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An Open Source Guide For The Average PC User 161

Posted by Zonk from the tux-for-all-and-all-for-tux dept.
prostoalex writes "The regular Yahoo! News feature Tech Tuesday this week is dedicated to open source software for the home user. Open source for all spells out the open source ideas for a regular PC user, while providing some helpful links to some popular software. The open source PC is a guide on most popular open source apps that would be common for a home user to have. Is open source for you? discusses shortcomings of open source software and cases when it's not recommended." From the article: "Never fear, counterculture types. You can still liberate the code, and experience many other perks, by becoming part of the open-source movement. With the steadily increasing number of open-source applications on the Web, there are more projects than ever to check out, covering nearly every imaginable application: from word processors and e-mail applications to media players and video games."
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An Open Source Guide For The Average PC User More

An Open Source Guide For The Average PC User

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  • linux.slashdot.org? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:32PM (#13382818)
    Shouldn't that be linux(tm).slashdot.org now?

     

  • OpenCD (Score:5, Informative)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:37PM (#13382861) Homepage Journal
    http://www.theopencd.org/ [theopencd.org]
    Is a common link when a topic like this comes up.

    I find I can make a more current and better CD than OpenCD, and I'd encourage other geeks to compile their own Open Software CDs, and recommend software to their friends. If they're looking to record sounds, use Audacity. If they want to borrow your Word CD, show them Open Office 1.9.122.

    If they want to rip their CD collection, install CDex for them and show them the CDDB button, then press F9.

    • Re:OpenCD (Score:5, Informative)

      by Adelbert ( 873575 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:45PM (#13382943) Journal
      This [lugradio.org] episode of LUGRadio has an interview with Henrik Nielsen Omma, who maintains the OpenCD project. Its well worth a listen, particularly when he talks about his collaboration with Ubuntu.
    • The OpenCD will always be a bit behind the latest version. Not only are the producers always testing new versions, but they are also packaging them with installers, instructions, translations and other helpful stuff. The idea is to get working software to Windows users, not to be bleeding edge. You can download a copy of The OpenCD and hand it out to friends without worrying about whether they are going to come back and complain that you trashed their PC.

      • Re:OpenCD (Score:5, Insightful)

        by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @06:03PM (#13383709) Homepage Journal
        "going to come back and complain that you trashed their PC."

        The problem is that with most modern software, it introduces remotely exploitable security holes if it's not kept up to date, and if your friend doesn't have a firewall. What will happen when they install Firefox 1.0.1 from the CD for example? They'll be instantly asked to install another version and might think that its strange that the "new" program they just put on already has a "problem" with it.

        I acknowlege and agree that stable versions must be provided, but it would be nice if they offered an "updated" folder on it too, making note that it's untested but should work similar to the other tested software on the disc.
    • If I am not mistaken, 1.9.X would be a beta for version 2. It SUCKS! It crashed 8 times while preparing for my AI class presentation. Luckily it recovered after the first crash, so from that point on I was religiously hitting Ctrl-s, just like in the old days when Windows 9x and MS Office crashed often. So, give friends a stable OO.org not the new crappy one. The last thing we need is regular users getting beta builds.
      • It hardly ever crashes for me, and opens Word Perfect files, so if they use Word Perfect give them 1.9.x and tell them it's the beta testing version so might not work, and if so, install 1.1.4 stable instead.
    • Personally I am against the opencd idea. Furthermore I am against people porting open source projects to windows in the first place. How is linux supposed to gain popularity if all the "killer apps" also run on windows?

      Knoppix is a much better idea. Pack all the apps with a linux distro and give that instead. It would give windows users more of a stark choice. Either pay for office or use linux+oo, either pay for photoshop or use linux+gimp. If the users can install gimp and oo and still use windows why wo
      • Most Windows users won't switch to open source software if they have to throw out their existing operating system and switch cold turkey. Even if it's on a live CD such as Knoppix, that's a lot of unnecessary rebooting and confusion. Besides, if someone eventually wants to switch to an open source OS such as GNU/Linux or *BSD, it's much easier when they have already been using cross-platform OSS applications already and don't have to switch those.

        One step at a time is much, much easier than all at once.
        • "Besides, if someone eventually wants to switch to an open source OS such as GNU/Linux or *BSD, it's much easier when they have already been using cross-platform OSS applications already and don't have to switch those."

          I have heard this argument before and I disagree with it. I still don't see why they would switch to linux if they can run all their windows apps AND all their open source apps in windows. Just doesn't make sense to me.

          What drove the adoption of apple II was visicalc. What drove the adoption
      • How is linux supposed to gain popularity if all the "killer apps" also run on windows?

        By being better. That's one of the key points of open source, it makes for better, and because developers are free to "stand on the shoulders of giants", more innovative software. If it doesn't achieve that, people should stay with the alternatives.
        • "By being better."

          History shows that being better has nothing to do with popularity or adoption. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Please get that thought out of your head.

          It has to be "good enough" (minimally functional), it has to be cheaper, it has to look good. Those are the most important factors.

          Most open source apps today are "good enough" and cheaper. Some of them look good too. There is enough there to lure users to switch but not if they can use the same apps in windows.
          • History shows that being better has nothing to do with popularity or adoption. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Please get that thought out of your head.

            No, I won't get that thought out of my head, and you might like to try being a little less patronising when you post that sort of advice. Better is why I make my selections, and that's enough to drive my use of open source.

            There is enough there to lure users to switch but not if they can use the same apps in windows.

            That just means that the moment, open
            • "No, I won't get that thought out of my head, and you might like to try being a little less patronising when you post that sort of advice. Better is why I make my selections, and that's enough to drive my use of open source. "

              You are not typical. History shows again and again that superior products don't always win in the marketplace. In the marketplace cheap is better then good. Nice looking is better then ugly. Good enough is good enough.

              If you don't believe me ask walmart.
              • If you don't believe me ask walmart.

                I can't. They haven't made it over here - too many better alternatives...
                • If you don't believe me ask walmart.

                  I can't. They haven't made it over here - too many better alternatives...
                  Aren't you from the UK? If you are, Asda is Walmart.
                  • Aren't you from the UK? If you are, Asda is Walmart.

                    Nope, Australia. There's a whole bunch of players in the Walmart space over here.
                    • "Nope, Australia. There's a whole bunch of players in the Walmart space over here."

                      Not for long. Wait till walmart decides to enter your country, all those companies will go out of business within five years.
                    • Not for long. Wait till walmart decides to enter your country, all those companies will go out of business within five years.

                      Unlikely. They'll be trying to gain a foothold in a market that's already filled by the likes of Aldi etc. Margins are already so low I don't think even Walmart would be able to undercut them, certainly not for long enough to get the sort of market share they're chasing.
              • Try asking Google. They came around and were better than any alternatives. The people who look for the best service changed. Slowly it caught on, and eventually the people who just follow the crowd were changing. Now everyone uses it because it is THE search service to use. It may take time, but all other things being equal, people will find the better solution. And with OSS being free, and CSS being expensive, all other things are not equal, but help push in the direction of OSS.
      • You're forgetting the marketing and migration side of reality. You can't just tell someone that they can and should switch, you have to give them a roadmap or an application that will migrate their data. Presumably, if you've switched your documents to Open Office, and your IM to GAIM before you go to Linux, the transition will be much smoother.
    • > ... I'd encourage other geeks to compile their own Open Software CDs,

      Like
          http://limestone.truman.edu/pub/fsck/freecd/doc/ [truman.edu]

  • The articles were pretty good (Score:5, Informative)

    by El Cubano ( 631386 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:42PM (#13382910)

    The first article is a good one at which to point someone who has never heard of Open Source. My only beef is that the explanation of "What is Open Source" sounds more like a description of "What is the GPL/LGPL." Don't get me wrong, I like the GPL and release all of my work under it when possible, but there are plenty more licenses.

    I also think that while OSS has some shortcomings, the way he paints them in third article is a bit bleak. Ha talks about the lack of a gentle learning curve or how they may not be as complete as their commercial conterparts. However, he completely overlooks those applications that have equalled or surpassed their commercial counterparts (like Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and so on). Besides, most new users would be more likely to use OSS applications that have large active communitities (i.e., available support from other users), rather than the less well known.

    • Honest approach (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SunPin ( 596554 )
      The licensing points seemed pretty useless in an article about what the average PC user cares about--using their PC and not spending money if possible. An honest approach would be, "half the junk on your system is illegal. The other half is monitoring you. Nothing is free so stop taking your little pirate gifts from hackers and take some time to use clean, legal, community software." That wouldn't happen in that publication but the fact that this article even ran is a good sign.
    • He makes a point that I think is often dismissed by a lot of pro open source people. Many of the programs do have a harder learning curve or require computer knowledge or reading of the manual to setup and use. The people that use these programs typically know what they are doing so these aren't major hurdles or something they can't handle. A lot of regular users however just want to push a button and have it go. I think a lot of OSS applications are designed by technical people for technical people. In ord
    • However, he completely overlooks those applications that have equalled or surpassed their commercial counterparts (like Apache, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and so on).

      That depends on your definition of surpassed. If you mean more features/stability...yes. If you mean easier and more intuitive to use...maybe not.

    • This is exactly what I've been looking for -- a simple, straightforward explanation and discussion of open source philosophy and technology that is both up to date and accessible to students likely trained on Windows who aren't particularly interested in computer science or technical details. I'll probably use this in a course that I teach, but I wish there were a little more detail on the philosophy and specifically some information about licensing -- there just isn't enough information about licensing at
  • No doubt educating people is the first step. When Not many businesses know about advantages of linux. These kind of books/articles should help them. I think to promote the use of linux, the commercial companies like RedHat, Novell, IBM should make these books/articles available for free. They should setup seminars for users to understand that there is an alternative OS and it is easy to use and gives more advantages than the MS Windows. This should give them more business in the long term.
    • There are a few free "animal books" (O'Rieley sp?) available, and quite a bit more documentation of varying degrees of quality and style out on that intarweb thingie. (Creation of good clear docs that actually help you use/install/configure the program is one of the big thing non-coders can do for OSS).

      But printing an actual dead tree version will cost lots of money, and typically be out of date by the time it actually arrives in a user's hands.
    • Want to convince your business that open source is the best way to go? Why not get them to read, at minimum, chapter one of "Free as in Freedom"?

      Even the idea that it can be read free online or printed out to read later is a selling point on all things open source.

      http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ [oreilly.com]

      I always start by saying, this software is totally free to use, but most importantly is designed as a tool to solve the problem - not just developed, packaged and sold to fill a market niche. If you explain

  • Opensource list (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xtrvd ( 762313 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:43PM (#13382921)
    I don't remember how I got this list, but I think I picked it up on a slashdot post a while ago. Here's a list that I generally use to give people new to Linux wondering what software to use.

    My thanks go out to the original poster whom I cannot remember.

    1. Web Browsing? Mozilla/Firefox
    2. E-mail? Thunderbird or Evolution
    3. Group Calendaring? Mozilla Sunbird + Apache/SSL/WebDAV + iCal
    4. Audio CD Archiving? Grip + Ogg Vorbis
    5. Advanced Media Player? Xine or MPlayer
    6. Audio Streaming of Archived CDs? Icecast + Ices
    7. Recording of online streams for archival purposes? ALSA + ALSA Utils + Ogg Vorbis + Any required media player format in Xine or MPlayer
    8. Firewall? Linux Kernel + iptables
    9. Office Functionality? OpenOffice.org
    10. Digital Image Editing? GIMP
    11. IM Client? GAIM
    12. IM Server? Jabberd
    13. File sharing? NFS
    14. Sane storage management? LVM
    15. File compression? BZip2, GZip, or 7Zip also File Roller if you really need a GUI
    16. Digital Photo Management? Gthumb or Nautilus
    17. PVR? Mythtv.org
    18. Video streaming? VLC (Video LAN Client)
    19. X10 Home Automation? Bottlerocket
    20. Remote desktop/application serving? VNC 4
    21. Remote assistance? x0vncserver or the vnc extension for Xorg
    22. VPN/Tunneling? OpenVPN or OpenSSH with TCP port forwarding
    23. Web Serving? Apache
    24. Mail Serving? Courier
    25. Server Based Spam Filtering? ASSP
    26. Client Based Spam Filtering? Thunderbird
    27. Image Scanning? SANE
    28. Audio Editing? Rezound or Audacity
    29. Multitrack Audio? Ardour
    30. MIDI Sequencing? Rosegarden
    31. CD Burning (Data and Audio)? cdrecord + various GUI frontends
    32. Simple PC Based Puzzle Games? Too many to list from both the GNOME and KDE projects
    33. SpyWare/Malware Prevention Removal? None at this point since I don't use the internet via Windows

    -Jesse

    • Re:Opensource list (Score:3, Insightful)

      by js3 ( 319268 )
      what did scarface hate the most?

      I use apps because they are good, not because the man told me to. I'll buy a commercial app if it does what I want and I'll use an opensource one if it's better and free. Choice is good

    • Re:Opensource list (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @05:01PM (#13383077)
      "File sharing? NFS"

      I'd say OpenSSH. You can tunnel a lot of things through it and only have one port to "guard". And with Gnome/KDE you can get GUI access to file transfers through their file mangers. Plus you can communicate with OS X and Windblows too with it (assuming Windblows has ssh installed).
      • Also nothing wrong with Samba for filesharing; plus it does printer sharing.
      • Yes, but performance-wise, NFS kicks SSH in the nads - as you'd expect, really, since SSH has to encrypt everything. If you've ever tried to copy over that 11GB bzip2 of your home directory before an upgrade you'll know this already :)
      • The current state of network file systems is just sad. I should be able to flip a switch (i.e. "deployment" instaneous and does not require a network admin) somewhere on any system and easily "share" files with other systems. I should have good performance, the protocol should be open, there should be no potential for data loss, and my connection should be secure (or at least reasonably secureable).

        None of the major contenders fill this role

        Aggravating the situation is the fact that NFSes are prime candid

    • Of course, for the hard core some choices would be different:

      • 2. E-mail? /bin/mail
      • 7. Recording of online streams for archival purposes? FLAC - real men don't use lossy compression
      • 9. Office Functionality? emacs and TeX, gnumeric
    • One more for the list is LilyPond [lilypond.org], which is a music engraving (score printing) package.

      It's not a drop-in replacement for Sibelius, or the various music packages which do score-printing like Cubase, Finale, etc., because it has no GUI -- it takes in a text file, and writes out a PDF. You get best results by writing the input by hand, but it's not easy (practically a full programming language), although there are converters from ABC, MIDI, and other popular formats (though with mediocre success). I belie

  • Minor beef (Score:5, Insightful)

    by antonymous ( 828776 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:50PM (#13382986)
    Well, I guess it's just another series of "starter" articles regarding open source. My main beef with the articles is that none of them compare Windows with Linux very directly. Are most of the people reading this article aware of the copious amounts of spyware/adware their machine is riddled with (security issues)? How about the fact that my P2 400 MHZ computer works great under Linux and could barely chug along with Win2k (i.e. don't worry about buying a new computer every time a new version of Windows comes out)? And I don't care if Yahoo wants to play favorites with certain distros, but can they please explain what a Live CD is and link to Knoppix or Ubuntu?

    Yes, I do realize they're not in the business of OSS advocacy, but it would be so easy for the author to engage the average computer user (i.e. "get your pale-faced neighbor to burn you this Live Linux CD - it will NOT change the rest of your computer in any way")

    • Re:Minor beef (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GlassHeart ( 579618 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @06:11PM (#13383799) Journal
      How about the fact that my P2 400 MHZ computer works great under Linux and could barely chug along with Win2k (i.e. don't worry about buying a new computer every time a new version of Windows comes out)?

      Your comment also needs to be tempered. I still own a 350MHz K6, and it runs Windows 2000 about as well as it runs KDE - that is, not all that well. I remember my 8MB 66MHz 80486 laptop running Win98 and Word competently enough, but barely able to run X by itself, nevermind OpenOffice.

      Point is, to a certain extent, a computer is stuck with its contemporary software. Linux is certainly more usable with more recent software, but the difference is not night and day. What does your 400 MHz P2 actually run when you say "Linux"? I very much doubt that OpenOffice "works great" on that box.

      Another point is that many software have plateaued in terms of CPU demands. Nobody desperately needs Word or Excel or IE to run much faster, and what may be true of your 200MHz P2 is not necessarily applicable to a 1GHz Celeron. Other than rendering video, which I do once in a while, I basically don't need much more raw performance out of my 733MHz G4 running Tiger.

      • Actually OO can run fine on older machines. The startup time is rather bad, but it operates just fine. The biggest thing that helps machines like this is a good chunk of RAM. My PIII 733 was starting to hit its limits with the latest distros until I added another 512MB RAM. Now it runs the latest stuff just fine.

        If you were a heavy OO user on an older system with sufficient RAM, you could always use the quickstarter or something like that to reduce start times.

    • Re:Minor beef (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
      "get your pale-faced neighbor to burn you this Live Linux CD - it will NOT change the rest of your computer in any way"

      That's funny because I've tried for years to get a buddy to run Knoppix on an old PC he's got and he'll never do it. Even though he knows I have a computer/networking related degree he doesn't believe that Knoppix won't affect his Windows install (which is very broken).

      I was going to type "I don't know why he doesn't believe me..." but then I think about all of the Windows software that des

  • Ubuntu Live CD (Score:4, Informative)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:50PM (#13382991) Homepage Journal
    Also worth mentioning is the Ubuntu Live CD. This CD contains a bootable no-install Ubuntu Linux image, but also contains a number of open-source Windows applications (at least Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org IIRC).

    They will also send pressed CDs to you for free.

  • NEWS FLASH.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by webphenom ( 868874 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:51PM (#13382998)
    The "average" PC user doesn't give a flying fuck about the "Open Source" movement or Linux or whatever.

    Actually, the MAJORITY of PC users could absolutely care less about Open Source. I know of two people (they are related) that are open source/Linux advocates. Everyone else I know would be burdened by using non-standard software, whether they pay for it or not.

    MOST people feel they don't pay for OS or Office software because it is normally buried in the "buy price" of a new PC. Since the buy price of a new PC is affordable for most people, there is no clear compelling reason to use software that is not supported and can be "forked" into a million different version just "because you can".

    Come on, people.
    • Well, if they would be "burdened by using non-standard software", then there should be little argument, right? Let's see.... every major operating system except Windows is Unix or *Nix based, once you know the basics of any one, moving between them is easy. Porting applications between them is also much easier than porting to/from the previously mentioned non standard OS. So, you see, it is simple: all you have to do to avoid non standard software is to just not run Windows. Problem solved.
    • I find it funny when an average guy clams to know what the "average" PC user needs, wants or thinks.

      I only know what I need:
      1. cheap or free: 1-0 for "Open Source"
      2. software without viruses or adware: 2-0 for "Open Source"
      3. good technology: 3-0 for "Open Source"
      4. good community: 4-0 for "Open Source"
      5. freedom to inspect and modify the code: 5-0 for "Open Source"

      I don't care about the name, I do care about the points above. Let's say that the "average" user doesn't care about the no. 5 but I'm pretty sur
      • 1. cheap or free: 1-0 for "Open Source"
        2. software without viruses or adware: 2-0 for "Open Source"
        3. good technology: 3-0 for "Open Source"
        4. good community: 4-0 for "Open Source"
        5. freedom to inspect and modify the code: 5-0 for "Open Source"

        I don't care about the name, I do care about the points above. Let's say that the "average" user doesn't care about the no. 5 but I'm pretty sure it will if he realize that 1 through 4 are related to point no. 5

        1. cheap or free = so is pirated, and so "is" the baked i
        • "n fact, it's my impression that average users simply stay with what they have"

          I totally agree with this observation. Switching from one OS to another is not something that most of the people like or are willing to do. Actually that the basis of MS monopoly. However, many people, there are now millions, swiched to Linux -- I guess that shows something, probably people frustration with Windows or with Microsoft actions.

    • Re:NEWS FLASH.... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sithgunner ( 529690 )
      This is rather off topic but your statement against pc being affordable by majority of people is utterly wrong. I think it's right if you're only considering first world countries... but not so for the rest of the world. Maybe a little read about China's situation give some clue on it, which holds 1/5 of the whole earth population.

    • The "average" PC user doesn't give a flying fuck about the "Open Source" movement or Linux or whatever.

      The MAJORITY of "average" PC users,
      at least the ones I've met,

      actually like

      free software

      no viruses.

    • Re:NEWS FLASH.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ookaze ( 227977 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @05:14AM (#13387513) Homepage
      The "average" PC user doesn't give a flying fuck about the "Open Source" movement or Linux or whatever.

      You forgot to say he does not guve a flying fuck about "Windows" too. The average users sees the computer, sometimes Word, sometimes Excel. Actually, most average users using these software at home only see Office, because that's what they bought for an expensive price, or got from their company, and asked some geek to install, or shelled more bucks to make someone else install it.

      Everyone else I know would be burdened by using non-standard software, whether they pay for it or not.

      Everyone else I know IS burdened by using ANY software they have no formation for, whether they pay or not.
      All the people I switch to Linux actually accepted the switch the day I stopped supporting their Windows. And I told them there is plenty of paid support for Windows. Guess what, they preferred the switch, especially when less than a month after that, all the Windows machines I stopped supporting fubared. Even the one who I thought found support elsewhere contacted me last week to ask me about computer parts (he's going to buy a new machine), because his computer was completely dead (actually, from the symptoms, only his Windows is dead, but I won't tell him a thing about that, no more Windows support).

      MOST people feel they don't pay for OS or Office software because it is normally buried in the "buy price" of a new PC.

      MS Office sure is not.

      Since the buy price of a new PC is affordable for most people, there is no clear compelling reason to use software that is not supported and can be "forked" into a million different version just "because you can".

      These are not the reasons to use these softwares. They actually work the way they should, that's the primary reason.
  • ``Such licenses have even gone on to inspire projects like OpenCola and OpenBeer, which share their secret formulas with the world''

    Would that be like SCO? First, you share your "secret". Then, you turn around and sue people for stealing it from you. Then, you manage to avoid bankrupcy for an astonishingly long time, meanwhile sending more and more money your lawyer friends' way. Then, they buy you a beer. Or whatever.

  • Canard (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RentonSentinel ( 906700 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @04:55PM (#13383033) Journal
    I'm sorry to violate orthodoxy but,

    The average user does not care about open source. They care about FREEWARE.

    Thats not to say I don't care about open source... its just not as compelling to Joe Sixpack.

    • Re:Canard (Score:4, Interesting)

      by erikharrison ( 633719 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @05:18PM (#13383222)
      While true, you beg the question

      They do not care because they do not know. That's no good reason to criticize a series of articles that tries to the get the word out

      Average users don't want to care about how their car works either. But they still know to get their oil changed every month, and have opinions on issues like the classification of SUVs.

    • My usual response (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Spy der Mann ( 805235 )
      "How much does it cost?"
      It doesn't, it's free.
      "Oh, does it have spyware or something?"
      No, it's open source.
      "Open source? What's that?"
      It means they give away the source code, you can modify it and make your own.
      "Hey dude, that's sweet!"
      Yup!
      • "Open source? What's that?" It means they give away the source code, you can modify it and make your own. "Hey dude, that's sweet!" Yup!

        To anyone but a programmer source is no more readable than a Sumerian clay tablet.

    • Re:Canard (Score:5, Insightful)

      by legirons ( 809082 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @06:17PM (#13383851)
      "The average user does not care about open source. They care about FREEWARE."

      5-10 years ago, you'd have been right. When Winamp was the latest invention, when pkzip was common, when Netscape being free was still a novelty, people wanted freeware.

      But since then, the split happened. Freeware authors went into one of two camps:
      (a) Those who decided they weren't getting enough money, became paraniod, experimented with copy-protected shareware, but finally became neurotic enough to invent adware, spyware, and later, viruses.
      (b) Those who thought group (a) were misguided and wanted to continue offering stuff for free. These people became Free Software authors.

      The general public know this. They know that the WinAmp author got assimilated into AOL and spat out. They know that GetRight is spyware now. They know that Napster got bought, killed, and eventually became an undead version of HMV.com.

      They've seen all this in the news, and freeware doesn't exist anymore. Authors with morals now label their wares as Free Software for fear of it being used against them for evil. Authors in in for the money became blubbering lunatics, trying ever more severe ways to "get back" at the users who didn't pay them.

      And the users' reaction to all this? "If it's not GPL, it's not safe" seems to be one of the most practical ways to evaluate 'free' software...
      • And the users' reaction to all this? "If it's not GPL, it's not safe" seems to be one of the most practical ways to evaluate 'free' software...

        This may be true, and I do use GNU software like mad...but honestly, that is a really sad state of affairs.
      • Great post, I think you hit it spot on, but of course not all freeware authors who are in it for the money are lunatics, so I'll interpret that expression as an elegant use of hyperbole. But sometimes I wonder how much the author of mIRC has gotten for his program?

  • fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kebes ( 861706 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @05:00PM (#13383069) Journal
    For those who want simplicity and reliability, commercial packages may be your best bet - at least for day-to-day work. But if you're willing to experiment a little, and put up with some technical challenges, there is a wealth of programming - for free - in the open source community.

    This is a fallacy. Alot of OSS is developmental and experimental and truly is buggy. Some OSS is top-quality and fully useable (linux, firefox, gimp, etc.). It is a fallacy to believe that commercial software is somehow better. Some commercial software is fully useable (photoshop, MS Office, etc.) but there is alot of commercial software that is absolutely crap. Even software made by respectable companies will often present 'technical challenges' (for instance, software bundled with hardware devices, etc.). With commercial software, the price may give you a hint as to quality... but ultimately you have to do some research and try to make an informed decision about what to buy. With OSS, you again have to do some research before deciding what to use (although you have the bonus advantage of being able to quickly install all of the choices without any financial commitment).

    I don't think commercial software is automatically simpler and more reliable. The great number of OSS options is admitedly complicated, but it is silly to think that just because something costs money, it must be better than the free alternative.
    • Honestly, with a few exceptions my experience has been that the usability, stability, and reliability of a program is inverse proportion to the price. Once you remove the spyware laden crap from the picture (and granted that the average non-computer literate person doesn't have the knowledge or experience to jump over these options), the best Windows software out there is mostly OSS, Freeware, or low-cost shareware. The *worst* applications I have ever used on Windows have been incredibly expensive commerci
    • I don't think commercial software is automatically simpler and more reliable. The great number of OSS options is admitedly complicated, but it is silly to think that just because something costs money, it must be better than the free alternative.

      Its not that commercial software is automatically or must be better than OSS, its that it usually is.

      I'll never go back to Windows (for all the usual reasons), but I've been using Linux (Mandrake, RH, SuSE) as my primary desktop for five years, and I've fina
    • "Alot of OSS is developmental and experimental and truly is buggy."

      Have you seen commercial software?

      Darwin works in both camps -- there's a reason why most of sourceforge is crap, and there's a reason that most commercial software is crap. If you take the best examples of each (for example, the GNUWin2 CD, versus the commercial software that actually gets published), then the results look a lot more polished.

  • Almost the right idea... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nlawalker ( 804108 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @05:03PM (#13383092)
    This is a push in the right direction, but it isn't quite there.

    It's fairly trivial to do something that can help educate the average PC user about OSS, as we can see from this article. The challenge is getting them to care.

    I believe OSS suffers from "Apple Advertising Syndrome." I've heard it said before that if Apple actually ran advertisements that showed a Mac and PC working side by side, saying "Watch as this Mac does exactly what this PC does, but it's faster, more usable, and easier to look at, and you can get MS Office, email, calendaring, IM, etc." they'd sell a lot more. OSS needs the same sort of thing, but they need to tout that great "Free" price tag. MS Office vs. OpenOffice is a great example. The only reason the average PC user would even consider leaving something like MS Office for OpenOffice is that it could do exactly the same thing, but cheaper or for free. Period. I don't personally know a single person that uses OpenOffice instead of MS Office, and it's all because of network externality. Is my copy of Office busted? I'm sure someone can help me fix it. I am sure that if I just click "Save," everyone else will be able to see this document, because everyone uses MS Office. No worries. The only way network externality can be defeated is with something incredibly tempting and convincing, and no amount of usability or features pumped into an application will make it one millionth of one percent as tempting as saying "Hey, it works just like MS Office but it's free!"

    The average PC user doesn't care about "Free as in freedom, not free as in beer." Free as in beer is what will get the software out there.

    I guess the most unfortunate part is that increasing recognition of OSS to "average PC users" won't add a single person to those contributing to the source. Average PC users consume, not produce, applications.

    • The only reason the average PC user would even consider leaving something like MS Office for OpenOffice is that it could do exactly the same thing, but cheaper or for free.

      "Free-as-in-beer" is overrated.

      How much does the average user spend on consumables, ink and paper, over three months, six months, a year? How much is he really paying for Office? Not retail list, surely.

      Student-Teacher Office sells for about $150 with a three seat license.

    • I don't personally know a single person that uses OpenOffice instead of MS Office, and it's all because of network externality. Is my copy of Office busted? I'm sure someone can help me fix it.

      I'm not so sure. Every average user I've seen in this situation reinstalls everything, hoping to fix the issue.

      I am sure that if I just click "Save," everyone else will be able to see this document, because everyone uses MS Office.

      Which is of course false, as any regular user of MS Office knows. One of the problems is
  • If only our aunts, uncles, grandparents, brothers, sisters, knew how much money they could save by equipping their new commodity PC's with open source:
    http://www.farleyfamily.net/articles/freesoftware/ [farleyfamily.net]
    • I see a problem with that list. Yes, Linux is a free operating system, but then the list says Windows Movie Maker is free video editing software. I love that software, and I didn't pay for it directly. It runs on Windows ME and XP. Most of the applications that follow run on Windows. That's going to confuse people when they think they can run everything on the list for free.

  • What is source code? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @05:10PM (#13383145)
    As a programmer, I know what it is. The Yahoo article makes the same mistake so many do: it assumes the reader know what the heck "source" or "source code" is. Lay people do not know what source code is. They might be interested is "Open Source" if they knew what it is. Saying that it's when programmers share "source code" is still meaningless unless you know that source code is the actual instructions people type in to create a program. The public needs this little tidbit of information to comprehend OSS. Perhaps with the extra mention that a program (compiler) then munches this and spits out an executable (er exe file). Free Software? They get "free beer", but the freedom aspect makes no sense without understanding what source code is.

    I may be underestimating the public, but I honestly don't think the masses know what you're talking about when you write an article and assume the reader knows what "source code" is.

    • And if the person writting the article doesn't know what it is, we get great quotes like: "Letters demanding US$5000 for use of the Linux name were originally dismissed as a hoax. But according to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Open Sauce king is dead serious."
  • I've found great stuff from here, not necessarily open source though.

    http://searchlores.org/bangla.htm [searchlores.org]

    And of course, the Pricelessware.

    http://www.pricelessware.org/ [pricelessware.org]
  • Liberating the code isn't the point; the point is, the code liberates you.

  • GIMP, the Un-Photoshop (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sundroid ( 777083 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @05:48PM (#13383547) Homepage
    I hope people realize that you can be a Microsoft Windows users and still use most, if not all, of the open-source software mentioned here. To me, the deal-breaker, the must-have, of the open-source software is GIMP. Unless you're a professional graphic artist employed by a company that is willing to buy the $600-a-pop Photoshop for you, GIMP is a perfect alternative. The Windows version of GIMP can be downloaded from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html [sourceforge.net]. It's a small 11 megabyte download; no reason not to try it.

    I've never taken one single computer graphics class in my life and I've managed to learn how to use GIMP and created dozens of graphics for my blog at http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com].
    • I hope people realize that you can be a Microsoft Windows users and still use most, if not all, of the open-source software mentioned here.

      While this is true, I have found that Windows releases of cross platform open source packages are almost always slower, often less stable, and sometimes less featureful than their Linux-based counterparts, where often the bulk of the developers live.

      I like dia, but I found the cygwin release of dia to be unstable, for instance.
    • I hope people realize that you can be a Microsoft Windows users and still use most, if not all, of the open-source software mentioned here.

      Actually, it's not a very good choice. It's tedious, and the Windows platform is too limited to use every features of these apps. Most FOSS apps on cygwin are unstable, slow, and heavily degraded compared to when they are used on Linux.

      To me, the deal-breaker, the must-have, of the open-source software is GIMP. Unless you're a professional graphic artist employed by a co

  • Productivity:

    OpenOffice 1.1.4 [openoffice.org] | jEdit 4.2 [jedit.org] | Nvu 1.0 [nvu.com] | PDFCreator 0.8 [sourceforge.net]

    Graphics:

    GIMP [gimp.org] | Inkscape [inkscape.org] | Blender [blender3d.org] | POV-Ray [povray.org]

    Media:

    VLC [videolan.org] | Audacity [sourceforge.net] | JazzWare [jazzware.com]

    Internet:

    Gaim [sourceforge.net] | Firefox | Thunderbird | HTTrack [httrack.com] | TightVNC [tightvnc.com] | 7Zip [7-zip.org]

    Survival Kit:

    BurnAtOnce [burnatonce.com] | Darik's Boot and Nuke [sourceforge.net]

    Development:

    Eclipse [eclipse.org] | Dev C++ [bloodshed.net] | Cygwin [cygwin.com] | Bochs [sourceforge.net]

  • Celestia (Score:3, Informative)

    by quacking duck ( 607555 ) on Tuesday August 23, 2005 @09:15PM (#13385381)
    I'm *so* glad I RTFA for this one, else I'd have missed this gem: Celestia [celestiamotherlode.net], "a real-time, 3-D space simulation".

    Think Google Earth, but for the solar system/galaxy/universe. I just spent a hour playing with this, checking out the plug-ins for real and fictional spacecraft.

  • Open letter to F/OSS community (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sixpack, Joe ( 909715 ) on Wednesday August 24, 2005 @01:47AM (#13386843) Journal
    Speaking as a representative for the average computer user, I will try to explain the average pc user to the F/OSS crowd. Please note that I do not have a great deal of free time to carry on a dialog after this is posted. I will however try to reply to any serious questions as time permits.

      First, as average pc users, we don't really care about the whole F/OSS concept. We will never write code and we couldn't care less about the philosophical purpose behind what you write and distribute for free. Of course we can relate to free beer; that gets us excited. But more than just free software, what we want is software that just works and doesn't make us jump through hoops to make it work. We want to be able to pop in a CD or download a file and click something to make it work. We don't care what is going on under the hood. As long as it's not sending our credit card numbers to thieves or revealing our porn to our wives, we simply don't care how or why it works. If one organization could sell or give us a master program that did anything we wanted it to do, we would be very happy, clueless campers. We would not care in the least if an evil monopolist was controlling the entire computer industry - as long as our email, chat, photos, music, games, banking, and porn just worked.

    The adventurous among us, that have investigated this F/OSS concept, have simply been intimidated or confused by the overwhelming amount of indiscernible information we're faced with. We've downloaded several of the so-called easy versions of something related to Linux, but we've ultimately given up because everything takes a lot of research and fumbling to get it working right. Every time we look for answers to a question about how to do X, we're faced with cryptic messages about compilers, command lines, wrappers, shells and whatnot. We don't want to know how to compile anything. We don't care what a command line is. We can't tell the difference between a shell and a GUI. Why should we have to? Quite simply, we are not interested in being programmers - we have other interests, jobs, and time consuming responsibilities.

    Now the really, really determined amongst us will seek out knowledge by frequenting newsgroups, forums, or websites devoted to this free software. Unfortunately, the predominate thing we see happening in these areas is a bunch of infighting and bitching about how one distro is better than another, or how Microsoft is Satan incorporated. There's always a lot of talk about security and clueless users but, rarely is there any real substance that actually helps moving us clueless users into a more secure environment; at least not without requiring us to take a couple CS courses.

    What's worse is the general attitude amongst a lot of the F/OSS community, which seems to believe they are somehow intellectually superior to those of us in the world that choose to spend our time learning something other than operating systems and protocols. As we see it, we don't expect you to know how to perform open heart surgery; or perhaps how to knit a woolen sweater, yet you are able to benefit from both of those, thanks to our hard work. All we ask is that you likewise provide us with a product which we can use without needing to know how you produced it or how it works.

    In closing, it's not that we don't appreciate the efforts you put forth, we just ask you to remember that we are average users. Our skills and aptitudes vary widely. Also remember that we will gladly adopt anything that makes our lives easier, more productive, more secure, or just more interesting. What we will not accept however is the premise that we must devote an inordinate amount of time to learning how to install, use, and maintain your software; no matter what the perks are. There are at least two companies which already sell us stuff that just works; for the most part.

    • Speaking as a representative for the average computer user, I will try to explain the average pc user to the F/OSS crowd. Please note that I do not have a great deal of free time to carry on a dialog after this is posted. I will however try to reply to any serious questions as time permits.

      I wouldn't call me a representative for the more tech savvy computer users, though in fact I am more tech savvy. I will try to explain a few things for you as clearly as possible. Hopefully you can benefit from open sou

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