Scoble’s Link Blog

http://krazyyak.com/blog/archive/2005/04/05/869.aspx

Weblog: Pragmatic Entropy
Source: Linux in the real world.
Link: http://krazyyak.com/blog/archive/2005/04/05/869.aspx

When Redhat Linux went public, it was the nadir of the .com heyday. People were proclaiming that Microsoft’s domination of everything was on the way out and that Linux would take over the computing world.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Well, RHAT lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 90%+ of its value, and Microsoft hasn’t really lost any significant market share.

So what exactly happened? Was it some sinister Microsoft plot to crush another competitor? Or was it something a bit more mundane? I wrote out my thoughts on Open Source Software (OSS) recently, and noticeably absent was Linux. I did this because I wanted to look at it with more depth than just a bullet point and a paragraph.

Linux has definitely made an impact in the server market. The same, however, cannot be said about the desktop/home user. Even in the workplace, its adoption has been less than stellar. Every year since that fateful 1999 IPO, Linux nerds have proclaimed that this year was the year for Linux on the desktop. That, along with me implementing a regular exercise schedule, has never materialized. At last year’s count, it only captured 3%, even less than Apple. You would think that something that doesn’t cost anything would take a bigger chunk out of the Microsoft “monopoly.”¹

I think the reasons for all this are similar to OSS’s frustrating usability. A web server doesn’t necessarily need a fancy interface. It just needs to sit in a datacenter and serve up web pages. The people who maintain it are not Mom and Dad; they are IT staffs who generally prefer the command line anyway (freaks). However, at home, it’s a whole other ballgame. To over generalize the problem, if Grandma is trying to check her email and has to reconfigure the network card driver, her head will explode.

I could go into great length about the usability of Linux, but I would just end up parroting most of my last article, and the million other things that have already been said. The fact of the matter is that people will simply not switch from Product A unless Product B offers them a significant change for the better. Technically, Google is just another search engine, and when it hit the mainstream it was perceived as a grain of sand on the beach. But, people started using it as their main search engine because it was significantly faster, returned better results, and didn’t have annoying ads plastered everywhere. Nowadays, MSN’s search is arguably better than Google, yet Google remains dominant. Why? Because MSN is only marginally better, and people just don’t change habits for a marginal increase. MiniDiscs failed to kill the CD (at least in the < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />US) because they didn’t offer a net improvement. Same thing with Laserdisc; the picture quality may have been a little better than VHS, but they were unwieldy. DVD succeeded because it the picture, sound, and storage were considerably better, despite being prone to scratches.

The biggest challenge in switching is learning a new thing. If the only cars you have driven have had automatic transmissions, you will probably be hesitant to switch to a manual, even though they are generally cheaper (there’s the car analogy again). The Linux desktop seems to try its darndest to mimic a Windows desktop. I imagine the reasoning behind this is that they are trying to present an environment in which users are already familiar. The problem is that the environment looks similar, but is not an exact replica and cause frustrations when the “little” details aren’t where they should be. This is especially true with my favorite target, The Gimp. Sure, it looks like Photoshop, but if you press ‘Z’ expecting to get the zoom control, you get something completely different. It takes time and effort to completely adjust to a new system, and most people simply do not want to go through with that just to be rid of Microsoft.

In my opinion the most annoying aspect of Linux is not Linux itself, but its users. It has always been cool to rebel against the Man, so being a Linux user is something that carries with it a certain attitude. The prevailing mood is something along the lines of I-am-holier-than-thou-for-I-am-able-to-compile-my-kernel. They mostly hang out on IRC and talk about their plans to conquer the world and how much Microsoft sucks. Trying to hold a reasonable conversation with people like this is akin to convincing the 12th century scientists that the world is in fact, round. Mindless zealots for any cause are useless, and in fact can hurt that cause’s ultimate purpose. They preclude newbie from asking newbie questions (Read the FAQ and stop bothering us!); hijack well meaning conversations into religious flame wars (Microsoft? More like Micro$oft am I right?), and pontificate over and over again about how much better their viewpoint is. For a good time², read the comments on Slashdot to see this all in action.

The future does not be so dark for Linux though. I really like the idea behind things like Ubuntu. The concept is that you just pop a CD in and reboot. The computer will create a RAM drive and run a full fledged Linux install off of that, no installation and its gone when you reboot again (without the CD). This helps take care of the installation mess described above. Usability is a different mountain to climb, but hey this is a step.

1. I use the term monopoly to show emphasis, I really don’t think Microsoft has a complete monopoly on the desktop.

2. Actually don’t. The more I try to read Slashdot, the more it makes me want to hurt myself. I seriously don’t know why I even bother anymore.

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