[CoLoCo] A Serious Issue Not Taken Seriously.

[Jim Hutchinson]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 12:19 PM, Kevin Fries <kfries at cctus.com> wrote:

> Always remember, perception is reality.  It matters not what is real, it is
> a mater of what people perceive to be real.  It is that perception that will
> drive other peoples actions.  This is why, despite how much easier Linux is
> to use, Microsoft and Apple have been touting its difficult to use nature.
>  It is not enough to show people that these two commercial entities are
> wrong, you must allow them to clear their preconceptions, then allow them to
> make their own perceptions.  I did this with my mom, and now she is totally
> happy with Linux.  But it was only once I convinced her that Window's issues
> (viruses and crashes and such) were enough of a problem to give Linux a fair
> chance.  Not until that perception changed was she willing to give Linux a
> chance.  Once that perception changed, I set her system up right (overrode
> several of Ubuntu's stupidities such as a single partition install) so that
> her perception did not change.  But what do you suppose would have been the
> reaction if she tried it on her own, finally willing to give Linux a chance,
> and the video did not work.  I'll tell you what the result would be:
> Microsoft was right, this is too difficult to use.  She would never have
> blamed the video vendor.  She would have blamed Linux.  And there would have
> been a perfect opportunity lost.
>
> I usually get into this argument over things like Flash and Acrobat.  In my
> opinion, gnash and evince are not only a waste of time, they are counter
> productive to Linux's well being.  Effort is waisted when cooperation is the
> key.  I don't care if it is not open source.  What I care about is that when
> we get the chance to make our sales pitch on the benefits of Linux, we don't
> blow it.  Why is it that Linux is supposed to be about choice, and I am
> crucified for choosing a stable commercial product over an half-assed FOSS
> one.  People are used to Acrobat and Flash from their Windows and Mac
> machines.  They want to know that Linux can do the same.  Evince and Gnash
> are not the same.  Every minute working on them is a waste of time.  If that
> effort could be put towards extending the olive branch to Adobe (as Google
> did), we could have these tools people rely upon in Linux.  All I ever hear
> from the community is that it should be open source or nothing.  And nothing
> is what we are getting.  The Linux community is not growing as fast as the
> computing community as a whole, and we have the most stable, easiest to use
> OS.  Again, perception is reality.


Kevin. I am well aware of this side of the discussion and I don't
necessarily disagree. In fact, I'd say we are making the same argument but
from different perspectives. I get frustrated by the lack of support from
vendors that in the end causes the user frustrations you mention. I know
there is a faction in the FOSS community that are focused on philosophy. I
personally think they are spot on with their arguments. However, I also
agree that perception is reality and new users need to see the ease of use.
The problem, however, isn't one or the other. They are all tied together and
they are all solved by the same process - open standards and open drivers.
So we have to do a little dance right now to appease everyone. We have to
fight for openness while at the same time fighting for usability in the lack
of said openness. What this means is that we all just grab a different
partner to dance with but it's the same song.

Anyway, that's how I see it. But then again I'm no expert on this stuff.


-- 
Jim (Ubuntu geek extraordinaire)
----
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-us-co/attachments/20080925/0f5cdbeb/attachment-0001.htm