. It is the 900 kilo gorilla. If Photoshop abandoned MacOSx, Apple would be in serious straits... get Photoshop going on Linux and you've got something. And no: Gimp doesn't do it. It's a nice try, but it's just not there yet. I've used it and found it seriously wanting in OH so many ways.
2. InDesign / Quark Xpress. this will require ULTRA reliable drop-dead no-excuses perfect printing capabilities in Linux. Which aren't there yet. It's getting there, but again: not ready for prime time at your local service bureau or the random Epson widget you got for free with your $80 rebate. THEN they'll have to migrate the apps over, and doing that to Quark will be something close to HELL freezing over given the patched and scrambled nature of Quarks underlying engines and code.
3. Dreamweaver. Sure, "real coders" do all their html by hand, but the rest of us do some multiple more work in some GUI like Dreamweaver. Supposedly, Macromedia actually is porting this stuff over to Linux, and if that happens, you can expect Adobe et al to follow suit in the next few years, to prevent MM from owning that market segment.
Now, StarOffice is very good and does a VERY large percentage of what MS Office does. I think that you will see StarOffice grow as other major vendors port stuff to Linux.
Then there's video editing, music creation, audio editing and processing, and that's a whole 'nother smoke.
I do think that as Linux grows, more and more vendors will port to it. It's fairly simply math, and why OSx apps exist. Let's say you have 3% of a market. And the market is of 100 machines. And let's say it takes $3 million to make the app. Do the math. Now, say that you have 3% of a market that is 100 million machines, and your app costs $3 million- the math suddenly get s a lot more attractive. It's just a dollar a machine and you break even.
The same is going on with Linux. As more an more desktop machines are running linux all over the world, the numbers will continue to look more attractive, and major vendors will start sniffing around looking to port to that opportunity.
I think continued effort and some patience are in order.
And if you want to make free (as in beer) apps, fine - go for it. As a user, if they do what I need and do it well and competently, I'm there. But if they don't, (and they too often don't) regardless of platform, I'll cheerfully fork over the green stuff to get my work done. But, I'm not a programmer - I use software and when I need something special, I hire (and pay real money to) a programmer to make it for me. Free is nice, but when you need someone to put their neck on the line for a mission critical work, having the kind of responsibility engendered by reified contracted economic relations ($) is extremely efficient.
RS
Absolutely (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I'm in that demographic, so perhaps I am biased (-: And if I thought for a single nanosecond that microsoft would port Viso to linux, I would have to also be delusional.
But should someone create a quality replacement for visio, I would migrate my company laptop to
Storming the Market? Get Real (Score:4, Insightful)
How is Cocoa and .NET "Storming the market" when both are essentially tied to specific architectures and is the case of Cocoa, tied to aspecific hardware vendor?
Cocoa is a great tool for building applications for OS X but unless your a software development house targeting a niche market, OS X is out of of the question.
I guess thats why Java has been "Storming the market" for quite some time.
Re:Or is it the other way around? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even better are the problems with solutions like: "Oh you have widget.so.1 linked to widget.so.1.2, this will only work if it is linked to widget.so.1.1", you wind up with private lib versions and wrapper scripts that set linker variables.
Shared lib versioning pr
Re:Or is it the other way around? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pick a Window Manager. Pick a Tool Kit. Now, the person running on the end machine must have the exact same items installed, or it won't work.
Since when? I'm typing this using Mozilla. Which works just as well under many window managers.
Re:Or is it the other way around? (Score:3, Insightful)
well it USED to be easy before redhat bailed on all of us..
you used to be able to pick a distro (RH9.0) and use that install ONLY as your base for development and know that it will work. or better yet statically compile it (OMG the HORRORS!) and make it work on almost EVERY distro/flavor/whatever without trouble... Kinda like how blender, OpenOffice.org, and Mozi
The "We're doing you a favor" syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The "We're doing you a favor" syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I'll turn off "bitter mode" now...
aside from Linux... (Score:4, Interesting)
A successful linux ISV is going to have to have Windows and/or Mac versions of their product to keep the company with enough revenue in order to offer the product to Linux users because the base simply is not there to keep the company opperational otherwise unless the product is truely groundbreaking, breathtaking, or has 0 competition and no free alternatives (not bloody likely). Just my $0.02. Take it for what it's worth.
Business vs Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Most self-inspired products are too heavily biased towards technology, but not enough in the business sense.
I'm curently researching this spam filter [spamoo.com], it may sound like a good idea, maybe it even works, but I have yet to see a business sense in it, i.e. how to market it, brand it and add value to the users. Please note that by business sense, it doesn't necessarily mean profit, but a sense for users to actually use it.
I guess what I am trying to say is, most geek-based products are developed based on the developers' vision of the world, but they hardly have a chance to meet up with potential project sponsors, and consumers (focus groups) who are really the persons to tell what should be developed.
How about some good examples? (Score:5, Informative)
Those are just the few I've interacted with recently. IBM, Sun, JBoss, and Novell are doing a very good job of supporting, marketing, and selling their Linux-based server products. So there are more and more success stories out there.
But, like the article communicates, we need a lot more to get the momentum going on Linux for the masses. Hopefully, large organizations will follow IBM's lead, and small, open-source based project will look to CodeWeavers as excellent examples. We need more of those guys!
Re:How about some good examples? (Score:3, Interesting)
btw: i do not work for them, i did talk to the cto
Crossover Office (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a non-free product that I bought for my debian system, and I've never looked back.
I may get slammed for this, but I really like Microsoft Word 2000 and Excel 2000 (the later products seemed over-featured-- all i need is well made products: like a good grammar checker to correct inevitable typoes)*. Crossover Office allows me to use them seamlessly on my Linux box. I appreciate that quite a lot.
What's more, their version of Wine works really well for a LOT of "unsupported" software-- from character generators for RPGs to "Teach Yourself Chinese" programs.
Getting their product was a snap- paid online, instant download link to the source and to binaries for a variety of distributions.
Good stuff, and, IMHO, a good example of a quality Linux product that I paid for.
*I'm trying to ween myself off Excel to a more robust alternative, but I find the grammar checker of Word very useful for catching critical, but easily overlooked, typoes in technical writing-- I'd miss it a lot. Is there an OSS grammar checker I am un-aware of?
Re:Crossover Office (Score:5, Interesting)
I have office on my desktop Linux boxes, not to use full time (as I truely like OpenOffice an ALL platforms) but as a way to get around the office drones who have brain collapses when getting RTF or even PDF files. Also, I happen to like Dreamweaver as a platform to do quick web development. Mix that with the fact you can have Photoshop working without a VM and being able to use great stuff like Quanta to do code development... it really is the best of both worlds.
Also it's a good example of why pay software (when priced reasonably) really does have it's place on the Linux platform.
What about a 3rd aspect: how the business is run? (Score:5, Informative)
I remember being really gung ho about Linux and Open Source after trying my first distro: Mandrake 8.0. At that time, Win98SE and WinME were the dominant flavors (WinXP was just starting to come out), and I found that the Mandrake install did a better job of detecting most of my hardware than the MS install.
Eager to support the cause, I plucked down $100 to preorder the Pro version of the upcoming Mandrake distro. "Cool, I'm supporting open source. I'm doing my part," I thought, and I'd even get some of the CD's early for my pre-order. So I ordered, my credit card was charged, and day after day, week after week, no product arrived. And day after day, my emails to the company weren't answered. There were no real announcements anywhere to be seen about what was causing the delay. Finally, after a bit more than a month of this, I finally called the company at my own expense and had my order cancelled. (And even that required quite a run around, as the number listed on Mandrake's site didn't seem to be a direct number, so I had to call a few times to connect with anybody.)
And this is how they treated an eager customer. Hardly the way to treat a paying customer! I sure wouldn't want to run my business this way.
Granted, things are better now, but when your business isn't run like a business, don't expect customers to stick around. -- Paul
Example (Score:5, Insightful)
So I take the dev kit cd that came with it and try to install it by following the directions included. No go. It wants an LSB distro and I use gentoo. I hack the perl install scripts, still no dice. Apparently the install disc has rpms debs and tars. And it installs by converting them all to one of the 3. So if you use debian the install scripts converts the tgz and the rpm to deb then isntalls them. Too bad the conversion program doesn't work. Their tech support didn't help much either.
What did I do? I went online and searched for arm linux. Got arm-linux-gcc from an ftp and patched up the 2.4.25 kernel. When its easier for me to do things myself for free than to use your product what am I paying for besides the hardware? Technically I paid for that support and that software and I got jack. Just too many free and non-free linux things do not work. Sure, there is plenty of commercial software that doesn't work. The odd game here and there and such. But if the company behind it isn't fake you can bet that it is going to work sooner or later. With linux stuff sometimes you just don't know.
This is the opinion of a gentoo user, so I'm not bashing linux as a whole. I'm just saying that if you're going to make something, make it work. Just because a geek is going to use it doesn't mean they want to have to go through more effort to make it go. They just want to go through a little effort to make it go better.
Re:Example (Score:5, Insightful)
What I would like to know is did they falsly advertise it as working on your O.S. (or even by implication)?
Because if not I don't understand your complaint. you tried to install it on a different o.s. than it was designed for. Yes your o.s. uses the same kernel and many of the same utilities, but gentoo is not the same O.S. as the others.
To give an anology, would you expect a new winxp program to run just fine under NT3.0? there is a chance it might, but would you be suprised if it didn't? Would you say it "it doesen't work" and blame the maker of the software?
Now mind you I'm aware a lot of software out there just advertises "works with Linux" or "works with Windows" without being sufficiently specefic and shure enough it doesn't fit your specific O.S. this is another BAD THING, but not entirely specific to linux based o.s.'s (Much more likely to be a problem).
Mycroft
Linux marketing is still beta-ish (Score:5, Insightful)
The penguin has been a good symbol, but how the hell are you supposed to use one symbol to market for 40 distributions? You can't. The only thing that came close IMHO was the redhat symbol. Suse and debian are great distros, but it's marketed like a good singer than a superstar. Christ, SCO has done more marketing for linux in general than any distro.
New Linux user (Score:5, Interesting)
OO is great. Mozilla is great. KDE is great. Gnome is OK, but KDE is better (IMHO).
What really stimies me is the difficulty in getting USB devices to work (uncommonly used things like Palm Pilots...) and the general difficulty in either updating or adding new programs to the system once installed.
Want to make Linux sell better? Stop developing the latest/greatest KDE, and start working on fixing these areas. Once fixed (and idiot proofed), you will have a distro that costs $50 instead of $39, but the added cost will be worth it. Market the bullet proof operations, and the fact that linux will run on anything this side of a PC-AT, and probably could run on an AT if you wanted it bad enough. In other words, market it to the soccer moms and busy single parents who can't afford to not have a computer for their kids and yet can't afford to pay $1000 for the P4 and $200 for MS Win XP, and the $450 for the Office suite. (I can see the ad now, two harried moms with computers. One has a Tux sitting next to it and one has a blue screen on it. And the caption is "And I could have spent HOW MUCH less?")
Re:New Linux user (Score:4, Insightful)
Rest assured they're both being worked on concurrently. They actually play off each other. While it currently works (imho), it can be much better and is being developed to be much better.
Re:New Linux user (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree, I now don't even bother upgrading software, especially system components like KDE, in an install now. I just wait for the next version of the OS and either upgrade, or use it as an excuse to make proper backups, wipe and reinstall. It's worse than Windowsm, at least that has a method of managing software that works, however badly designed. RPM is crap. apt-get is fine, but my mum isn't running debian for a reason.
I don't want to have to learn how to install software by hand using cryptic commands, and get a chance of getting a dead KDE upgrade as a result (oh, KDE is a real bitch to upgrade, or it used to be).
What I'd ideally like to see is a method of installing software like the following:
1) You have
2) Software is packaged up in a tarball, e.g., mozilla_1.6.tar.gz
3) $ install mozilla_1.6.tar.gz
(this basically comprises of: cp mozilla.tar.gz
4) $ mozilla &
(because path contains
Then when you tire of mozilla,
5a) $ uninstall mozilla
5b) $ upgrade mozilla_1.7.tar.gz
My theoretical "install", "uninstall", "upgrade" commands (omg a user friendly name for a command!) can also have the option of running a script in the software tarball to perform configuration, etc.
Then a GUI software installer can be made that wraps a KDE or Gnome interface around those commands.
And for user-level (not root-level) application install? install will install into ~/software instead of
I'm sure that there are holes-a-plenty with the above, but I prefer self-contained application install as described above, as opposed to "spray-the-files-around-the-filesystem" as per normal unix software - this is not user friendly at the consumer level.
Oh, and whilst you are at it, stick the OS files into
Yay! I've solved it all. Now Linux (or FreeBSD or whoever implements this idea (my version is under the GPL) can now pwn the desktop. Woo! Yay!
Re:New Linux user (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the issue in implementing it on Linux distributions is the diverse nature of package management:
1) RPM (RedHat, Mandrake)
2) Deb (Debian, erm... not sure who else uses this)
3) Portage (Gentoo)
4) tar.gz (Slackware?)
5) ports (FreeBSD and OpenBSD's differs)
6) pkgsrc (NetBSD's offering)
Linux vendors need to come together and define a future-proof, reliable, standardised method of package management that at MINIMUM can su
Re:New Linux user (Score:4, Insightful)
Please explain how Microsoft Windows has it to even the slightest extent.
As far as I can tell, each Windows application comes with its own custom installer/uninstaller (except when they don't [com.com]). You can't say "Windows has it" when the feature isn't supplied by the OS but by each individual app.
The only minor amount of support Windows gives is a list where "installed uninstallers" can register themselves to show up in Add/Remove programs.
standardised method of package management that at MINIMUM can support the same features that Windows XP/2000 has today.
Again, I'm completely at a loss to find any package management features in Windows. Is this something new for XP? To me it looks like installers just copy whatever files they need to C:\Progra~1 and C:\Windows\System32 and be done with it. (It's really a little more sophisticated, as there's a level of indirection to allow for i18n and drives other than C:, but thats barely notable).
The reason Microsoft Windows often doesn't exhibit the symptoms of poor/nonexistent package management is there's only one provider for the OS, so the layout differences between two Windows installs are trivial compared to how a SUSE and Gentoo box might differ (while both being viable Linux desktop systems)
Re:New Linux user (Score:3, Informative)
But you're not even talking about Microsoft Windows. Those are two separate applications. You've really just proved my point that Windows provides no package management, by illustrating that Microsoft sells package management as an optional product.
Today, Microsoft offers some guidelines [microsoft.com] for writing installers, which it didn't back in the 90s, but there doesn't seem to have been much effect. Windows apps th
Re:New Linux user (Score:3, Insightful)
Want to make Linux sell better? Stop developing the latest/greatest KDE, and start working on fixing these areas. Once fixed (and idiot proofed), you will have a distro that costs $50 instead of $39, but the added cost will be worth it."
Amen man. I would much rather go to my Linux desktop of
Re:New Linux user (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:New Linux user (Score:3, Insightful)
Because every file she gets from someone else is in Word or Excel or Powerpoint. Office is even more of a monopoly than windoze is, since they have the Mac market as well. The fact is that Word, excel and powerpoint are the lingua france of information. If there is one thing that needs to happen in our industry, it's making these file formats open standards. Let 100 applications open and save
Two Letter: Q A (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll emphasize
A N D
the dopey stuff of Basics:
Installation Testing
Feature Testing
Usage Testing
If you can't install it striaght off, and start working (either straight away or doing the tutorials... and YOU DO HAVE TUTORIALS... DON'T YOU?) right then and there, you've just blown thousands of man hours as thousands of users bblow their time trying to puzzle out your spaghetti code - and it doesn't matter if it's running in Linux, Windoze, or OSx or whatever. Either it works straight up or it doesn't.
The problem is, WAY too many shops see QA as a an after thought if it is thought of at all, and given the geek-centered history of Linux, it is (sadly) far too common in Linus ware.
One of the main differences between really stunning software and crapware is that the stunning software has a crack QA team running a tight shop with the engineers, and the engineers accept and respect the opinions and findings of QA, just as QA knows the exigencies and limitations of the coders. The crapware has zero QA or the QA consists of the programmers doing basic unit testing, which is too often close too useless due to external dependencies and doesn't address anytihng about UI design...
I did blackbox QA for a very long time, (and still occassionaly do with a good offer) and I have Zero Patience for software that isn't properly tested. Unfortunately, it seems that blackbox is striaght up ignored or sent to India for "chimp testing" (blackbox done to testcases and matrices only) or automated versions thereof, is never brought into the specification process, and in the meantime, it's all gone to whitebox or greybox - which rarely addresses more obvious and critical issues that question basic assumptions in a program, as the lead programmers are too often thin skinned, under served in the social skills dept, and overly identified with the project.
And it has nothing to do with Linux: but the workers in Linux too often have a variable sense of what is an appropriate amount of effort a user should put forth in using a given application or system.
RS
Retail marketing of Linux sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Walk into any store that carries Linux products. You see some out of date distros. Then you see some new RedDrakE boxes. But what's the difference between the purple Enterprise, magenta Professional and red Desktop editions? There's also FreeOffice in two different packagings, one seemingly generic for a variety of operating systems, and one specifically for RedDrakE which is more expensive. Then you see a copy of FubarOffice 2004, packaged in a tiny DVD box. What the fsck is that? Obviously it's not big enough to have included a manual. Along side it you see FubarPaint and FubarPro. To add to the confusion, there will be the obligatory "UltraLinux Toolkit" containing nine CDs of nine obsolete distros.
And not to pick on Linux, but if you look closely enough, there will be a FreeBSD and NetBSD, each with two different packagings from two different distributors, but containing the same software version.
Installation and configuration are key factors (Score:5, Insightful)
Package installers go only so far. Progress has been made regarding dependencies and cascading installations, but I see room for improvement. I find many products still require the "./configure ; make ; make install" method.
The people who write the code are hard-pressed to consider every possible Linux distro or hardware/software environment. Poor documentation doesn't help. We get away with it on the server side, but this will not work with embedded systems or desktops, where you don't have a sysadmin ready to hack the install. If I am buying a product, I expect the install to be smooth and trouble-free. If I have to sit and hack, I might as well stick with free stuff or write it myself.
Don't get me wrong, Linux products are great, once they are installed. Proprietary products are easy to install, but it's all downhill from there.
Re:Installation and configuration are key factors (Score:5, Insightful)
1) User must have compiler and all related development headers installed. When's the last time a non-development workstation or a home machine gcc and all header files installed for everything? Like, never.
2) Dependency resolution.
3) Version tracking. Pretty simple... I'd like to be sure of what version I have installed.
4) File tracking--knowing what every file on the system belongs to which package.
5) Guranteed removal. I don't care to leave a directory of source compiled code around, and hope that it has make uninstall that works.
6) Easy upgrades. apt-get, apt-get upgrade (apt4rpm or for deb's). I don't really want to keep a watch on freshmeat and see what new is out, download it, compile it, and install it. 2 commands really makes it all seem like a waste of time.
And I'm sure I could go on. :)
It's not the money (Score:5, Interesting)
There's nothing like
make
make install
It's so much easier to troubleshoot a missing library or edit some code to fix a problem.
The documentation that comes with proprietary software is usually lacking. But then the most important documentation, the source, is often never available at all.
I'm sorry this guy had such a hard time. But I'd stay away from those all-in-one commercial products. There's a reason why sendmail, samba, apache, etc. have been around so long. They may be diffuclt to install and configure but have infinite flexibility
Re:It's not the money (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flipside of this, I know someone with ZERO IT experience who had apache with ColdFusion, PHP, and Perl working in less than 30 minutes by using the documentation alone.
You have two sides to the zealotry: 1) Linux will never be ready for prime time until grandma can install every package and use it effectively and 2) If you can't install it from the docs and user community then you don't need to use it. Both of these sides are flawed. Consider this:
Point 1 is what I like to call the "grandma whine" and it's nearly totally invalid in both the Windows and Unix worlds. There's a LOT of software that "grandma" can't install and, guess what? It's not marketed or targeted to her because she really wouldn't have much use for it. Web servers and databases are excellent examples of this. How many "grandmas" do you believe are going to even have a NEED to install one of these? And you can bet those that do are going to either already have the requisite tech skills to do so or are able to acquire them. This isn't just a Linux problem -- or a problem at all. It's a marketing reality. You don't focus your marketing or target those who are the lease likely to use your software.
Point 2 is just as flawed as the first point. Sometimes users, even experienced users, do need a little handholding. Nothing wrong with that and it is no reflection of their technical skills or their intelligence. It's YOUR software. What might be painfully obvious to you is a complete mystery to others. And saying "well they can always look at the source code" is a cop out. Being a programmer should not be a prerequisite to using open source solutions. Not everyone who needs the software needs to understand the code. This, IMHO, is the worst marketing nightmare facing the community.
The solution? I don't know. I know part of it will involve the dissolution or lessening of egos. It's also going to involve moving beyond the common vision that "open source MUST be free or it's corrupt!" This is hurting the movement. Open source is NOT great because it's free. It's great because it's open. Plain and simple.
A lot will have to change before Joe User adopts open source across the board in their daily lives. Can it happen? Yes! But it's going to take a revolution in the rank and file of software developers and an all-out intellectual redesign of the way developers look and think about their users and their own software.
L00ser syndrome & RTFM (Score:3, Insightful)
What about sharp's zauras (Score:3, Interesting)
Its a decent product, yet I've not been able to find it at best buys, circuit city, or anywhere else for that matter. What is wrong with it?
I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes I realize Mandrake and Redhat or easier to use, but I think largely is its waaayyy to expensive to upgrade distro after distro release to gain the latest versions of KDE, GCC, apache, etc.
I blew probably over $600 since 97 for that reason.
Anyway I only run free as in beer distros.
They are all eternally updating! RPM distro's are not and commerical distro's will always be RPM hell based for depancies. Otherwise no customers would upgrade.
Why should I pay when I can upgrade for free?
That is why Linux products do not sell well. I am tired of paying money and want my stuff for free. Yes I support commercial software as well. But buy_my_latest_distro_Linux is certainly not on my list.
Perhaps it's due to big ego. (Score:5, Insightful)
The cold hard fact is that many average comsumers have problems installing even simple Windows programs and they are the majority, not us geeks.
Because we have choice! (Score:3, Insightful)
We can chose if we want to buy a power pack, professional, server, etc of (Your Favorite Distro here) or we can just spend time downloading it and hunting arround the net for the ad ons we want
I've used a number of Distros Slackware, Redhat, Debian, Mandrake, for Redhat and Mandrake sometimes I've bought the boxed sets and other times I installed the downloadable editions (purchased for $5-15AUD from a local CD seller [elx.com.au] (I dont have broadband 8( )) and I must say I haven't really gained anything out the boxed sets and I don't read the Manuals (Maybe it is because sometimes they are not very readable).
In the past, before I saw the light I used to buy lots of M$ software, but still thought it was porly written, but I didn't think I had any choice. In my work place we buy a lot of poor software, but there are no open source competitors to those packages, so we buy it because we have no choice (except write our own)
So with open source software unless you really think you are getting something more out of the "pay for" than the "free"(as in beer) why are you going to buy. I remember that my powerpack of Mandrake 8.2, was more buggy that my download edition of 8.1! That put me off box sets forever, but the download editions of Mandrake got progressively worse with 9.0, 9.1, 9.2 (haven't tried 10.0 yet).
Linux Small Business Server? (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone know what the free software package is?
why is marketing such a mystery? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got news for all you anti-suit types: Marketing isn't trying to BS someone; it's explaining what your product does, who you've designed it for, and what unique qualities make it better than other choices. GQ's and OB's: Good qualities and owner benefits. If you develop programs and can't do that, you should get a job parking cars or something.
This is not rocket science and it's not hype. It's educating your customer, which is good for the customer and good for you.
Mod parent up, for the love of God (Score:3, Insightful)
*Amen*. I have never been able to figure out why, the more companies deal with large clients, the more they feel that an obscure description is necessary. I've started to form a theory, however. I've noticed that vendors that work with large clients *always* want to get the large clients on the ph
VMWare and the like (Score:4, Interesting)
And today I installed SuSE on my machine I'm building for my four year old. I bought the professional version of it for $80 at Best Buy, and was blown away. It was the easiet install of any OS period.
The two manuals are beautiful. It comes with six cd's and a DVD with everything the six dics have. Talk about going out of your way for the customer.
Why Linux for my son? I first had Gentoo Linux on my machine, but had to go back to XP for work related reasons. He hated Windows.
Josh
The cost is the factor (Score:3, Interesting)
Before Windows, I used MSDOS. I never bought MSDOS.
Before PCs, I had a Commodore 64. Guess what, I never bought any software for that one either.
Nobody is interested in paying for software, least of all on a platform that is all about free-dom.
I'm not breaking the law anymore.
Anyone have an idea what the free software was.... (Score:5, Interesting)
"Meanwhile, we've found a free software package that is supposed to do the same thing as this unit -- plus act as a print server -- and requires only a minimal computer and a wireless card. We're going to try this method of achieving the same results. It will be scary if free software on a sub-$300 PC is easier to set up than the $1,500 box, won't it?"
Just kinda' curious as something like this may solve a lot of my issues with my small business.
Example: Win4Lin (Score:3, Interesting)
Very uneventful, it just worked. My "test" system (Mandrake 9.2) had a kernel premade so the installation was a breeze. Once I was happy with it - and in compliance with the license - I deleted Win4Lin off the test system and brought it over to main system. I knew it would be a bit more work on this system because I'm running my own kernel. But the kernel patches were as easy as any other kernel patch. Recompile, reboot, install Win4Lin - done.
(Of course someone is going to reply and say Win4Lin didn't work for them, destroyed their machine, set their house on fire, broke up their marriage, caused the death of their only child, inflated Microsoft's market share even more, etc...)
It's not Open Source, but it works. And unfortunately I'm not 15 years old any more so I can't sit around in my parents basement for days at a time screwing with a program just to make it work. My sense of idealism was hit with a hard slap of realism when I turned about 19 or 20. My time away from my computer is quite valuable these days. I'll happily pay a reasonable price for a program that works like it's supposed to. I would prefer to donate money to Open Source projects who give away their software free of charge, but
Where are the PHB's when we need 'em? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just consider Bill Gates as the PHB-in-chief. An OSS project needs to focus on what the users want to see, rather than what the programmers want to develop, in order to gain widespread distribution. A totally buggy and insecure program can still be sold to a user if it does the things the user wants it to do. Sure, the user should know better, but they don't, and that's why PHBs can be so stupid but connect with the marketplace so well...
No news isn't good news (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with the sentiment (Score:3, Informative)
Let me use a couple of examples. First, there's Evolution, purported to be an Outlook killer. Generally, I like it, but there's one thing that just torques my chain every time I use it: email retrieval. For whatever contorted reason, the developers have decided that if you have eight different email accounts that you manage, you, but default, want to retrieve mail from all of them at the same time (every time), or none of them. Mozilla had it right.
Then, there's Konqueror. A nice browser - very robust. But what the HELL where they thinking when they decided that the bookmarks menu should operate like the Start menu in Windows, where instead of scrolling, it expands horizontally? I guess I can see how they might think it saves time, but it really hijacks the usefulness of the menus in general.
Both of these have been frustrating enough for me to consider alternatives. I'm not shunning the notion of innovation - but I would encourage developers to CAREFULLY consider any alteration to what have become accepted and standard methods.
Writting a comerical App is hard. (Score:4, Informative)
Many times starter companies are unaware of all the extra issues, that are needed to make applications used for the general use. A lot of time they were making custom apps for customers and installing it themselves on their system. Or they are just out or still in college trying to make it big without much experience. So they focus on the program and forget about the need for the general person to install the product. And use it as well.
Corel Wordperfect (Score:5, Informative)
I was very excited to hear that Corel would port it to Linux. I was a little weary of the Wine hooks they said, but I would give it a try. I paid over $80 for it and what a piece of crap that was. It would constantly crash and I would always be losing data. It would sometimes crash when I tried to save, and the save would lose data or just corrupt the entire file. I finally gave up with it and bought Star Office.
Then, later when Corel gave up on Linux, I read that Corel is an example that you can't make money porting to Linux. I was so angry at reading that, since the real answer was that you can't make money porting shit to Linux. I think Corel expected the "we are doing you a favor" reaction and everyone would buy it. It actually worked with me since I did go ahead and buy it, but I wouldn't buy something else after that unless I knew it worked. I've seen Star Office previously in action, and that was why I later bought it.
How to sell linux software (Score:4, Insightful)
Its commercial software like this that makes me try to stick to free, mainstream alternatives.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
installation, installation, installation (Score:3, Insightful)
most of us aren't interesed in learning how to compile 'packages' with missing parts. the 'joke' in the 'community' is: 'they'll have to learn something, sometime'. chuckling into obscurity in this case.
there have been improvements, a ways to go yet. see you there?
Is there an OSS grammar checker I am un-aware of? (Score:3, Funny)
Free of Charge, guaranteed to work.
What more do you want?
It's just habit (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea that a vendor will do a crude port of a product to Linux, then abandon the market because it doesn't sell also applies to Mac software. There have been pretty good ports of Windows software to Macintosh that bombed because the Windows products that were ported were junk to begin with -- it just didn't make any difference in the Windows market because people bought them anyway.
Oh, yes. There are lots or products for Windows, but how many of them are better than very poor? Perhaps ten percent?
Their problem is that they're just plain dumb (Score:3, Interesting)
There are two problem with this paragraph.
First if you're not the kind of customer who calls tech support then you're probably the kind who will spend days upon days tyring to install it.
Second most customers will probably spend about an hour maybe two and then call tech suppport. How much longer they stay trying to fix the product depends on how good tech support is (either tech support will fix it quickly or they'll give them enough hope to keep trying for days).
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So you're saying.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So you're saying.. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, you have salespeople feeding people crapware produced over the course of a few months to satisfy the latest buzzword-driven market-craze.
And, suprise suprise, the buzzword-laden focus-group-created crapware wins in the marketplace? This doesn't sound like anything new to capitalism, or anything unique to the computer industry for that matter. It sounds like a *much* larger problem.
"Free" as in not answerable to anyone else. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, lets ignore the fact that there is not a clear disctinction between free and commercial programmers. Much of the free work is done as charity by commercial developers donating their time or organizations donating their commercial developers.
Free programmers gifted? No more, no less than any others. What they are is free. Not "free" as in speech, not "free" as in beer, but "free" as in not answerable to anyone else. No boss screaming about deadlines, no my company is screwed if we don't ship by this date, etc. They are free to take whatever time they need, their customers have no financial control over them. Ironically this control often leads to rushed jobs and lower quality.
Re:"Free" as in not answerable to anyone else. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well assuming you are not independently wealthy one of the easier ways to achieve that is to stay in an academic environment. What you sacrifice in salary is offset by the freedom to work in an area that interests you.
Re:"Free" as in not answerable to anyone else. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can I duduct this then...? (Score:3, Informative)
But seriously, I donated time to the local county search and rescue team. Only physical equipment was deductible. Maybe you could get a deduction for the computer if and only if it was used only for free software. Again, IANACPA. Something interesting to look into.
Re:No, your fist guess was right (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Roblimo's wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
1) There's better support for distros such as Debian or Gentoo, as more of the users are more knowledgeable users.
2) Why would anyone want to use a shitty RPM based distro or one with proprietary modifications that make it incompatible (Lindows comes to mind)?
I tell ya, if Stormix (or a company like them) were to enter the market again, they'd have my money.
Besides, who's to say we can't make donations to our distros of choice? I've made donations to the Debian project, as have many others as is evident by the fact that it still exists - you can't support the bandwidth habit that debian mirrors have without financial backing (yes, I know there are corporate backers, but users help a lot too). Linuxiso.org is also a good example - all they do is provide downloads, but they always seem to have their bandwidth bill paid well before the end of the month.
Re:Roblimo's wrong (Score:3, Informative)
I said:
2) Why would anyone want to use a shitty RPM based distro or one with proprietary modifications that make it incompatible (Lindows comes to mind)?
I was refering to Lindows as one with proprietary modifications, not as an RPM based distro; if you'd learned how to read thoroughly, you'd have realized that.
And yes,
Re:Where does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, die then. You obviously have no intention of living GNU. GNU is about free like speech should be, not free like people wish beer was. Yes, there are free beer versions of most open source software. However, these mostly come from pay software: Linux (Red Hat, Mandrake, Suse, et. al. are all pay software primarily); ReiserFS (Hans collects enough from support and alternate licensing to live reasonably); MySQL; etc.
Promoting a refusal to pay for software has nothing to do with GNU or open source. Read http://www.tlug.jp/docs/rms.html to see Stallman take to task someone talking like you. The issue is not to get software without paying for it. The issue is to be free to modify the software afterwards. You can get binaries without paying for them, both legally (freeware) and illegally (warez). However, they will never be free software in the GNU sense of the word, as they are unmodifiable.
Living GNU means refusing to use software that you can't modify and redistribute. Refusing to pay for it? You are just leeching off the system. Money is the contribution of those who can't code. Money is also the way that those who can't code can influence development. Thus, paying for software makes it more inclusive by including non-coders in the process.
Re:I wont pay for software (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I wont pay for software (Score:3, Insightful)