Bad Form
I was reading an article online today (http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199201179), and I was reminded of a question I'd heard some time ago.
You see, one of the things some people say about Linux in the face of points about why it is more efficient, more secure, more powerful, and better behaved than MS-Windows(tm) is that it's not as easy to use.
I think a large part of that is a misunderstanding in how people approach Linux, but the question was this:
You're the coach of a baseball team. You have two players who run the 50-yard dash in the same amount of time. One player has good form, and the other has bad form. Which player do you put on your team?
You put on the player with bad form. Once you've taught him good form, he'll blow the other player away in running.
I think it's the same with Linux.
Right now, Linux has some issues with usability (largely because its software tends to be written by people who needed it, so it's designed to do tasks the way the authors wanted them done. Usability for others is an afterthought with many packages (those developed by individual programmers rather than software teams like Mozilla)) and with hardware support (which is usually an issue of hardware companies not giving out the information needed to interface with their devices, requiring a reverse-engineering effort for the Linux community to cobble together something that works with finicky hardware). And yet, it is approaching Windows in terms of usability and hardware support.
So, what Linux is would more accurately be described as a baseball player with a sprained ankle or broken leg. If the guy with a broken leg is running at nearly the same speed as a healthy player, imagine what could be accomplished once his leg heals.
Programmers who think Linux is not friendly enough should do some development with the interfaces to make the programs more friendly while retaining their power and good behavior (i.e., not changing settings once the user has set them). In this way, everyone would benefit. See, the people who wrote the software you think isn't friendly often didn't write it to be friendly to random users. They wrote it to do a job, do it well, and do it the way they expected it to be done. The UI was secondary for them. If the UI is important to you, you can program a friendly UI that works with (or becomes part of a replacement for) the program that does what it does in a workable way. Different people feel different parts of the software picture are more important.
Hardware support will continue to be a problem as long as companies develop hardware and drivers for Microsoft but don't develop drivers for Linux or release the interface specs needed to write a 100% compatible driver. This is the fault of the hardware manufacturers, and those who continue to treat Linux like an unwanted stepchild will soon find that other companies have started playing nice with the FOSS community, and that they don't sell as many devices as they used to. The movement is growing, and we have long memories.
You see, one of the things some people say about Linux in the face of points about why it is more efficient, more secure, more powerful, and better behaved than MS-Windows(tm) is that it's not as easy to use.
I think a large part of that is a misunderstanding in how people approach Linux, but the question was this:
You're the coach of a baseball team. You have two players who run the 50-yard dash in the same amount of time. One player has good form, and the other has bad form. Which player do you put on your team?
You put on the player with bad form. Once you've taught him good form, he'll blow the other player away in running.
I think it's the same with Linux.
Right now, Linux has some issues with usability (largely because its software tends to be written by people who needed it, so it's designed to do tasks the way the authors wanted them done. Usability for others is an afterthought with many packages (those developed by individual programmers rather than software teams like Mozilla)) and with hardware support (which is usually an issue of hardware companies not giving out the information needed to interface with their devices, requiring a reverse-engineering effort for the Linux community to cobble together something that works with finicky hardware). And yet, it is approaching Windows in terms of usability and hardware support.
So, what Linux is would more accurately be described as a baseball player with a sprained ankle or broken leg. If the guy with a broken leg is running at nearly the same speed as a healthy player, imagine what could be accomplished once his leg heals.
Programmers who think Linux is not friendly enough should do some development with the interfaces to make the programs more friendly while retaining their power and good behavior (i.e., not changing settings once the user has set them). In this way, everyone would benefit. See, the people who wrote the software you think isn't friendly often didn't write it to be friendly to random users. They wrote it to do a job, do it well, and do it the way they expected it to be done. The UI was secondary for them. If the UI is important to you, you can program a friendly UI that works with (or becomes part of a replacement for) the program that does what it does in a workable way. Different people feel different parts of the software picture are more important.
Hardware support will continue to be a problem as long as companies develop hardware and drivers for Microsoft but don't develop drivers for Linux or release the interface specs needed to write a 100% compatible driver. This is the fault of the hardware manufacturers, and those who continue to treat Linux like an unwanted stepchild will soon find that other companies have started playing nice with the FOSS community, and that they don't sell as many devices as they used to. The movement is growing, and we have long memories.