Facebook is anti-Linux! Help change them!

[Steve Lamb]

Knapp wrote:
> This is a sad state. Linux could be supported; we are not that
> different from OSX and to support Linux on a web site mostly means
> supporting FireFox and maybe a link or two to Linux sites to help
> customers with problems.

    Actually we are quite different from OSX.  First off we have no solid data
  as to the number of Linux desktop users.  The estimates we do have put us at
barely over 50% of OSX.  That's the total of all Linux installs.  Keep in mind
 that there is no "Linux".  There are at least a dozen distributions which
could be considered major and scores of minor distributions.  To add further
confusion there are 3 major GUIs and a dozen minor GUIS /and/ at least 4
different ways to install software!

    So, OSX, 1 "distribution", double the numbers of Linux which is fragmented
across dozens of distributions.  To support OSX you support 1 GUI, 1 series of
settings screen, 1 method of software installation.

    I've been using Linux for 10+ years and in that time I've used 3
distributions and couldn't support 2 of the major GUIs, 3 of the software
installation methods and forget about the individual distribution's different
tweaks to any of those.  Oy... freakin'.... vey.

    So no, we are not even remotely similar to OSX.  To suggest otherwise is
to whitewash the wonderful complexity and richness that FOSS provides.

> Time to get busy? This is a HUGE PR problem. It really does need to be
> addressed. Product perception is very important to product uptake. How
> can Ubuntu become main stream when sites say they support Windows and
> OSX but not Linux or Ubuntu? Same question for hardware. It needs to
> say, "works with Linux" to get customers to trust Linux. We should be
> out there writing to sites to change this.

    This is not new.  Really, it isn't.  We've had the above written for
approximately the past 10 years I've been using Debian based distributions.
During that time Linux has grown.  People have become more aware of it.  FOSS
is making inroads.  So it is happening, but it is happening slowly.  I mean 10
years ago I would not have been typing this message on a netbook preloaded
with Linux distribution from a major manufacturer (Dell Mini 10v), browsing
the web with a FOSS browser that took 20%+ of the market share from IE.  Even
just 5 years ago that was unthinkable!

  And hammering won't make that go faster.  Usage will make it happen.
Getting good numbers will make it happen.  Standardization of support will
make it happen.  All of those need to be in place before you can start
hammering because until they are those locations are just going to see what
I've written above.  Support an OS with 1/2 the numbers of OSX and hundreds of
different variations?!  PAH!

> Most sites work with Linux, so they should say so, if they want to
> support Linux.

    But that's the point, they don't want to support Linux.  Look, most sites
now, but not all, just most, say they work with IE and Firefox.  A lot of
corporate sites I have to deal with (my timesheet/payroll/benefits site, for
example) is still IE only.  Firefox?  Fuhgetabootit!  And Firefox has ~25% of
the browser market share.  So why would they want to "support" a highly
fragmented OS which amounts to, what 0.7% of the desktops?

    It's a chicken and an egg problem.  We need the numbers to get the
support.  We need the support to get the numbers.  But hammering them to bring
the support before the numbers will not work because it simply makes business
sense.  We have to work on the numbers first, period.

-- 
         Steve C. Lamb         | But who decides what they dream?
       PGP Key: 8B6E99C5       |   And dream I do...
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