Re: [tlug] How to Push Linux! .......................

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Lyle" == Lyle Saxon <Lyle> writes:

    Lyle> Jim wrote:

    >> _Listen_ to your friends.

    Lyle> But if I listened to them, I would toss my L-boxes out the
    Lyle> window and rush to the nearest high-priced electronics store
    Lyle> and buy a new W-box!

Really?  Then you haven't yet learned to be free.  (^^;;

The main problem that "open source" is intended to solve is the
deafness of free software fanatics ("FSFers").

(1) For most people, computers are _not_ an important part of their
consciousness.  They're just another tool, with useful magical
behavior like toasters and TVs (though more useful and less magical
than a bong).  Not to mention that 8 in 10 of those alive today will
never touch a computer.  Indeed, this is sad, but it's a fact of life.

(2) Even for geeks, _most_ of their software should be neither seen
nor heard; it should just work.  Now, y'all saw my little verbal
wrestling match with Josh regarding Gentoo installation.  That's the
way these things _should_ work.  (Well, Josh was a little bit generous
about saying he'd push something through himself; that's above and
beyond.)  Now, here's a very similar conversation regarding
DarwinPorts:

    http://bugzilla.opendarwin.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7024

This is all too common an attitude.  "User expectations don't matter,
and I'm [the maintainer] too busy to properly document anything I
already know."  But *I* [the bug reporter] can't do the work; I do not
understand what the authors of the tool want it to do!  (And
definitely don't sympathize!)  I'm not sure at this point whether I'll
ditch DarwinPorts (probably for pkgsrc) or not, but I no longer feel
any loyalty at all to the project.

(3) Linus for years used PowerPoint for his presentations (and
possibly still does, for all I know; neither MagicPoint nor UltraPoint
is terribly exciting, even several years later).  I still use Windows
occasionally for OCR, and of course I stick with the Sharp ROM on my
Zaurus for the pen-based kanji entry.  These aren't any big deal, but
what happened with Bitkeeper is.

I suppose everybody knows that Bitkeeper is a proprietary product that
blows all free software SCMs away, but (until last April) the vendor
allowed free software projects (and specifically the Linux kernel) to
use it for free (as in "what the beer at nomikais is not").  However,
the FSFers on lkml gave Bitmover hell, and eventually Andrew Tridgell
(of Samba and rsync fame) blew up the already sabotaged relationship
by publically attempting to reverse engineer the product.  This filled
the FSFers with glee; now Linus would sanctify one of the free SCMs.
But it wasn't to be.

Subversion never made a bid on the kernel repository; they simply
weren't in the running, and they knew it.  But all of the "modern"
(ie, distributed) systems lobbied Linus or his lieutenants: Arch
(Andrea Archangeli used it for about 6 months), Darcs (Cox tried it),
Monotone, and a couple more obscure ones.  But when Linus said "I need
speed, speed, and more speed, and these features", the maintainers all
said "no you don't, do it this way."  And Linus said, "it'll be faster
to write my own" ... and he did.  The sad thing is that git does what
Linus needs, no less ... and no more.

The Subversion developers are pros.  They listen to their customers,
and they have delivered.  They listened to Linus, too, and though they
didn't like what he was saying, they didn't try to deny or weasel
around it.  Darcs didn't actually care (they didn't, and still don't,
know how to scale to XEmacs size, let alone to the size of the kernel
project), but the Arch people, who actually did have something
resembling a product about 18 months before the s--t hit the fan at
Bitmover, never did get their act together to produce something that
would work the way Linus had come to expect his SCM to work.  Monotone
and Mercurial missed the boat; I don't know whether they were running
up the gangway or bonging on the beach, but anyway they didn't have a
real shot, either.

And none of them will, in the foreseeable future.  Darcs now has a git
backend, and Arch v2 (which is in post-vapor pre-alpha state at this
point) is a layer on top of git.  But Linus doesn't need what they can
do; from his point of view, the extra functionality is just a place
where bugs can fester.  So neither of those will be anointed by the
kernel community in the near future.

What does this have to do with PowerPoint?  Simply this: there are a
lot of really smart people working in open source who prefer open
source for all the usual reasons, but won't hesitate to use a product
that works if the free software doesn't.  And if the proprietary
product goes away?  Well, they can build their own in real time.  And
the FSFers don't even listen to _them_!

But you know, as much as I respect Linus, I think people like Bruno's
father should be listened to just as much.

This is something that Microsoft, in fact, understands.  That's not to
say that Microsoft products aren't buggy as hell, a malignant
monopolistic tumor on the industry, and an attractive nuisance.  And
of course being on hold on a tollfree line is just as frustrating as
on a normal line, only cheaper.  But their typical customer can
maintain his illusion of working with a toaster on steroids, and
that's why 90% of the market continues to put up with it.  It delivers
what the paying customers think that they want, as a fraction of what
they think is possible.  Microsoft listens where it affects their
bottom line.

Or, as Jim said, "_Listen_ to your friends."  Find out what they think
they need, and point out how free software can serve those needs.
Help them to understand that there are other ways to do things, and
that computers have capabilities that _nobody_ is serving yet.  This
is a long-run project; it takes a while for the implications to sink
in.  As they do, you and your friends will discover more needs that
free software can serve.

-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.