I need help (Group therapy)

[haakin]

Hello,

I need help.

I need some support.

Lately I'm experiencing one worringly lack of faith in Free Software. I mean I still believe in it but I'm starting to use more and more propietary software. For example, instead of doing my presentations in OOo or Kpresenter, I'm using Keynote. I'm too tired of waiting the next version expecting that it will be stable (Kpresenter) or it will be less ugly and more easy to use (OOo). In the Mac everything works and the Keynote presentations look much better than in Linux. I'm begining to think to buy a Mac mini for my office after using Linux as primaty OS since 2002.

In the Linux desktop more or less everything works but it lacks some degree of polishing. I think that the 95% of the work is done. The undone 5% is the "Beauty (and finesse) is a feature" part. Maybe KDE 4 or the next big release of Gnome will solve it but I think I'm too tired of waiting.

I remember how the things were some years ago and I don't understand why I'm so exhausted. Four years ago, I had to edit fstab everytime I wanted to use my USB drive! Now I only need to connect and it works. The community is great, the Free software concept is admirable, and there are some technical achivements amazing (like the concept of self-updating distro). But that never-done 5% and the fact that most of the Free Software I use is available for Macs is putting me away form Linux. And I feel sad for that.

Thanks for reading,

Javier

[mrben]

Apple-using freedom hater!

Personally, I look back on the last 5 years of development, and I _know_ that FLOSS is catching up, and will overtake, proprietary software soon.

[Aq]

Lately I'm experiencing one worringly lack of faith in Free Software. I mean I still believe in it but I'm starting to use more and more propietary software. For example, instead of doing my presentations in OOo or Kpresenter, I'm using Keynote. I'm too tired of waiting the next version expecting that it will be stable (Kpresenter) or it will be less ugly and more easy to use (OOo). In the Mac everything works and the Keynote presentations look much better than in Linux. I'm begining to think to buy a Mac mini for my office after using Linux as primaty OS since 2002.

In the Linux desktop more or less everything works but it lacks some degree of polishing. I think that the 95% of the work is done. The undone 5% is the "Beauty (and finesse) is a feature" part. Maybe KDE 4 or the next big release of Gnome will solve it but I think I'm too tired of waiting.

I completely understand. And I largely agree with you. Much as the free desktop is a superb technical achievement, there are so many little parts that are causing me pain. What keeps me sticking with it is my faith in the idea that Free Software is the right approach. Of course, most people don't feel as strongly about that as I do, and in fact most people call me a zealot and would presumably prefer it if I was "pragmatic" and started using Keynote instead.

I have no "magic bullet" answer here. There are lots of things that I do that are better than proprietary desktops; it's hugely easy to install new programs, I never get nag screens or "reduced" versions of software, I never have to think about viruses, I'm running 64-bit computing (which is faster, and is the future) on a computer of my choice without problems, it's easy to create little scripts that do small bits of work that I need doing, I feel happy in my head that I'm using open source software and that that's a good thing. Essentially, you have to weigh the enjoyment you get from the free desktop (and one of those enjoying factors is precisely that it is free) against the enjoyment you'd get from a proprietary desktop (where a factor against it would hopefully be that you think it's a little bit bad to be using all proprietary software), and see what comes out on top. It makes me sad that we're at that point, but that's not your fault, it's mine as a free software developer for not making it better for you.

[haakin]

Apple-using freedom hater!

Very funny.

I'm not sarcastic here. I really found it funny.

Personally, I look back on the last 5 years of development, and I _know_ that FLOSS is catching up, and will overtake, proprietary software soon.

Two years ago I would agreed with you 100%, but now I'm not so sure. The feeling that nothing is finished in FLOSS is eroding my faith. Almost every Free piece of software feels like a work in progress. I mean, I know that Keynote is not a finished program. It lacks some features, that I'm sure they will be included in future versions, but it feels like a finished product. I'm not sure I'm very clear here (Damn English!). All the corners are polished.

Of course, most people don't feel as strongly about that as I do, and in fact most people call me a zealot and would presumably prefer it if I was "pragmatic" and started using Keynote instead.

For years I've been using OOo and more exotic combinations to prepare my presentations. Life wasn't easy but it was a price I was ready to pay for my Freedom. Lately the price is getting too high for me. I know that the fact is that the price is getting lower with every version, it's me.

There are lots of things that I do that are better than proprietary desktops; it's hugely easy to install new programs, I never get nag screens or "reduced" versions of software, I never have to think about viruses, I'm running 64-bit computing (which is faster, and is the future) on a computer of my choice without problems, it's easy to create little scripts that do small bits of work that I need doing, I feel happy in my head that I'm using open source software and that that's a good thing.

The problem is that I could get almost all of these advantages using a Mac, except maybe the most important one: "I feel happy in my head that I'm using open source software and that that's a good thing."

It makes me sad that we're at that point, but that's not your fault, it's mine as a free software developer for not making it better for you.

Do not feel sad! The problem is that polishing details is sooo expensive. You know, the devil is in the details.

Javier

[Aq]

There are lots of things that I do that are better than proprietary desktops; it's hugely easy to install new programs, I never get nag screens or "reduced" versions of software, I never have to think about viruses, I'm running 64-bit computing (which is faster, and is the future) on a computer of my choice without problems, it's easy to create little scripts that do small bits of work that I need doing, I feel happy in my head that I'm using open source software and that that's a good thing.

The problem is that I could get almost all of these advantages using a Mac, except maybe the most important one: "I feel happy in my head that I'm using open source software and that that's a good thing."

You could indeed. That's what I meant about how you have to work out what the pure value of freedom means to you. The issue there is that if you say that you believe that freedom is truly more important than the other stuff, then you're not being pragmatic (by definition!) and people will call you a zealot. Welcome to the free software community.

[wackywim]

Some 'gospel' to help you through your crisis of faith

It's pure idiocy to chip away at matching Windows or Mac feature-for-feature, hoping to get from 90% of the feature matrix to 95%, wishfully thinking that will matter. "Linux will be ready for the desktop when these 5 pet peeves are fixed" magazine articles drive me nuts, because they assume such a terrible slug-out-the-feature-matrix strategy. Letting the incumbent define the playing field is suicide.

-- [url=log.ometer.com]Havoc Pennington[/url]

[jono]

I think it can be difficult at times, and we all face moments when we lack faith, particularly when the mechanics of the system seem to confuse the core aims and goals. I think the key thing to remember is that fundamentally, Open Source provides huge opportunity for us to over-take - our primary limitation is the number of contributors that we have, and if you just look at the growth of the Linux desktop in the last 10 years, I think it is safe to say that the rate of growth has been hugely impressive - we *are* kicking arse, but there is a lot of arse to kick and only a limited number of boots.

We *will* get there, and it will take time, but every single day brings us a step closer, and every day thousands of contributors get out of bed with the same core vision - I think thats pretty stunning, and being part of it is pretty inspiring.

[QuantumG]

In regards to rate of growth, I sometimes don't know if I've got the right impression or the wrong impression.

To me, it seems there is a whole lot of great open source apps out there that I've never even heard of, let alone tried, and just finding out what is the "best of breed" application for a particular area is months worth of work.

But - I use Ubuntu, and every 6 months I hear about the new stuff they have added to the distro. They go to a lot of effort to choose the apps that are good and make them the default (or put them in the supported apps). And boy - don't they add a lot every 6 months. Where do they find the time?

So yeah, every time I think about my Linux desktop "a couple of years ago" I'm just shocked at how insanely fast the Free Software world is growing. Is it really growing that fast? Will it keep growing that fast? If so, Microsoft doesn't have a chance. They are simply not allowed, let alone capable, of shipping the insanely huge range of software that comes with Ubuntu. There will come a time when people will say, yeah, I could buy a Dell machine with Windows installed but all I get is Windows.. I have to go on the net and download all the annoying shareware or even go out and pay for apps.. it's just too much work.

Of course, you could buy an Apple and believe that the half dozen apps it comes with are all you ever need. I consider this the "Apple tells me what my computer is good for" school of thought.. which is why people buy Apple machines in the first place. They have no interest in editing video but Apple has told them how easy and fun it is so hey, I'm gunna get a Mac! Edit me some video! Yeah! Gunna need to buy myself a new video camera too!

[Drinky]

Some 'gospel' to help you through your crisis of faith

Letting the incumbent define the playing field is suicide.

Havoc Pennington

Yeah, I found that pretty profound too.

[samgee]

Don't give up, dude. Go read some GNU philosophy if that helps. Think about why you started (and kept on) using libre software. You might feel frustrated with some aspects of some libre software, but I'm sure you'll be at least as frustrated with some aspects of the proprietary software you're considering. Remember that the annoyances in libre software are bugs, that can be reported and fixed (maybe even by yourself), whereas the annoyances in proprietary software are (often) on purpose to lock you in.

Libre software is not something you undergo, it's something you take part in. If you find a problem, think about it and try to define it as clearly as you can. Then start bugging the people who can fix it with it. If there are no people currently working on that area or those people lack the skills to do it well (e.g. programmers creating graphics), find people who have the skills and start motivating them or learn the skills yourself. I admit this is a bit oversimplified, but it's a positive attitude towards the problem. Giving up on libre software won't help anyone and certainly not yourself (especially in the long term). Things will get better.

[chrisp]

In the Linux desktop more or less everything works but it lacks some degree of polishing. I think that the 95% of the work is done. The undone 5% is the "Beauty (and finesse) is a feature" part. Maybe KDE 4 or the next big release of Gnome will solve it....

No. No it wont. No release of a desktop environment will suddnaly create a fully polished and consistant Linux desktop that can rival Apple's simply because Gnome or KDE dont have the kind of control over the entire desktop experience that apple have. When you control the entire package then its possible to make it all consistant but if you dont it isn't. When you have a single voice saying "this is ready to ship, that needs more work thats crap and you're all faired" consitancy and polish are doable, when you have thousands of people each doing their own thing, well its p[retty damn impressive it works at all.

But I think that whether Linux is as nice to use as a Mac is missing the most important difference, I am a much more knowledgable person about computers because of open source. I can, and regularly do take open source software apart to see how it works and because of that I understand computers far better then Apple or Microsoft would ever let me, and to me thats far more interesting, exciting, and generally all round cool then whether my apps all have the same keyboard shortcuts or use the same widget set, or have that finished sheen commercial products need.

Havoc's right, to judge open source software on closed source softwares terms is to lose, but its like criticising a tank for not being as red as a Farrari (thanks to Neal Stephenson for that analogy!) so dont be down hearted, sit back and revel in the many things that open source can do that closed source software doesn't and never will.

Think differently, differently.

(and remember, theres lots of nice open source goodness for the Mac to play with as well)

[haakin]

Hi!

Answering in no particular order...

Free Software Ideas --> I know them. I believe in (or is it 'on'? I'm never sure about prepositions) them. It's the main reason I use Free Software.

Community --> It's amazing. I know I could do more things to help. In the past years I've done a few, like promoting the use of Free Software in my job. Unluckily, I'm not a programmer, and my creative skills are quite bad. When I was a SuSE user, my collaboration was buying boxes everytime I upgraded. Now I'm a subscriber of 'Linux Format'. I don't know if it's a big help but the magazine is fun to read, and I think that it contributes to create an economic ecosystem. I don't believe in donations to support FS.

Ubuntu --> My distro of choice. Well, in fact it's Kubuntu. Most of the time I like it. The rest of the time I'm upgrading it. It's a painful process to upgrade Kubuntu. I think I have experienced problems in the 3 upgrades I have done. Last time I had to do a fresh installation because the upgrading system refused to work (7.04 to 7.10), and when it finished I discover that my printer didn't work because a new bug. In SuSE I upgraded the system after 18-24 months of use. Now I must do it twice a year, if I want to use the last version of OOo or KDE. I wish that Ubuntu backported these important (for me) packages, so I didn't need to upgrade so frequently.

Free Software and Macs --> There are tons of Free Software for Macs. You have NeoOffice (Aquafied version of OOo), Fink (thousands of Unix programs ready to be installed in your Mac), Transmission (BitTorrent client), Seashore (simplified version of Gimp),... The amazing thing when I compare FS for Macs and FS for Linux is that many times documentation, beauty, consistency with the desktop are 'must' for Macs programmers.

FS and cars --> I understand the comparison between them. The problem is not if the Ferrari is red or not. The problem is that to prepare my last presentation using Keynote I have needed around 10 hours. Based on my previous experiences using OOo, I should needed probably 15 hours to do the same job and the result would have been worst.The problem are these 5 more hours of extra work.

Superiority of Linux users --> I don't think that a Linux desktop user need nowadays to have a better understanding of the computer than a Windows or Mac user. If you are a Gnome/KDE + OOo user, you don't need to know anything. We, Linux users, have a tendency to talk about Mac and Windows users as we were part of them. I have been a long time user (Win 3.1, 95, and 98), but I have only used XP during short times, maybe once or twice a month during the last years. I couldn't dare to say anything about XP or Vista because I don't know anything about them.


Maybe my problem is that there are no more big steps in the Linux desktop. In the good old days any new version was a huge improvement. Now, everything is so complex that the steps forward are very small. It seems that things are improving in an slow steady pace. Maybe we have run out of revolutions here (probably a good but boring thing).

Javier
P.S. Thanks for the support!

[chrisp]

FS and cars --> I understand the comparison between them. The problem is not if the Ferrari is red or not. The problem is that to prepare my last presentation using Keynote I have needed around 10 hours. Based on my previous experiences using OOo, I should needed probably 15 hours to do the same job and the result would have been worst.The problem are these 5 more hours of extra work.

I should know better then to post when I'm too tired to spell Ferrari correctly.

What I was trying to say is that if you judge vehicles on redness (or speed, or beauty) a Ferrari is much better then a tank, but if you judge on other criteria, such as off road ability a Ferrari is rubbish and the tank obviously the best. Similarly if you compare purely on consistancy and beauty Apple beats open source but if you judge on other things open source is far better.

To me those other things include being able to take it apart to see how it works, for other people they include community of great people that are involved, or free as in beer, for example.

So maybe closed source software can save you five hours in creating a presentation and thats a shame, but if you look at the bigger picture theres lots of reasons to love open source even if you do use keynote once in a while.

[Allix]

when you have thousands of people each doing their own thing, well its p[retty damn impressive it works at all.

That's the reality of any DIY movement, everyone does they own and it all gets mixed in a mixer and then a Best of the movement gets released. I have not decided if its a good idea to go towards a goal based movement or to continue as we are.

Free Software and Macs --> There are tons of Free Software for Macs.

The same can be equally said about windows ...now that kde 4.x apps will be natively ported to osx and windows , there is less reason for a windows/osx user who can use the same apps to move to a new os for the simple reason of a os.
I say simple in that to a non-technical user , a technically better os is of no interest, one that works is.

[haakin]

My lack of faith continues to be disturbing... after reading:

"More MS, Less Talent In Open Source's Future"

One quote of the article quoted in Slashdot:

"The current shortage of open source talent will only worsen as demand skyrockets for internal open source support and developers, Zachary said. One example of such a shortage will be people with expertise in the open source Java servlet middleware called Tomcat that comes from the Apache Foundation. “There are 25 or so core contributors to that project,” Zachary said. “Over the past four or five years that number has stayed virtually identical…but the growth of Tomcat has been astronomical.”

Zachary said companies increasingly have been hiring Linux know-it-alls, but he advised them also to focus on identifying which open source projects have big potential and hiring talent early on before the going price gets too high (One audience member cited an example of Ajax developers being offered as much as $600 to consult, the sort of offer that is drawing them away from contributing to open source projects.)"

If the author is right, the future doesn't look very promising.

Javier