Binary incompatibility of Linux distributions

[Michael M. Moore]

On Wed, 2009-05-20 at 10:39 -0400, Michael Haney wrote:
> I've found that some people in the Linux community either ignore or
> refuse to accept the harsh reality that the average user expects Linux
> to have certain features expected of a modern operating system, and
> having to compile code to make software work with your OS not one of
> them.

I think the average user doesn't really care very much about what OS his
computer is running, he just wants his favorite thing(s) to work.  For
many, the favorite thing(s) are a handful of games, for many others, it
is Microsoft Office or some component thereof.  For many companies,
large and small, it is Microsoft Exchange.  For tens or hundreds of
thousands of professionals, it is some particular commercial software
package critical to their jobs (like CAD); for tens or hundreds of
thousands of hobbyists, it is their favorite greeting-card-making
package or genealogy suite or whatever.  For fashion victims, it is
anything made by Apple. :-)

> Mark Shuttleworth wants Ubuntu to be a success, and that's defined as
> Ubuntu having a market share large enough that it starts to edge out
> Windows.  This is a view which most Ubuntu users have and the views
> and attitudes of most Linux Purists just isn't compatible with
> Ubuntu's philosophy.  Its not a Linux distro targeted at the Purists,
> if you want a distro that is go with Slackware instead.  Ubuntu is
> targeted at the average Jane/Joe Windows User, and they have a set of
> expectations which must be address in order for Ubuntu to be a
> successful alternative to Windows.  Linux Purists who use Ubuntu will
> have to live with the reality that 90% of the user base want the
> distro to be competitive with Windows and eventually gain a higher
> market share.

If that's how Ubuntu and Mark Shuttleworth is going to define success,
then they have an uphill battle, because so much of what keeps people on
Windows is out of any particular distro's hands.  Only by extending and
expanding the whole Linux ecosystem will any particular distro gain
market share.  It really is a case of "we win when everybody wins."  I
don't see anything gained by trying to divide people up into categories
like "Linux Purists" or "average Jane/Joe Windows user."  Anyone from
command-line guru to drool-and-click grandma can enjoy using Ubuntu and
get something out of it.  Certainly, there are distros that would
frustrate less experienced users who really aren't that interested in
learning more about how their computers work than they already know; for
them, Ubuntu is an excellent choice.  But you don't out-grow a robust
distro, no matter how knowledgeable you become.  And that's at least in
part because we are a long way from any Linux distro being able to
satisfy the myriad of needs and wants out there in computer-user lands.
Ubuntu needs a lot more software gurus and kernel hackers and the like
than Canonical can pay for, as does Novell and Red Hat and so on.
Encouraging more knowledgeable users to go somewhere else is hardly
going to do Ubuntu any good.

-- 
Michael M.