14 ms·

If somebody does not want a software system, or in some cases, wants to sabotage it, this is not a technical problem. No technical solution will fix it. It mi

If somebody does not want a software system, or in some cases, wants to sabotage it, this is not a technical problem. No technical solution will fix it. It might be fixable, but not with a software update.

cjsuk 9y ago
Sometimes you have to update the people to make the software work. I’ve watched a company’s staff sabotage an ERP system because it made them more accountable.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
e1ven 9y ago
Agreed. Unfortunately, updating the way people look at things is a lot harder than updating code. It takes years of work to convince people to buy-in to things, and a lot of it is advertising and promoting, not just education and training. It's a lot tougher than just submitting a PR :/
soulbadguy 9y ago
Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux. Apple MACOS & IOS, android, even windows 8 and 10 did introduce radical new changes, it was a bumpy road, but at the end people did start using it. It is a technical problem, Linux on desktop is just worst than both windows and MACOS; Both in term of software available (can we stop pretending that libreoffice is even remotely comparable to MS office...), basic drivers and OS services (wifi etc...) and UI design
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  >Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux The long tail of software and that the alternatives are good enough. I happen to be a Linux guy, but when I bought my computer, it came with Windows. If I use it to browse the web, play games or type word documents, why should I switch? Back in the win95/98/3.1 days, Linux's main advantage was stability. How many old-timers spent hours working on a Doc or WordPerfect file, to lose it all because of a GPF? Linux was such a breath of fresh air back then. Honestly, the "year of the Linux desktop" ended when XP came out.
  - gmueckl 9y ago
    No, the year of the Linux desktop ended a few years later: - Laptops became hugely popular and Linux never was great at plug and play hardware handling. - PulseAudio was part of the fix that wasn't - KDE4 and Gnome 3 happened (even though the plasma desktop was stabilized soon, things like Akonadi and Nepomik have managed to destroy much of the appeal of the unique tight integration of KDE software) - systemd happened. Mentioning this will trigger rabid supporters among the HN crowd, but the fact remains that this is at least a PR disaster on all accounts. The end result of the changes of the last decade is that Linux installations have become extremely opaque even to experts while effectively staying just as brittle as before.
    - watwut 9y ago
      99% of desktop users never heard of systemd nor controversy around it. And if they did, they forget a day later.
      - gmueckl 9y ago
        Of course someone got triggered by the presence if the word "systemd". I am surprised that it didn't take longer. But that was not my point at all. The fact is that all attempts to fix the Linux user space have essentially failed to deliver. The additional complexity added over these years did effectively nothing to move the Linux desktop into the 21st century, let alone this decade. I was extremely hopeful around 2003 to 2005 that Linux might carve out a corner in the desktop market. Now I find myself pondering switching to Windows full time after dual booting for two decades.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
        "additional complexity" is the ticket. Linux Desktop tried so hard to chase some strawman of the "average user" over the past 2 decades, while at the same time keeping their identity as a unix system, that they ended up building a nightmarish Rube Goldberg machine that is completely opaque in its operation even to a lot of the people claiming to be experts in using it. They sacrificed "simple" on the altar of "easy" and, unsurprisingly, it didn't get them anywhere. Simple is easy to work with, and easy to reason about. That means that even when you screw up, it will be pretty obvious why, and when it breaks it will be pretty obvious to fix. It also usually means it'll be pretty flexible. DOS was simple, but not easy, for instance. Windows has been trending this way too. Of course, if you ask me, the Linux community always prefered complexity anyway. Take package managers: they only exist to manage complicated dependency relationships. Instead of asking why they have such complicated dependency relationships in their software, or why that causes so many problems for them, they instead wrote a package manager to handle the whole complicated mess; and that package manager was such a rousing success that no one ever wrote another one because it had so elegantly and completely solved the problem. Sigh
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
  To a certain extent, I think the lack of applications, driver compatibility, and "familiarity" are excuses trotted out by Linux Desktop evangelists. Don't get me wrong, they definitely are a problem, but they'd be solved problems if people actually wanted to work with a Linux Desktop. The thing is, people don't. I grew up in the 90s, and I was even a Linux and OSS evangelist during my stupid teenager years. I really wanted to make a Linux Desktop work. I still do want a viable OSS desktop. But what I found was that the community built up around Linux, and the Linux Desktop in particular, seems intent on making things suck as much as possible. I can hypothesize a wide variety of reasons why, and I suspect anyone who's spent a significant amount of time working with OSS communities can as well, but the upshot is that pretty much nothing they do is conducive to producing a good product. What's worse is that they largely refuse to recognize any problems they might actually have, technical or otherwise, preferring instead to believe they are a perfect beacon of The Way Things Should Be, that everyone else is doing it wrong, and blaming Windows's dominance for their failures.
  - bobajeff 9y ago
    The vocal response you get on the internet when you ask why any product is failing is usually some variation of: "It failed because the company/developers didn't do things I wanted!" However, I believe the truth is less subjective than that.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    I think you're sincere, but your post sounds like a pretty good troll. Lightly attacks a wide group of people while not being overly aggressive and doesn't actually make any concrete point (like point out those problems) so it's easy for others to read in it their own opinions and defend it. http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html
    - slededit 9y ago
      Not op but to bring this into concrete terms the multiple incompatible UI toolkits, and especially the GTK rewrites couldn't have helped. I remember first starting out trying to decide if I should use KDE or GTK. And this choice would affect how well your apps worked in ways that are totally non obvious if you aren't a UI programmer.
- MrFurious 9y ago
  The problem are videogames and MS Office. Nobody change OS if use it.
  - the_af 9y ago
    I play plenty of AAA games on Ubuntu (example: the latest Mad Max), so that's definitely not it. Also, a lot of computer users are not interested in games at all. You might have a point about MS Office.
    - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
      The issue is "the long tail". For example, if my favorite game (extra points if it's from 2000 and abandonware) doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? If my camera which I already own isn't on Linux, why should I switch? If I'm running an office and I suspect I'll need a Windows program in the future (almost guaranteed, if you want some off-cloud accounting or billing or business-logic software), why should I switch?
      - the_af 9y ago
        > if my favorite game [...] doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. This is not exclusively a problem for Linux either; it also happens to Mac users. Still, the Mac has many fans, right?
        greenhouse_gas 9y ago
        >That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. That's my point. For the "masses", there isn't much there (see how much they care about privacy), and something to lose.

cjsuk 9y ago

Sometimes you have to update the people to make the software work. I’ve watched a company’s staff sabotage an ERP system because it made them more accountable.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

e1ven 9y ago

Agreed. Unfortunately, updating the way people look at things is a lot harder than updating code. It takes years of work to convince people to buy-in to things, and a lot of it is advertising and promoting, not just education and training. It's a lot tougher than just submitting a PR :/

soulbadguy 9y ago

Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux. Apple MACOS & IOS, android, even windows 8 and 10 did introduce radical new changes, it was a bumpy road, but at the end people did start using it. It is a technical problem, Linux on desktop is just worst than both windows and MACOS; Both in term of software available (can we stop pretending that libreoffice is even remotely comparable to MS office...), basic drivers and OS services (wifi etc...) and UI design

greenhouse_gas 9y ago
>Yes, but at one point we need to ask why people don't want linux The long tail of software and that the alternatives are good enough. I happen to be a Linux guy, but when I bought my computer, it came with Windows. If I use it to browse the web, play games or type word documents, why should I switch? Back in the win95/98/3.1 days, Linux's main advantage was stability. How many old-timers spent hours working on a Doc or WordPerfect file, to lose it all because of a GPF? Linux was such a breath of fresh air back then. Honestly, the "year of the Linux desktop" ended when XP came out.
- gmueckl 9y ago
  No, the year of the Linux desktop ended a few years later: - Laptops became hugely popular and Linux never was great at plug and play hardware handling. - PulseAudio was part of the fix that wasn't - KDE4 and Gnome 3 happened (even though the plasma desktop was stabilized soon, things like Akonadi and Nepomik have managed to destroy much of the appeal of the unique tight integration of KDE software) - systemd happened. Mentioning this will trigger rabid supporters among the HN crowd, but the fact remains that this is at least a PR disaster on all accounts. The end result of the changes of the last decade is that Linux installations have become extremely opaque even to experts while effectively staying just as brittle as before.
  - watwut 9y ago
    99% of desktop users never heard of systemd nor controversy around it. And if they did, they forget a day later.
    - gmueckl 9y ago
      Of course someone got triggered by the presence if the word "systemd". I am surprised that it didn't take longer. But that was not my point at all. The fact is that all attempts to fix the Linux user space have essentially failed to deliver. The additional complexity added over these years did effectively nothing to move the Linux desktop into the 21st century, let alone this decade. I was extremely hopeful around 2003 to 2005 that Linux might carve out a corner in the desktop market. Now I find myself pondering switching to Windows full time after dual booting for two decades.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
        "additional complexity" is the ticket. Linux Desktop tried so hard to chase some strawman of the "average user" over the past 2 decades, while at the same time keeping their identity as a unix system, that they ended up building a nightmarish Rube Goldberg machine that is completely opaque in its operation even to a lot of the people claiming to be experts in using it. They sacrificed "simple" on the altar of "easy" and, unsurprisingly, it didn't get them anywhere. Simple is easy to work with, and easy to reason about. That means that even when you screw up, it will be pretty obvious why, and when it breaks it will be pretty obvious to fix. It also usually means it'll be pretty flexible. DOS was simple, but not easy, for instance. Windows has been trending this way too. Of course, if you ask me, the Linux community always prefered complexity anyway. Take package managers: they only exist to manage complicated dependency relationships. Instead of asking why they have such complicated dependency relationships in their software, or why that causes so many problems for them, they instead wrote a package manager to handle the whole complicated mess; and that package manager was such a rousing success that no one ever wrote another one because it had so elegantly and completely solved the problem. Sigh
AnIdiotOnTheNet 9y ago
To a certain extent, I think the lack of applications, driver compatibility, and "familiarity" are excuses trotted out by Linux Desktop evangelists. Don't get me wrong, they definitely are a problem, but they'd be solved problems if people actually wanted to work with a Linux Desktop. The thing is, people don't. I grew up in the 90s, and I was even a Linux and OSS evangelist during my stupid teenager years. I really wanted to make a Linux Desktop work. I still do want a viable OSS desktop. But what I found was that the community built up around Linux, and the Linux Desktop in particular, seems intent on making things suck as much as possible. I can hypothesize a wide variety of reasons why, and I suspect anyone who's spent a significant amount of time working with OSS communities can as well, but the upshot is that pretty much nothing they do is conducive to producing a good product. What's worse is that they largely refuse to recognize any problems they might actually have, technical or otherwise, preferring instead to believe they are a perfect beacon of The Way Things Should Be, that everyone else is doing it wrong, and blaming Windows's dominance for their failures.
- bobajeff 9y ago
  The vocal response you get on the internet when you ask why any product is failing is usually some variation of: "It failed because the company/developers didn't do things I wanted!" However, I believe the truth is less subjective than that.
- icebraining 9y ago
  I think you're sincere, but your post sounds like a pretty good troll. Lightly attacks a wide group of people while not being overly aggressive and doesn't actually make any concrete point (like point out those problems) so it's easy for others to read in it their own opinions and defend it. http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html http://www.urban75.com/Mag/troll.html
  - slededit 9y ago
    Not op but to bring this into concrete terms the multiple incompatible UI toolkits, and especially the GTK rewrites couldn't have helped. I remember first starting out trying to decide if I should use KDE or GTK. And this choice would affect how well your apps worked in ways that are totally non obvious if you aren't a UI programmer.
MrFurious 9y ago
The problem are videogames and MS Office. Nobody change OS if use it.
- the_af 9y ago
  I play plenty of AAA games on Ubuntu (example: the latest Mad Max), so that's definitely not it. Also, a lot of computer users are not interested in games at all. You might have a point about MS Office.
  - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
    The issue is "the long tail". For example, if my favorite game (extra points if it's from 2000 and abandonware) doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? If my camera which I already own isn't on Linux, why should I switch? If I'm running an office and I suspect I'll need a Windows program in the future (almost guaranteed, if you want some off-cloud accounting or billing or business-logic software), why should I switch?
    - the_af 9y ago
      > if my favorite game [...] doesn't work on Linux, why should I switch? That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. This is not exclusively a problem for Linux either; it also happens to Mac users. Still, the Mac has many fans, right?
      - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
        >That's easy: you should not switch to Linux because of games. You should switch because you like it better than Windows; if you also happen to like gaming, you will find plenty of games for Linux. Your favorite game might not be available, but then again, you should not switch (to any OS!) because of games. That's my point. For the "masses", there isn't much there (see how much they care about privacy), and something to lose.