{"id":292,"date":"2007-06-21T09:04:10","date_gmt":"2007-06-21T13:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/?p=292"},"modified":"2007-06-21T10:23:20","modified_gmt":"2007-06-21T14:23:20","slug":"some-things-the-linux-community-still-doesn%e2%80%99t-get","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/?p=292","title":{"rendered":"“Some things the Linux Community still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get”… really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ramkumar Shankar<\/a> writes on his blog: “The day when Linux will take over the desktop (or at least have a significant footprint in the market) is still not upon us. That’s because there are a number of things the Linux community still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get, slowing down adoption of the OS in the home and home office.”<\/p>\n

read more<\/a> | digg story<\/a><\/p>\n

I posted this story because even though it contained some tired-old overgeneralizations and misconceptions, it still raises some good points.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Over-generalizations:<\/strong> Mr. Shankar still echoes the old, tired FUD about “the Linux community”, trying to caracterize Free Software advocates as elitist, snobbish religious fanatics with a zealous hatred of Microsoft. It almost looks like it was talking about Mac fanboys! \ud83d\ude1b (yes, Tim<\/a>, I know you use a Mac, but you definitely are not a fanboy).\n

    When I advocate Free Software, I try not to dismiss Microsoft; I try to present the case for software freedom. And believe me, with racketeers like the BSA breathing under your neck and whispering things like “software audit”, you usually tend to appreciate that.<\/li>\n

  2. Mis-conceptions:<\/strong> Some of the critiques were made under the assumption that for GNU\/Linux to gain some footing in the desktop arena, installation should be done by clueless end users in the most user-friendly way possible. (Please note that I am using clueless in a respectful way here. I am not dismissing newbie or clueless users in any way.)\n

    This assumption is wrong. The only ones installing operating are nerds, script kiddies, consumers of illegal copies of proprietary operating systems… and computer manufacturers and systems integrators. I said it once, and I will say it again: It is completely unreasonable to expect an end user to install his or her own operating system<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    OS installation-related procedures (such as determining which particular version of the OS is suitable for a particular user) should be performed by a technically savy person—the resident nerd, the ‘whiz-kid’, the tech support representative… you get my drift. If you don’t believe me, try right now to install and configure Windows XP or Vista.\n <\/li>\n

  3. Good points:<\/strong> Despite all the shortcomings, Mr. Shankar still has some good points to make. GNU\/Linux has very good hardware support, but it still must be better prepared to deal with all the hardware that is out there. Sadly, this is an issue with no easy solution unless the hardware makers get convinced about the value of having their drives ported to GNU\/Linux. On the other hand, this is an issue that is mostly out of the community<\/em>‘s reach, and he was talking about community.\n

    Another good point Mr. Shankar makes is that we need to keep improving the user-friendliness of our system and applications. Here he’s got a point. And I am not thinking on the command-line. I am thinking on things like the awfully cluttered KDE Control center, the extremely rigid GNOME settings, the stupid package-management tricks, and the arcane settings of many apps. We surely can do better!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Therefore, reading is recommended with a little bit of salt… or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ramkumar Shankar writes on his blog: “The day when Linux will take over the desktop (or at least have a significant footprint in the market) is still not upon us. That’s because there are a number of things the Linux community still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get, slowing down adoption of the OS in the home and home…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shadow.sombragris.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}