[geeks] And The Linux Weenies Wonder Why They Aren't Mainstream...

[Doug McLaren]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 04:19:42PM -0600, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
| http://xrl.us/j8d4
| 
|    For example, they fault Linux OpenOffice desktops for not having all
|    the features[0] in Microsoft Windows Office, even though few actually
|    use all of the Microsoft stuff. So, in essence, they're saying they
|    want desktops cluttered with unnecessary features.
| 
|    I also think some people, particularly in business, are skeptical of
|    open source because it is community-based and it's free.
| 
| No, it couldn't possibly be the "if you want something fixed, you have
| the source; fix it yourself" mentality of so many projects, the
| difficulty in getting it to work on what most people buy for home/work
| computers (ie: the cheapest crap out there), or that you tell your
| potential users that there's merely too stupid to see that they don't
| need any of the features Office/Windows provides.
| 
| Maybe I should start a fast-food chain called Linuxburgers
...

Out of curiousity, what does your rant have to do specifically with
Linux?  Sure, the post you're referring to mentioned `Linux
OpenOffice', but I hope you're aware that OpenOffice isn't a Linux
thing -- it's available on most of the popular *nix platforms, and it
even works on Windows.

It's also not a very good example to prove your point ... sure, if you
don't want to pay somebody to fix your problem, you're forced to rely
on free support or will have to fix it yourself, but commercial
support options DO exist for OpenOffice --

   http://support.openoffice.org/index.html

Shouldn't your fast-food chain just be called `Open Source Burgers?'
(Sounds sort of like UR-Cooks.  But of course, if I wanted to cook my
own dinner, I'd just stay home.)

| [0] Which, you know, I rather agree with.  I have a relatively simple
|      Word document that refuses to lay-out correctly in OpenOffice 2.0
|      thanks to it not shipping with fonts whose metrics are identical to

Yes, OpenOffice is not completely compatible with Microsoft Office --
nothing is, [not even Microsoft Office :)].  One of their goals is to
make it as compatible with Microsoft Office as possible, but it's not
perfect.

And you've hit upon one of the very biggest problems people have with
Open Office and any other not-Microsoft Office tool -- `everybody else
uses Microsoft Office, and I have to be able to share documents with
them.'  This, more than anything else, is what keeps everybody from
switching, and Microsoft knows it.  They talk about making Office more
friendly to other programs, but they know it'll hurt their business
more than it'll help it, so they're not really in any hurry ...

People just can't look at OpenOffice on it's own merits -- they have
to start with how well it deals with Microsoft Office documents.

(Though I do have to admit ... Microsoft Office seems to be a pretty
professional product to me.  You name it, it does it.  But OpenOffice
isn't too far behind for most users.)

|      the standard Windows/Office fonts.  Rather than spending the time to
|      reformat the document myself, I just use Office on a nearby
|      Macintosh.

Of course, if that Mac runs OS X, it's built off of an open source OS
as well (FreeBSD) ... it's just that Apple has taken it and added to
it, and they sell it and support.  (The BSD license is a little more
friendly to this sort of usage than the GPL is.)

I'm not sure how the Apple support model works, but with Microsoft,
they won't talk to you on the phone without a credit card number.  If
the problem is found to be a defect in the product, you won't be
charged, but if it isn't, the minimum charge is $75 I think.  And even
if it is a defect, the odds of it being fixed quicky are extremely
low.

I think people overestimate the importantance/usefulness of commercial
support in deciding if they should go with free or commercial
software.  (And I say this even though my job is providing support for
one of these big commercial software packages.)  Yes, support can be
useful, but people act like it's not available for free software --
which is not true at all.  You can get signifigant amounts of support
for most popular free software packages from the community for free,
and this support is generally far better than you'll get for free for
similar commercial products.  And if you are willing to pay for better
support, it's generally available for free software just like it is
for commercial software.  The only real difference is that it might be
a bit harder to find where to get the paid free software support than
it is for the commercial software (with the commercial software, you
just call up the salesman or store that sold you the software in the
first place (in the case of a big, expensive package or something
licensed) or just look at the manual (for a smaller software package.)

Yes, the `if you want it fixed, fix it yourself' mentality exists, but
it's a lot better than the commercial alternative -- `yes, we know
it's broken, but we're not going to fix it any time soon.'  (Unless
you're a big customer, and you're deciding if you want to renew your
$500k/year support contract, of course -- then we'll fix it right
away.)

And really, I've not really seen much evidence of the `fix it
yourself' mentality.  Whenever I've reported problems in software
packages, in most cases they've already been fixed, or people fix them
very quickly.

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzy.com
Damn you, Rock-em Sock-em Robots! Can't we all just get along? --Homer Simpson