Loving Ubuntu Linux

[Michael Haney]

I think this exemplifies the biggest failing of the FOSS community,
and one of the biggest factors holding Linux back from mainstream
"consumer" acceptance.  Canonical and Mark Shuttleworth are working
towards mainstream "consumer" acceptance of Linux, but that will NOT
happen without commercial software support ... aka proprietary
software.

I understand the philosophy behind the FOSS movement, if all the
software in a Linux distro was open source it would allow for greater
flexibility and customization.  So I understand the benefits of having
access to all of the source code.  But, that requires getting everyone
to be on the same page, and that means getting commercial developers
to play along.  Its commercial software support that helped Windows
become so dominant, along with all of Microsoft's unethical business
practices, but that's for a another discussion.

Canonical aims to appeal to the average consumer, and not just appeal
exclusively to the base of the Linux Community.  The average consumer,
"mom & pop" users, will have certain expectation.  They'll be looking
for Linux versions of the programs they're used to in Windows.  You
can't deny that the majority of free software for Linux is far from
user friendly, except for a select few projects like OpenOffice,
Firefox, etc.

I'm not trying to start a war, but the FOSS Community has to face the
reality that Canonical isn't interested in just appealing to base of
the Linux Community.  They want to attract the average consumer and
that means attracting commercial/proprietary software developers who
may not be willing to make their software open source.  I'd be very
happy if more commercial developers went open source, but I don't see
that happening any time soon.

-- 
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking
of morality by religion." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and
politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there is no place
for it in the endeavor of science. " ~ Carl Sagan

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