[ubuntu-za] NEWS: 5 reasons LibreOffice and GIMP will not replace Microsoft Office and Photoshop

[Navdeep Singh Sidhu]

(PLZ forgive my English & Lengthy mail ) I disagree with the person but not
completely. He is right about newbies bcz people in transition from MS to
OSS will find it difficult to learn all the tools. They have to face
difficulties to perform simple task. But i think that's not a problem. Bcz
each software has it's own approach to deal with problems & perform various
tasks. But this is also true that User point of view is important.  Like if
you are creating a tool for normal day to day usage it is important that
you include User Friendly environment and give high priority to it in your
SRS or in design. And you also have to keep in mind that your product will
be used by various kind of users having different level of knowledge &
experience of using gadgets.

In case of libre & gimp i think artwork and interface needs some
improvement so that user can operate them easily.(But that my personal
point of view i'm not forcing my view to anybody).

Also in case of MS vs libre or Photoshop vs gimp. most people around me use
MS & Photoshop (believe me 99% of them using pirated software) that means
if i have a problem related to MS or PS there is high probability that i
will get solution for my problem easily.(People here in india use internet
to access Facebook & gmail only lolz :-)), but if i have require any
package of linux i can't go to anybody and ask him to give deb package of
that software in pendrive. Of course i have to use internet for that.


But that's my learning attitude because i want to learn about new things &
technologies. Not everybody have that attitude most of them just want to
solve their problems & perform their tasks so they just use the simple
tools which are available in abundant around them (it never matters pirated
or genuine).

Let me share my experience with you. I'm pursuing my M.Tech (C.S.E) from
GNDU, amritsar. From last few years internet in our hostel is not working
(due to lot of technical issues also hackerz). So most of the boys use
internet at Library's Lab. Believe me internet access at our very good we
get 10MBps downloading speed from google or any other better server. there
are 25 computer in our lab (haha that doesn't mean that we have only one
lab, but thats the only lab where you have open access to internet). last
year a junior came to me told me that faculty has banned usage of pendrives
in lab. then i contacted head of technical dept (he is very generous guy&
he is incharge there) at library &  asked him the reason for banning the
usage of pendrives. he told me that windows got crashed after 2-3 days
usage if you use pendrive on computers. At a glance i give him the
alternative i asked him to use Linux on all the computers. Although he is a
technical guy & he has a good experience with UNIX he told me that he used
Linux in year 1999 & 2000 but it didn't impressed him. Then i told him that
it was a long time ago, now linux has improved a lot. You have lot of
choices in GUI like KDE, Gnome, cinnamon etc & it is totally virus free and
easy to maintain and i offered him my help as a volunteer. He accepted my
help and told me that let us give it a try. He only permitted me to install
Linux on 4 computers so that he can check that if anybody reported problem
with Linux he will cancel the idea of migration (he also permitted to use
pendrives on those computers after i assured him). In the starting many
user(non technical) misunderstood Linux mint 15 with Windows 8(and when i
heard that i laughed, i was there most of the time to help people with
linux). In first month head observed that technical team has to reinstall
windows more than 5 times on each computer but on the other hand Linux is
working very good. Plus users had reported virus problem  many times. Then
next month he permitted me to install Linux on 4 more computers. believe me
i was expecting the same from the beginning. in the beginning some users
came to me (but less number that the admirers) and asked me that it is
difficult to operate Linux but i gave them the reason (better than waving
off them without giving any reason) that it is better now you can use your
pendrives on those computers, and kind of they were satisfied with my
answer. I'm also aware of that most of them were blaming me bcz now they
can't access blocked sites by cyber roam bcz they can't use proxifier on
Linux.However most of them want access facebook & porn content which is
blocked by our network admin. I was newbie that time (still i consider
myself as newbie) i only knew how to install Linux & other basic stuff.
just for knowledge i asked for help on mailing list (ubuntu's & fedoras)
but most of them gave their opinions without understanding my intentions
even one of threatened me to complaint against me to my authorities.Only
few of them really guided me with the option of tor but at that time that
was blocked by our network admin ( he is my mentor & a PHD) so there was no
way to use proxy on our connection even medibuntu repo was blocked that
time. Luckily after few weeks our cyberroam crashed & they reinstalled the
cyberroam but they forgot to block tor on network . that really helped me
to having experience with tor (believe me before that i don't had access to
video tutorials on YouTube). Getting back to main story after 3 months they
found that computers using Linux are performing much better that computer
with windows & even it is very easy to maintain them or i can say no
maintenance is required (in that case). then he called me and permitted me
to install Linux on all the computers (and i didn't made any of them dual
boot). he is kind of happy with the performance of Linux. After 1 year now
they are asking me more about Linux. I suspect that all the machines will
operate on Linux in next coming 6 months. In my past year i faced people
having compatibility issues with doc & docx file on libre. They had to face
problem to take printouts bcz doc & docx file made in Libre got misaligned
in Ms office old versions (As i told before MS is more in our enviornment)
until i told them to export documents in PDF's. Many people are admiring
linux bcz it's lighweight, it is secure no problem of virus until you
install wine, stable & many more.

>From my experience i can say that people with learning attitude  find it
easy to operate Linux, libre & gimp after few weeks. But not all the people
are professionals so Open source has to keep it in mind that the tools it
develop needs easy to operate by users with medium or low skills. Also
after win8 bomb most of the people & companies are moving towards Linux so
please also put efforts on GUI(i like GUI of linux & it's tools but not
gives a nice first impression on Users with low tech skills).

Standarization of GUI elements can be solution but i think that will kill
or ruin competion between different products.

He said he is not opposing OSS he just telling truth about the point of
view of newbies. BCZ OSS products are too scary until you get offline help.
Like in my case i was unable to access online videos until cyberroam
crashed. & What can you expect from normal user if migration is so complex.
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