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I share the frustrations of others about this kind of article. Popularity isn't the point. Free software communities don't benefit from simply having a larger

by rwl 17y ago

I share the frustrations of others about this kind of article. Popularity isn't the point. Free software communities don't benefit from simply having a larger number of users who are just as helpless as they were when they were using a proprietary operating system. Having to learn something about the system (even something at the command line -- horrors!) in order to get it working makes you a better computer user, and more likely to contribute help to others who need it. I don't mean this to sound like free software should be designed to "keep the riff raff out"; on the contrary, it should be designed to make it easy for a newcomer to learn something he didn't know before. But I do think that you're missing the point if you switch to Ubuntu or any other free OS with the expectation that you can keep laboring in ignorance of what your computer does. Free software communities don't need such users, and while they may be happy to help them for a time, they can't afford to help someone who won't help themselves forever.

krschultz 17y ago
Exactly. How many times do we have to read articles where it is clear the author thinks GNU/Linux is a business. More users is not the goal of GNU/Linux. Making a better operating system for those people that contribute code, support other users, and LIKE the system is the goal. It will be a small number of people relative to the Windows and Mac worlds. That's OK because it is large enough to be self sustaining. As a FOSS developer the number I care about is how many other developers there are, not how many users there are. I agree we should have better drivers, but you basically have companies that do absolutely nothing to help or purposely discourage open source drivers (which for commodity hardware like network cards is mind boggling, at least for graphics cards there is a reason). I've also run into companies that say they are giving out drivers or docs for their hardware, but the documentation is wrong. It is far from easy. And you say it much better than I can: " I do think that you're missing the point if you switch to Ubuntu or any other free OS with the expectation that you can keep laboring in ignorance of what your computer does. Free software communities don't need such users, and while they may be happy to help them for a time, they can't afford to help someone who won't help themselves forever." And I really don't understand why this stuff gets pinned on Linux so hard but not on other operating systems. My Windows 7 install doesn't come back from hibernate without blue screening, and had issues with some of my hardware. Both are common attacks on Linux. Maybe the real problem is neither OS but the crappy hardware vendors that make buggy products and ship them anyway.
AndrewDucker 17y ago
That's fine, if you never want Linux to be mainstream. But some people do seem to want Linux to be mainstream - and that means making it usable by exactly those people who don't actually want to learn about computers, they just want to use them to get something done.

by rwl 17y ago

krschultz 17y ago

Exactly. How many times do we have to read articles where it is clear the author thinks GNU/Linux is a business. More users is not the goal of GNU/Linux. Making a better operating system for those people that contribute code, support other users, and LIKE the system is the goal. It will be a small number of people relative to the Windows and Mac worlds. That's OK because it is large enough to be self sustaining. As a FOSS developer the number I care about is how many other developers there are, not how many users there are. I agree we should have better drivers, but you basically have companies that do absolutely nothing to help or purposely discourage open source drivers (which for commodity hardware like network cards is mind boggling, at least for graphics cards there is a reason). I've also run into companies that say they are giving out drivers or docs for their hardware, but the documentation is wrong. It is far from easy. And you say it much better than I can: " I do think that you're missing the point if you switch to Ubuntu or any other free OS with the expectation that you can keep laboring in ignorance of what your computer does. Free software communities don't need such users, and while they may be happy to help them for a time, they can't afford to help someone who won't help themselves forever." And I really don't understand why this stuff gets pinned on Linux so hard but not on other operating systems. My Windows 7 install doesn't come back from hibernate without blue screening, and had issues with some of my hardware. Both are common attacks on Linux. Maybe the real problem is neither OS but the crappy hardware vendors that make buggy products and ship them anyway.

AndrewDucker 17y ago

That's fine, if you never want Linux to be mainstream. But some people do seem to want Linux to be mainstream - and that means making it usable by exactly those people who don't actually want to learn about computers, they just want to use them to get something done.