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It's more than just Linus's experience with Pop OS. So many (consumer-focused) FOSS products have huge, obtuse quirks in them that prevent their widespread ado

It's more than just Linus's experience with Pop OS. So many (consumer-focused) FOSS products have huge, obtuse quirks in them that prevent their widespread adoption, and uber-tech-literate people tend to overlook this because they really want to believe that FOSS can succeed. In reality, a lot of these quirks come about because of the non-commercial nature of the projects[1]. When a business produces software, the aim is to get as many people as possible to use it. This means a smooth (enough) user experience or death. For software written by volunteers, the aim is to (generally) satisfy the intellectual curiosity of the people writing it. This means huge issues for users, and QA in basically all forms, are overlooked in favour of working on cool/interesting things for developers. [1] Yes, I know commercial FOSS exists. I run a reasonably large commercial FOSS project myself. However, the overwhelming majority of FOSS projects out there are volunteer-led and run.

bee_rider 5y ago
Who said free software was easy to use? It just reduces guesswork. It is often the case that precise tools both enable and require a little more understanding on the part of the users.
bigDinosaur 5y ago
While there's some truth here, you're underestimating the amount of great open source software that's easy to use. You just don't think of it, and it's likely heavily used by commercial companies. Also, terrible obtuse quirks are certainly not unique to FOSS products. Go ask someone who deals with, I don't know, the software used to run hospitals and healthcare systems (electronic health records, or EHR's) as but one example.
npteljes 5y ago
No. Widespread adoption is hindered of the status quo that Linux is not the default OS on the PC platform. If governments used Linux internally, mandated that schools teach Linux and Libreoffice, and the Windows bundling thing hadn't happen, and especially if all this happened 15 years ago, the landscape would be vastly different. Linux wouldn't have fewer quirks, maybe it would have more, but nevertheless people would use it because that would make the most sense to them. This is the only thing that matters, not user experience, not the goal of the software, but things that are orthogonal to the software: its integration into society.

bee_rider 5y ago

Who said free software was easy to use? It just reduces guesswork. It is often the case that precise tools both enable and require a little more understanding on the part of the users.

bigDinosaur 5y ago

While there's some truth here, you're underestimating the amount of great open source software that's easy to use. You just don't think of it, and it's likely heavily used by commercial companies. Also, terrible obtuse quirks are certainly not unique to FOSS products. Go ask someone who deals with, I don't know, the software used to run hospitals and healthcare systems (electronic health records, or EHR's) as but one example.

npteljes 5y ago

No. Widespread adoption is hindered of the status quo that Linux is not the default OS on the PC platform. If governments used Linux internally, mandated that schools teach Linux and Libreoffice, and the Windows bundling thing hadn't happen, and especially if all this happened 15 years ago, the landscape would be vastly different. Linux wouldn't have fewer quirks, maybe it would have more, but nevertheless people would use it because that would make the most sense to them. This is the only thing that matters, not user experience, not the goal of the software, but things that are orthogonal to the software: its integration into society.