Hi all,
Introduction: Ryan (rmull on IRC), recent graduate from BU where I
"led" the Linux Users Group for three years. The quotation marks are
necessary because we had very few meetings or activities. I'm a
five-year Gentoo user with a sprinkling of Debian and CentOS. I have
been exclusively non-Windows and MacOS for all five of these years.
Anyway, I'm here to be the devil's advocate. I am an embittered free
software advocate who has largely curtailed my evangelism due to a few
important notions:
1.) Most people do not like to be preached to
I am comfortable in my ways. If someone approaches me unsolicited and
begins telling me what I do is wrong and that I should change for the
better of everyone, how will I react? It doesn't help if the
representative is a member of a small yet fierce organization who has
a reputation for being on the fringe. I am going to dismiss their
preaching and convince myself that anyone who feels so strongly about
something as ordinary as browsing the web must be a little "off."
Agreed. Which is why if we want to be successful in this endeavor we have to come to the schools with an offer that is a lot better in the school's opinion than what they currently have. No cost is a big factor, but like point 6 says, it's sometimes not enough. We have to come to them with a sales pitch, not evangelism.
2.) Most people do not want to change
This is similar to the first notion. People adopt routines for
everything, even if the routine is simply to work around bugs in the
process on which they are working. The problem here is that often
people are perfectly happy with this. Change means that routines must
be broken, new (and sometimes difficult) concepts must be grasped, and
learning curves must be climbed. It is significantly less trouble to
just stick to your guns. LP is taking the right approach by hoping to
get free software into the hands of the younger generation, but adults
at the gateway must be convinced before they allow our efforts
through.
True, but these days, less changes in a switch from Windows to Linux for most non-technical users than you'd think. A lot of people run Firefox anyways, which is one of the biggest factors. These days, the non-tech crowd is all about web-access. Everything important is a web service. I'm seeing more and more people with VLC, mostly because it automates the process of dealing with codecs by replacing it with one of "it can already play everything, it doesn't need additions". I see Audacity used all over the place, and OpenOffice is really becoming a contender in the office software market (is it really part of the "market" if it's free?). In short, while there is a lot of change involved, there's much less than there once might have been, and users who only use the desktop for their Farmville won't notice a difference.
3.) Most people do what they perceive will yield practical benefits
over the long term
The business I work for uses Microsoft products. Everyone uses Outlook
to sync calendars. I'll be adrift in a sea of proprietary software and
I'll get fired for dissension. Alternatively: The business I want to
work for is a Microsoft shop. I need to know how to use their products
so that I can get hired.
This point I have no counter to, other than to say that we might be able to adjust that long term view by early exposure to free software.
4.) Most people don't care
This intersects a bit with Notion 3. The vast majority of computer
users are primarily interested in the freedom to sit in their chair
and surf Farmville, not the freedom of their software. Apple has seen,
in the last number of years, an explosion of popularity that can be
attributed to this fact. Push button, view Facebook. No viruses to
impede your status updates. Sold! These kinds of people (again, the
majority) have no use for source code, configuration files, or
software licenses. They don't factor philosophy into their computing
decisions or purchases.
Again, not much I can do to counter this point, but we might be able to harness that apathy by early exposure.
5.) It's hard to compete with ubiquity
The world runs on Windows. Sure, you could point me to the Top500
stats or the Apache numbers, but the truth is that there are far more
clients than servers. If I get a computer, I want it to "just work"
with my friends', and I don't want to have to install some
compatibility layer that requires me to click more buttons or endure
degraded performance.
It's this point that I have a hard time really agreeing with. While it might be true that the majority of people use Windows, I can't agree with the opinion that that makes those who don't sequestered. We have Samba, we have ntfs-3g, we have hfsplus-tools, we have ssh, we have ftp, we even have fuse. In fact for the longest time, if I wanted to get a mac to talk to a windows machine, it was much easier to run them both through a *nix box. On my laptop right now (Ubuntu 10.04), I can plug anything in, and talk to it. I can access web drives more easily, and nautilus even has built in support for sshfs, something I had to install explicitly to get working on a mac, and which is basically impossible on a windows machine. I'm a firm believer of the fact that its easier to communicate between linux and windows, or linux and mac than it is between windows and mac.
6.) Sometimes the price point is a non-issue
In the business world, people love to be non-accountable. Proprietary
software allows the support desk to just shrug their shoulders and
say, "Oh, that's a known bug, we're waiting for a fix from the vendor"
rather than actually trying to dig into the code (which they don't
have in the first place). If you pay for a license, you get to point
your finger to the software house when your customers complain, and
for this, businesses are willing to pay. Not to mention you get access
to a fine subcontinent's-worth of always-on phone support if something
goes wrong. Moving away from business, price point is still a
non-issue if you consider all the student discounts that Microsoft and
Apple are raining down upon us. I was granted access to MSDNAA, where
I could have my pick of premium Microsoft offerings for free. How
great is that?
Yes. This is a failing, but at the same time, if we go at it with a sales pitch, and put our group or something similar up as a support solution, we can also use the same excuse if needed. If there's still a problem, we have an amazing community willing to help solve problems.
And, worst case scenario, there are always virtual machines.
Ultimately, when all has been said, it's a lot easier just to maintain
a small inbred group in the midst of the infinite pastures of
indifference. We can all shake hands and pat backs when the occasional
individual gets "converted," but we're not making inroads into the
consumer market. This has a lot to do with money, with the attitude of
the community, with the quality of support, and so on, all of which
deserve rantings of their own...
Let me finish up with a question: How do you all continue to turn your
gaze outward with optimism, rather than falling back to a community in
which you can expect and receive support? Is what we need really
another small and loosely-joined group with intent to bring about
change? It's so easy to talk, but it's a lot harder to find a willing
audience. Not everyone is a programmer who can share your frustration.
I'm optimistic because I've seen it work. I know that there is a better way than the corporate driven monopoly, and I've seen the trend be broken. Of course, I'm also a dreamer. And I dream of a world where information is free like the wind
.Anyway, now that I've revealed my pessimism, I do sincerely hope that
the free software ideal is propagated. Everyone would be the better
for it. I'll be happy to help out where possible.
Ryan
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