Open Source is totally awesome
So, I recently got a new laptop for work. It's a suped up Lenovo Thinkpad. I dumped the copy of Windows XP that came with it and am running Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex." (Ubuntu is one of the more popular flavors of Linux, known for its usability.)
Going from a clean install of Ubuntu to a machine customized for your needs is an exhilarating experience, for a few reasons. First, everything is free. You realize there's something you need to do, but you don't have the application or libraries for it. So you go to your "Synaptic Package Manager," and just basically do an on-line search for the software that does what you need. Two clicks, and it's installed. You run the software and often things just work, immediately.
Another awesome thing is that a lot of these applications--especially the little stuff--are just written by some guy somewhere. So the documentation is dotted with Monty Python references, random quotes, sometimes sort of funnily worded descriptions. When investigating the software you're using, it's clear that it was written by a person, or many people, and that when you download their stuff you are treating yourself to the fruits of a community of developers that proud of their work and proud to have you use it so easily.
Strangely, this sense of being part of something larger is highlighted most when something doesn't work immediately. To the uninitiated, this can be scary and discouraging. But after this happens a few times, you discover the process for solving these problems, and it's simple. You copy whatever error message you're getting, with maybe a couple keywords about the context you're in, into Google, and you press Enter. Because every single time, you'll find that a hundred people have already had the same issue, found the answer, and have written blog posts about it or talked about it on forums. Again, this wide community of users and developers just spontaneously produces this documentation, for whatever reason. It's often a direct monetary incentive, but then that information is available to everyone on google. Often it's just somebody who figured out something cool and wants more hits to his blog.
I was psyched about open source stuff and its potential way before I had any direct experience with it, but the deeper I get into it the more rewarding it is. Even just as a user it carries a completely different phenomenology of consumption than proprietary software.
Going from a clean install of Ubuntu to a machine customized for your needs is an exhilarating experience, for a few reasons. First, everything is free. You realize there's something you need to do, but you don't have the application or libraries for it. So you go to your "Synaptic Package Manager," and just basically do an on-line search for the software that does what you need. Two clicks, and it's installed. You run the software and often things just work, immediately.
Another awesome thing is that a lot of these applications--especially the little stuff--are just written by some guy somewhere. So the documentation is dotted with Monty Python references, random quotes, sometimes sort of funnily worded descriptions. When investigating the software you're using, it's clear that it was written by a person, or many people, and that when you download their stuff you are treating yourself to the fruits of a community of developers that proud of their work and proud to have you use it so easily.
Strangely, this sense of being part of something larger is highlighted most when something doesn't work immediately. To the uninitiated, this can be scary and discouraging. But after this happens a few times, you discover the process for solving these problems, and it's simple. You copy whatever error message you're getting, with maybe a couple keywords about the context you're in, into Google, and you press Enter. Because every single time, you'll find that a hundred people have already had the same issue, found the answer, and have written blog posts about it or talked about it on forums. Again, this wide community of users and developers just spontaneously produces this documentation, for whatever reason. It's often a direct monetary incentive, but then that information is available to everyone on google. Often it's just somebody who figured out something cool and wants more hits to his blog.
I was psyched about open source stuff and its potential way before I had any direct experience with it, but the deeper I get into it the more rewarding it is. Even just as a user it carries a completely different phenomenology of consumption than proprietary software.