The Linux who cried wolf

4 Jun 2009

Man am I tired of hearing and reading it. There are so many different flavors of this story. “2009 is the year of Linux”, “Linux ready to take on Windows” or in today’s ZDNet article: “Why Linux is ready for the desktop today.” It seems obvious to me that this is a classic case of the boy who cried wolf. It doesn’t matter who writes this article these days, it is always received with a snicker and an eye roll.

I have probably said this a hundred times, but the reasons that Linux fails to make progress have very little technical base. Of course there are some technical hurdles that are preventing it, but the main reasons are much more subtle.

The Social Impact of being Free

Now before we get into the debate, and you start flaming me saying free has nothing to do with price, let’s take a reality pill. Free has everything to do with price in the Linux world. I guarantee all things even, all the schools in India, all the low cost net books and all of the PC recyclers would not be considering Ubuntu and the like if they could get Windows free. I will hit this topic a few times in this article, but get a grip, 99% of the world does not care if you can look at source code and redistribute it, they care about what it can do, and how much it costs.

So the real free comes with a stigma. The average Joe customer wonders why he doesn’t see Linux computers in Best Buy, he wonders why they aren’t on the front page of Dell.com, he wonders why nobody he knows uses them. That makes Linux an unknown and the general populous already has a computer phobia, they don’t want unknown, they want warm and comfy.

The last reality, is that to the world at large, Windows is not expensive. I am not sure of the exact numbers, but I would guess that the number of Windows licenses sold outside of a new PC purchase is extremely small. That means that to average Joe computer buyer, they are buying a computer and it comes with Windows on it. They don’t see it as a cost. It’s hard to argue the price of Windows to people who feel like they have never paid for it.

Crippled by Innovation

I will bet that headline got your attention. I am reminded of a quote from Jurassic Park. Dr. Malcolm says “we got so caught up in could, that we forgot about should.” When I look at some of the true innovative things about Linux, from a user perspective, I think of projects like Beryl. The intent, which was good, was to come up with a sexy desktop for Linux. The reality was an awkward spinning 3D cube, windows that burn into flames when you close them and rain drops on your desktop. Really guys? Windows that burst into flames?

I will admit to being caught by the Beryl bug and having a burning desktop myself for a little while, but had that same attention to shine and gloss been applied, with a little more sanity of course, to the desktop in general, perhaps KDE and Gnome would not look like the Big Lots version of Windows.

There is talent in the Linux community for sure. The sad part is they just seem to be so far out of touch with who a real computer user is. I am not a real computer user, if you are reading this, you probably aren’t a real computer user either. The users that have to be conquered to make Linux a reality don’t know what TCP/IP is, they don’t know what brand their CPU is, and they get hives when someone mentions Linux because they know that it was used to hack the planet in Live Free or Die Hard with Bruce Willis.

Hopelessly Herdless

Which brings me to my last point. Joe user is a follower. Joe user finds comfort in the herd. Joe user actually WANTS to be like everyone else. When Joe buys his iPod, he wants to use iTunes. When Joe gets his digital camera, he wants to install the Photoshop Elements that came with it. Joe finds comfort in buying software in a box at Best Buy and he sure likes being able to take it to geek squad when it’s broken. This is where the Linux community breaks down.

For the masses, Linux is unsupportable, incompatible and unknown. I don’t want to say it (even though I am thinking it) but, if you want to beat Windows, you better learn to be a lot more like Windows.

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8 Responses to The Linux who cried wolf

Arnan

June 4th, 2009 at 10:49 am

Or they should stop making shiny crap and make pretty coolness.
Things that actually work.
Get drivers that actually works on my brand new pc when i get one.
Make the configuration actually usable and don’t have me write config files or have me install wrapper software just to make my wifi work with WPA2.
Make the software more stable and solid instead of instable and 0.x releases.

… And the list goes on and on and on!

June 10th, 2009 at 6:58 pm

To me, it is irrelevant that Linux is installed on 1,000 or 1,000,000,000 desktops. There is an advantage to many Linux installations: it will make Windows better.

For my projects I need at least 3 things:
an outstanding command line, Linux is very good at that, and Windows is getting there with Powershell but just recently;
maximum control over the programs I use, OSS is very good at that;
speed and productivity: I can’t wait 2 minutes to zip or unzip a file.

SeanJA

June 10th, 2009 at 7:16 pm

“Get drivers that actually works on my brand new pc when i get one.”

If the pc (by which I am assuming you mean hardware) manufacturers would throw the linux guys a bone and help them out with the drivers by making them open source this might happen… too bad they don’t, so the drivers have to be reverse engineered to work. Which takes time!

Jason Burns

June 10th, 2009 at 8:31 pm

@SeanJA: I just don’t buy that argument. I have ran Fedora and Ubuntu both with fantastic hardware support for the most part. My complaint is that I can’t run Microsoft Office, Logic Studio, Photoshop, iTunes, Zune, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Mesh, Adobe Lightroom, My Sprint Cell Modem, World of Warcraft (pretty much any game), Hulu Desktop, Netflix Watch Now, Windows Media Center, the list goes on and on. I use a lot of proprietary software. But here is the catch, I don’t use it because I have to, I use it because it’s better. Regardless of some conjecture, OpenOffice, Gimp, Amarok, Ardour, etc…they aren’t even close. Even if they WERE close, everyone else I know uses the real things, I can’t send someone an Ardour project and have them mix it. I can’t receive a huge Photoshop document and open it in Gimp with all of the layer adjustments and color spaces in tact. For some people who use their computer as hobbyist entertainment I am sure those things are fine. In the real world, most Open Source software is worth what it costs. I am reminded of when Nike approached Tiger Woods for a golf club endorsement. He told them he would be glad to use their irons, but he wasn’t using their drivers until they were better than his Titleist drivers. Of course he offered to get his hands dirty and help them make the Nike drivers better…and if you want my opinion of Gimp just ask but the point is it’s where it’s at because it is what it is, not because of Microsoft or Apple.

June 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am

Bottom line: you are watching videos and playing computer games, you are not developing new web sites or a new compiler or a new codec. Of course stay on Windows or better try a Mac.

PS. It is true that Microsoft Office (in the list above), especially Excel, is missing.

Jason Burns

June 11th, 2009 at 9:42 pm

@JL: It’s interesting that you make it out like Windows is for me because I am not doing anything serous. I am not talking about watching videos and playing games, I am talking about Development in Visual Studio, Expresson Web (including a LAMP server with WAMP) high end video and audio production as well as graphic design. It’s real world commercial computing we are talking about.

Data Quality

June 18th, 2009 at 11:51 pm

Crippled by Innovation, great line. Very true many new software programs try to set themselves apart with bell and whistles, but forget to have a quality product. I think many marketers worry about having commercial appeal over having a program that runs efficiently and easily.

Online Printing

June 30th, 2009 at 4:28 pm

I’m not a Linux user, and the only time I was able to use it was back in college, because the computers in the library runs on Linux. The first time I used it, I was completely lost. But aside from the computer hanging and my innocence on how to remove my USB flash drive, I didn’t experience any problems. I was able to save in MS2007 the Open Office file, and I still use Firefox.
Then again, I didn’t know a lot of things about it. No matter how much I would want to try using it more often, my innocence is getting on the way (plus the fact that I don’t own that computer). In the back of my mind, I wish I was just using Windows, the free, widely-used MS Windows. That is Windows’ advantage over Linux, which the latter, hopefully will be able to overcome.

The Linux who cried wolf

The Social Impact of being Free

Crippled by Innovation

Hopelessly Herdless

8 Responses to The Linux who cried wolf

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