athloi's Journal: What F/OSS needs to move forward

I use both free software and proprietary software, and have done so since the early 1980s.

I do not trust freetardware, as FSJ would call it, because so much of it is not created from the hacker mentality but from a corporate-style mentality. People want to claim holiness, hipness or a future career reference from it.

When I think back over the best software I've used, much of it has been from each of the three categories: shareware/freeware, proprietary, and open source/free open source. I don't believe in the division of the world into "open source" and "closed source," because some of the best innovation has been closed source.

At the end of the day, the quality of the software depends on the team that puts it together and how well-designed it is. The reason I use Windows professionally is that it reaches my audience. Most people use Windows because it installs on anything, getting software (even free software) working on it is easy and fast, and there's a huge installed user base that doesn't accuse you of being a n00b if you don't know where the printer driver control panel (or .INI) is.

One reason many of us view the Linux community as a failure is that it has not grasped what desktop users want, and instead of working to make what they use better, it has created an inferior alternative. OpenOffice is inferior in function to Microsoft Office. I realize that's not Politically Correct to say but it's the truth, and yes I've used both extensively.

I use Linux for many of the servers I install, when FreeBSD is not available, but it is of limited use on the desktop. Most of the FOSS software is not so good, or buggy, and support doesn't exist, which can make it MORE expensive than buying $500 of Microsoft. I like Linux. But unlike the F/OSS community, I'm a realist and I use the tool that fits the task.

Buggy software, or unsupported software, can take something precious from your home life or business: Time. If you install OpenOffice, and find out after three days of frantic Googling that it cannot do what you need, that's three days you don't get back. If you earn $200 a day, and Microsoft Office can do what you need or you can find out on day one that it cannot, it might well be cheaper to use Microsoft Office. F/OSS developers often want to produce free software, usually a clone of an established package like Office, and not support the rest of the software business, like support and quality documentation.

If F/OSS developers want to gain more prominence, they should stop coding for the sake of their own egos, and start coding for the end user. The best software is designed for user needs first, and secondarily to be convenient or image enhancing for developers. I think most of us out here in the "real world" are not against F/OSS, but we need to see signs of recognition of reality from the community and its products before we're willing to let them near our lives or businesses.

Posted in Dwight Silverman's blog