On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 12:22 -0700, Phil Mattison wrote:
> > if the people who use the software found issues with the ease of use, then
> > perhaps they would decide that the solution needed to be improved either
> > through a fork of the code, patches to the existing system or an entire
> new
> > piece of software for that particular task.
> >
> You're right, and that is already happening. The problem is that
> expectations are set by Windows users. It was Windows (and Apple/Mac) that
> brought computing to non-technical users to begin with. The difference is
> that most people have no commitment in principal to Linux, and would rather
> pay for convenience than learn something complex just to save a few bucks.
> If you could get the kernel for free and get a will-written GUI front end
> relatively cheap, I think that could be a viable contender for the mass
> market. Right now KDE/Gnome are the weak elements in Linux for attracting
> the mass market.
----
LINUX is indifferent to attracting the mass market. Whether people have
any commitment to learning Linux is immaterial. Expectations set by
Windows users are Windows users such as yourself. Thankfully, this class
of user is entirely irrelevant to Linux in general and the above is
actually a bunch of BS.
If there is a distro (Linspire comes to mind) that sees a commercial
opportunity to provide a computer experience for those who will use it
with Windows as their frame of reference, then so be it. Lumping the
entirety of Linux distributions into this concept that there is any
need, desire, reason, or worthiness to satisfying the expectations of
Windows users is just completely stupid and not worthy of further
discussion.
----
> > It did take a while, but after I was truly able to distinguish between the
> > Windows mindset and *nix mindset, Linux finally made sense. Infact, it
> > started to become quite easy and (dare I say it..) fun to use.
> >
> I wouldn't argue with that. But the fact remains that many of the "Windows
> surrogates" for Linux are not very well written. It is precicely that
> philosophy of always building on the existing foundation that makes many of
> those applications into kludges. Very often it also results in poor
> performace and high latency in the UI. I still say that without a practical
> commercial motivation that effectively addresses the needs of the mass
> market, Linux will never be a viable competitor to Windows. The experiences
> of guys like you and me are not relevant because we actually *like* the
> technical aspect.
----
Let's get something clear - there are no Windows surrogates on Linux.
None that I can think of anyway. There are computing needs and there is
software that fills that need and this is independent of computing
platform - be it Windows, Macintosh, Unix or Linux. I don't recall
seeing any Linux programs that I knew weren't well written. I have seen
programs that are feature poor, not performance optimized, and software
that is available on Windows or Macintosh that I prefer.
What I know is that I don't need the feature glut common to the most
popular applications on the proprietary OS's and can always get done
what I need to do without much fuss on Linux with very few exceptions
(desktop publishing and music recording/sequencing).
Linux is not now, nor will it ever be a competitor to Windows. Perhaps
some distributions will try to package and sell it that way but that is
their venue and not the ambition of Linux generally or specifically.
SuSE is apparently headed in that direction and with Ximian's Red
Carpet, it sounds like everything you profess to want.
Kludges are the providence of rushed out software - clearly the
commercial ambitions influenced by the realities of time. This isn't
what Linux is about at all but perhaps your distro?
I know that I didn't fully appreciate Linux until I used it full time. I
see by the fact that you are using Outlook Express to post that you are
still using Windows to do email. I broke that habit years ago and
haven't looked back.
Craig
ps: as an aside, I can't recommend to anyone that they use Windows for
home use any more. Most home users cannot keep up with anti-virus, spam,
spyware, firewall software and thus, using Windows for home users has
become too difficult and has destroyed the spirit of home computing.
That is a lot for someone who had become very pissed off at Macintosh
and very impressed with Windows XP to say.
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