Lessons Proprietary Software Can Teach Open Source 359
cdlu writes "Kris Shaffer at Newsforge argues that just because software is open source doesn't mean it should be unpopular. What lessons, he asks, can open source projects learn from popular proprietary software?" From the article: "In the absence of a monopoly, there are three traits that are likely to make an application popular: it is cool or attractive in some way, it provides easy entry, and it is addictive. Barring these things, most average users will stick with the status quo. In fact, many users never use a program on their computer that did not come pre-installed. However, by creating an attractive, easy to set up, addictive application, a developer can motivate the average user to break this barrier and try something new. And several such applications can generate strong popular interest in the open source movement in general."
Yeah, Right (Score:3, Insightful)
Killer App (Score:5, Insightful)
Get the job done. (Score:5, Insightful)
All the rest is just FUDD that programmers worry about. Your common user doesn't much care. If both IE and Firefox were on every computer we'd see people use the one that got the job done.
Boot from CD Porn distro (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a boot from CD Linux, set up with all the links, video codecs and the like to let you put it in, boot and wank.
No traces left behind on the hard drive, no audit trails. If it spoofs a MAC address (A required feature) you can even use it on many corporate networks and no one will be table to trace it to you without puring over router logs.
Even better, make it a two part ion CD. One "regular" partition with something like documentation or even a backup of the user's data. The other is the bootable partition. A Linux partition of course, EXT3 or the like, so it can't be read from stock Windows. Design it so it looks like an Apple partition if Windows tries to get at it.
Instant software popularity.
Tabbed browsing (Score:3, Insightful)
User friendly (Score:5, Insightful)
Most proprietary software is rigorously tested on the lamen to see how well he/she can negotiate around it. Where as all but the most popular open source projects, frankly, don't give a shit.
The complaint has been around since the beginning of time, but I still haven't seen much headway.
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The usual question: why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Open source software tends to be powerful and arcane because the developers mainly benefit from having the software to use themselves and by attracting other deeply involved people to improve the software. It doesn't pay at all to make it friendly and attract useless users.
People mostly do things for their own benefit, as they should. I don't think it's good to encourage decent people to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of people who give nothing back. That just leeches the resources of decent, generous people and gives more power to the other sort.
If you want to sacrifice your luxuries for charity, go ahead, but don't sacrifice your living and weaken yourself to the point where you have to work at some job beneath your talents just to support your real work.
The biggest advantage that the iLife applications (Score:1, Insightful)
rewire not the best example (Score:3, Insightful)
its a little ironic that he chose ReWire as an example of a proprietary plugin format as an case of "good stuff from the proprietary world". ironic because
What lessons indeed! (Score:4, Insightful)
How about that marketing isn't free? Commercials, magazine ads, favorable "reviews" all cost money.
Word of mouth (keyboard) works for geeks because we know how to research products, read reviews, and of course read
XP Import wizard (Score:4, Insightful)
XP has an app that will package your computer up and transfer it to another. I think if there was a way that we could attach linux to the other side (Without XP knowing it was actually talkign to a linux box) that would go a long way to easing the transition.
I prefer KDE, but I would be interested in knowing if there is one for GNOME too.
Thanks.
Re:Or it could just be useful (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Get the job done. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a programmer, and especially on a volunteer project, it's very easy to get caught up with creating an elegant algorithm and then writing your application around that. Unfortunately what might seem elegant from a programming point of view is often not intuitive from an end user's perspective and this is where many open source applications suffer.
Re:OSS fallicy number 1 (Score:2, Insightful)
My grandfather uses Windows, MS Office and AOL because they were on the computer when he got it. The man knows how to take apart a tank, but has trouble learning how to use new programs and will stick with the first application he's presented with.
When I set my parents up with gaim, they kept asking "so I don't have AIM anymore? Most novice-moderate users mistake what a program does with the program itself. They think Windows=computer, Word=word proccessing, Excel=spreadsheet, AOL Instant Messenger = IM, Quicken= finance manager, etc.
Re:Drug Analogy? (Score:3, Insightful)
I play games a lot, but I've never lost sleep over not getting to play one. I've stayed up all night and not realized it on multiple occasions, though.
Re:Boot from CD Porn distro (Score:3, Insightful)
But a self-encrypted CD and read-only OS really is (almost) foolproof. The only thing you'd need to worry about after this is van Eck radiation, hardware keyloggers, and, of course, the strength of your encryption algorithm/passphrase.
Re:Marketing and Religion. (Score:2, Insightful)
Forgot an important one... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bonzi buddy? (Score:1, Insightful)
What about Bonzi buddy and Gator? I've seen plenty of average users with those!
Re:Sweet Jesus (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:True. (Score:2, Insightful)
The users don't care about what you care about.
The users don't think the way you do.
The users don't act the way you expect them to.
Every individual user will have their own take on "how it should be done". If your app doesn't take that into consideration, it will be dropped as "too hard to use" no matter how hard you worked on it or what cool functionality it gives.
The interface design, GUI or CLI, needs to have the users' point of view firmly in mind or adoption will be low.
Re:marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
Why it's this way. (Score:5, Insightful)
Kris brings up iLife. iLife is more than just an application, it's a service. If "Bob" were to write an application like iLife, he would be required to offer services like iTunes. Well, "Bob" doesn't have financial backing to employ services like that.
My point is that when you write something like iLife, you must start from the beginning with the plan of these being used by thousands of people and you must already have the resources to develop something like this. iLife wasn't created from the Wits of one man. There was a large collaboration before any real work (and money for the matter) went into such an application.
Ask Joe User (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, (some) Linux Gurus have forgotten the meaning of usability. Accustomed to the intrincated labyrinths of the command line, they just don't care to make something more user friendly (particularly the installations).
It's like moving from the city (with all comodities) to the jungle. Unfortunately, developers don't have a team of "joe user" testers. And sometimes they ABHOR them. It's not rare (at least for me) that you encounter a FOSS project whose author says: "Want this feature? Implement it yourself". However, the developer doesn't help AT ALL so you can incorporate those features.
I remember a FOSS GUI/language (whose name I shall not dare utter in public) where I wasn't given the least of support. The devs never bothered to make a simple class diagram, or documentation so I could help doing the development in windows. It's been 6 years, and only in the last months it got out of "pre-beta".
And it's worse when your requests get denied "by principle". i.e. (from another FOSS project)
"Why can't I just click on the form and add the control? Why do I have to select the stupid sizer from the object tree? Can't you make this process transparent?" Then expect a long philosophical discussion on why you can't do something that you're always used to (VB, Delphi, etc).
Sincerely, it's hard when geniuses take the control over the USABILITY DESIGN of their software. They're not hired to make something look or feel right, they do as they please.
Or simply they like some existing FOSS that isn't user friendly but more popular, and never started clones that would rock
i.e. have you seen Linux ports (clones) of:
- Photoshop (GIMP is better, we don't use photocrap)
- irfanview (what?)
- Visual Basic (real programmers use python/c++ / don't use GUIs / program using the API themselves / insert your stupid excuse here)
In general, I can give a simple phrase for FOSS programmers to remember:
"The user (customer) is always right". Trust me, it'll make your program much more popular than it is now.
Re:Marketing and Religion. (Score:1, Insightful)
You're saying open source stands for "no cuties for the oldies", perpetual retreat, and "tramp, tramp, bang, bang" is the highest form of enlightenment?
Are you an anti-antizealot?
But - The Buddha further advises old men not to have young wives as the old and young are unlikely to be compatible, which can create undue problems, disharmony and downfall (Parabhava Sutta).
Buddhism retreated from India, China, Vietnam, and other countries rather than involve its believers in armed struggles to preserve itself. Again, this illustrates the strengths and the weaknesses of Buddhism.
Particularly uncomfortable for me was the conduct of Harada Daiun Sogaku, well-known in the West due to Kapleau's influential The Three Pillars of Zen, and my own Dharma great-grandfather. In 1934 he recommended implementing fascist politics while criticizing education for making people shallow and "cosmopolitan minded". In 1939 he described the oneness of Zen and war: "[If ordered to] march: tramp tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is the manifestation of the highest Wisdom [of Enlightenment]. The unity of Zen and war of which I speak extends to the farthest reaches of the holy war [now under way]"
Stop focusing on Open Source (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:marketing (Score:1, Insightful)
Kickbacks. Most of the people making decisions are getting kickbacks either in the form of chachkis (open source could emulate this) or, for larger purchases, as a direct cash bribe (much harder for a not-for-profit outfit to copy). This is why sales and marketing budgets are as high as they are...
Re:Flaimbait and Troll (Score:1, Insightful)
Personally, I like choosing whether to give things to Cthulhu, Shiva and Ra, depending on my mood.
Too many people have a hard time reconciling the harsh, angry, judgemental god of Abraham's time (whichever you want to call it) with other religious tenets in the particular faith which say the exact opposite.
Like, calling oneself a Christian, but being all "old testament" about one's views on the world.
Re:Too Funny (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Get the job done. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:marketing (Score:4, Insightful)
That's hilarious. If they believe this, have them read through the EULA they probably don't know about. When has Microsoft, or ANY mass-market software company, EVER been held "accountable" for something that went wrong? Generally, that just doesn't happen.
Re:Ask Joe User (Score:3, Insightful)
Because, that's the population that will use your software. Whether you like it or not.
My own experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Contrast that to the fantastic experience I had with BeOS 5 Personal Edition. It installed in under five minutes. Set up all my hardware, including a TV card. For any task I wanted, I could simply go to bebits.com and get what I needed. It wasn't too long that I dumped Windows completely and used Be exclusively. If Be hadn't folded, I'd probably still be using BeOS to this day. For the first time in my life I knew what it felt like to be a mac-head. I truly loved BeOS on an emotional level.
I can't help but think that because BeOS had a single company behind it, that switching was made much easier. While open source is great for getting something to work. Proprietary software is great for making the process easy and pleasurable. (Of course Microsoft is changing that rule via Product Activation. Calling up and asking permission to change your hardware is about as frustrating an experience as you can get.)
in other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
"How will this software get my users laid [jwz.org]" should be on the minds of anyone writing social software (and these days, almost all software is social software).
Re:marketing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Marketing and Religion. (Score:3, Insightful)
And closed source is like Christianity only in the sense that any large heirarchical organization, be it government, business, or religion, resembles another. Furthermore, there is plenty of money (in the billions) riding on Linux, from giant companies such as IBM and Novell. Large-scale users sign support agreements that are similar in nature to licensing agreements from Microsoft. The individual home user is still small potatoes to Linux, and my personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with the fact that Linux is non-proprietary.
To digress, you seem to confuse Christianity with Catholicism, whereas the latter is a subset of the former. One may as well argue that Buddhism is a violent religion because of the actions of the Shinto Japanese in WW2. In fact, my religion [anglican.ca] allows priests to marry, ordains women, and blesses gay unions. And let's not forget that Christianity has given the world some of its greatest freedom fighters and poverty advocates, from St Francis of Assisi, to Martin Luther King Jr, to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to Mother Teresa.
Re:Get the job done. (Score:4, Insightful)