L
Lord Fauntleroy
Pick any number of Linux users at random and ask them whether they've ever
paid for any piece of software in their Linux setup and the answer will
almost certainly be in the negative. But why is that a bad thing? Isn't it
good that they get everything for free? Isn't that what's best for everyone?
No, it isn't. Since Linux users get all their software without having to pay
a single buck, the perceived value of software (as a whole) becomes zero, or
very close to it, in their opinion.
They won't admit it, but it's a fact that most of them think that way. Add
to that the fact that Linux users generally tend to have two extreme and
conflicting viewpoints about what software should be like. Some users are
easily dazzled by superfluous and completely useless effects (wobbly
windows, blatant overuse of transparency, etc.) and assume that it must be
better than Mac OS X because it's so cosmetically made-up and then there are
others who only need the Terminal and can keep typing on it whole day long.
The problem with the Linux community is that, like any community, it has
members with widely varying interests and preferences and the open source
developers are developing hundreds of distributions to try and cater to
every single whim and fancy of these members. The result is a cornucopia of
free software, software that has been developed at the expense of the hard
work and time of some of the most skilled developers on the planet, and yet
does not have a single product that is complete in and of itself and is
generating any profit at all.
Since open source developers cannot feed themselves through sales of their
software, their only recourse is to devote themselves to another full time
job and contribute to the open source community in their free time. There
is no way whatsoever that thousands of developers sitting in front of their
computers in different corners of the world and spending only their
non-working hours trying to develop something that they know isn't going to
make them any money, are ever going to come up with anything good enough to
seriously challenge software from companies like Microsoft and Apple. There
is just no chance at all.
Linux has been around for more than a decade now and it's nowhere near
challenging either Mac OS X or Windows. The vast majority of hardware and
software makers around the world are still shipping products that are
incompatible with Linux. Linux distributions get major updates in spans of
six months to less than a year. There's no guarantee that the camera you
bought today and is compatible with your Ubuntu installation will work with
Fedora Core too should you change your mind in a few days, as is a common
practice among the Linux enthusiasts.
All of this and more are reasons enough to ignore Linux. Linux users are
never quite sure which one is the best distribution around. They have
debates in their own community with twenty different users vouching for
twenty different variations. They constantly have to keep figuring out
workarounds to make all their software and hardware work together. They
can't just go out and buy a new accessory, assured in the knowledge that it
will work. They are afraid to upgrade, lest things go wrong.
I've tried several Linux distributions myself in the past and have seen a
few of my friends try them too. To date, the only success stories I've heard
of people switching to Linux have been on the Internet and the user
narrating it almost always switches from pirated versions of Windows, which
means that Microsoft does not lose a customer by their switching-and a lot
of them just get bored and switch back after a couple of weeks anyway.
paid for any piece of software in their Linux setup and the answer will
almost certainly be in the negative. But why is that a bad thing? Isn't it
good that they get everything for free? Isn't that what's best for everyone?
No, it isn't. Since Linux users get all their software without having to pay
a single buck, the perceived value of software (as a whole) becomes zero, or
very close to it, in their opinion.
They won't admit it, but it's a fact that most of them think that way. Add
to that the fact that Linux users generally tend to have two extreme and
conflicting viewpoints about what software should be like. Some users are
easily dazzled by superfluous and completely useless effects (wobbly
windows, blatant overuse of transparency, etc.) and assume that it must be
better than Mac OS X because it's so cosmetically made-up and then there are
others who only need the Terminal and can keep typing on it whole day long.
The problem with the Linux community is that, like any community, it has
members with widely varying interests and preferences and the open source
developers are developing hundreds of distributions to try and cater to
every single whim and fancy of these members. The result is a cornucopia of
free software, software that has been developed at the expense of the hard
work and time of some of the most skilled developers on the planet, and yet
does not have a single product that is complete in and of itself and is
generating any profit at all.
Since open source developers cannot feed themselves through sales of their
software, their only recourse is to devote themselves to another full time
job and contribute to the open source community in their free time. There
is no way whatsoever that thousands of developers sitting in front of their
computers in different corners of the world and spending only their
non-working hours trying to develop something that they know isn't going to
make them any money, are ever going to come up with anything good enough to
seriously challenge software from companies like Microsoft and Apple. There
is just no chance at all.
Linux has been around for more than a decade now and it's nowhere near
challenging either Mac OS X or Windows. The vast majority of hardware and
software makers around the world are still shipping products that are
incompatible with Linux. Linux distributions get major updates in spans of
six months to less than a year. There's no guarantee that the camera you
bought today and is compatible with your Ubuntu installation will work with
Fedora Core too should you change your mind in a few days, as is a common
practice among the Linux enthusiasts.
All of this and more are reasons enough to ignore Linux. Linux users are
never quite sure which one is the best distribution around. They have
debates in their own community with twenty different users vouching for
twenty different variations. They constantly have to keep figuring out
workarounds to make all their software and hardware work together. They
can't just go out and buy a new accessory, assured in the knowledge that it
will work. They are afraid to upgrade, lest things go wrong.
I've tried several Linux distributions myself in the past and have seen a
few of my friends try them too. To date, the only success stories I've heard
of people switching to Linux have been on the Internet and the user
narrating it almost always switches from pirated versions of Windows, which
means that Microsoft does not lose a customer by their switching-and a lot
of them just get bored and switch back after a couple of weeks anyway.
