Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge linux
fan. I use it on all my machines(even my phone, Android is basically
linux) and even converted my sister and a few friends. But if you
don't convert somebody, chance they'll try a new operating system is
slim to none. Only geeks like me install funky stuff as their primary
software just to try it.
But the major problem lies somewhere
else. People hate making choices.
And linux is all about choice. It gives you power and you choose what
you'll do with it. And it starts with selecting selecting
distribution.
You don't install linux. You
install a distribution. You install Debian, Ubuntu, Slackware,
Fedora... There's a sea of different versions what to choose! I would
even argue that all this fragmentation hurts development. Sure it's
great to have different implementations and approaches and let time
what's the best. But there is also quite a lot of duplicate work
being done. And this cost's time and money that could be put to
better use.
Back to choices. I
like choice. I have a problem and need a piece of software(or
hardware) and spend a few hours(or days) browsing the web looking at
pros and cons, reading reviews, testing stuff, or just surfing the
ebay and hunt for good prices. I like to do this for fun. But I hate
doing it when I need to get something done. And most people just need
software to get stuff done. They don't care about open source spirit
or ability to hack around...they just need something that solves
their problem. And when you have a solution, why change? Why fix
something that isn't broken?
I
attended a great talk on future of web search(by @dusano) and
somebody addressed this problem...”Why fix search if it ain't
broken?”. Answer was along the lines of “Because if you don't
somebody else will. And he will dominate the industry”. I'm not
quite sure this is so true in the short run. It's like with
promotions in the supermarket. People are used to buying one brand of
product and consciously selecting another is equivalent to mental
work. And people are
lazy. So they'll avoid thinking about possibilities because frankly
they don't care enough about value/price ratio of their coffee to
invest their time into it.
And it's similar
when it comes to software and computers in general. A colleague once
said that people who don't understand how computers work shouldn't be
allowed to use them(he's linux sysadmin), but I strongly disagree.
People want to use computers as tools and they should be able to. Not
everybody is a developer! And that's why MacOS is popular. See
Windows is here from the dawn of time. At least from youngster like
me who used computer for the first time in this millenia.
MacOS might be a
BSD but it's only one and it's locked down. It doesn't give you
options but everything works. Perfect for most people.
Luckily things are
changing for the better. Ubuntu broke the “easy linux” taboo and
make things friendlier. And on my laptop I have Linux Mint which is
even better. Installation is super easy and everything works out of
the box. And I'm writing this post because a friend posted a video
about ElementaryOS which is another Ubuntu fork that looks very much
Mac-esque.
So things like
Ubuntu, Mint or Elementary might have a fighting chance on the
desktop if they try real hard. But most of the converted users won't
know they're actually running linux under the hood. Anyway I should
stop blabbering about desktop and focus on post-pc era. But that's a
whole other story.
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