CNet Promotes Essential Open-Source Software to Joe Public 227
Zool writes "A feature is currently running on CNet explicitly promoting open-source software alternatives for typical home users, with programs rated and compared to commercial offerings. Although there's no mention of the Linux advantages to home users, the list is extensive and certainly written with the intention of snagging wider open-source adoption and understanding in the mainstream. 'Why should you care about open source? You should care because the vast majority of common applications, even complex commercial stuff like Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office, have free, open-source alternatives. And this point is worth reiterating: open-source software is free. No cost. Zero. Zilch.'"
Free as in Beer then Free as in Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
I find this may be the better approach in introducing people to free[dom]/open source software. People don't understand at first the implications of free[dom] software.
After the hook of 'free', then people can learn about the freedom aspects. Of course if they clue in right away the importance of freedom, all the better.
Free Speech is Not Free Beer (Score:4, Insightful)
That point is worthless, or some negative value. Because open-source software is free speech , notfree beer. Plenty of open source is $free, but there's plenty of paid products that include the source code. It's harder to prevent people from redistributing open source, to collect the money from something they can copy to others without paying. But that's copyright violation, which CNet is now promoting, even though it makes its own income from that same protection.
Lanxon is the MP3 and digital music reviewer for CNet. Next time he says anything defending music industry copyrights, or his own on his articles, readers should remind him. Maybe by republishing it under their own name.
Be careful with the free statement (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Does this matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free as in Beer then Free as in Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
Most non-free software provides this functionality as easily as free software.
Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Open Office extensively and have never installed MS Office despite having an MSDN subscription which provides it for "free" for the last 5 yrs. I do this out of principle, but this decision has cost me. There are incompatibilities present that have cost me time and effort.
I own Adobe Photoshop because Gimp would cost me dearly in time and effort. I've tried many times, but Gimp is really not a PS replacement.
And while Linux is "free" and my company's products support it, the userbase is comparatively small to our Windows base and the costs of using it, learning it, keeping up with it, and maintaining product support are astronomical (per user capita) compared to Windows.
That said, there are a huge number of open-source packages that are not only free but save me an enormous amount of time and effort. Thunderbird is far more time-friendly than Outlook has been to me. Firefox. Python. Ruby. Ruby on Rails.
Others save me money by proxy. My web host uses Open Solaris, for example.
Open Source software has a very important niche within enterprise and home use. But a large number of the mainstream packages that most home users would use will frustrate those folks with quirks. Some things are only free if you value your time at nothing.
Rather Free AND Legal! (Score:5, Insightful)
The message that needs to be gotten across is "Free AND Legal". I've had people express complete disbelief in my claim that they can have Legal Copies of software for free (beer) -- to the point where they were pretty sure I was lying or making it up.
Re:Free Speech is Not Free Beer (Score:3, Insightful)
If the point is to introduce new people to software, it only make sense to talk about the applications that they will want to use and the licenses that cover them. Most of the people that would be learning about free software wouldn't be programmers that would have to worry about mixing source code with non compatible licenses and then redistributing the end result.
Plus the licenses you seem to be referencing, don't seem to be very free as in speech. Are they even certified as open licenses?
Re:Free Speech is Not Free Beer (Score:5, Insightful)
The free speech education can come later, but please, quit arguing semantics because all you do is give the entire OSS movement a bad name. Joe Sixpack will see some idiot blathering on about how free speech does not equal free beer and think we're all just a bunch of whining hippies. Then he'll never use OSS because he thinks there is a religious ideology behind it.
Show him good "free as in beer" software, then later on, if he's interested, educate him on why "free as in speech" is important too. Please do us all a favor and don't try to ram ideology down Joe Sixpack's throat.
Re:Gimp vs Photoshop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rather Free AND Legal! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is unfortunate. I think this is one of the more overlooked problems in trying to gain widespread adoption of open source alternatives, even if it is on Winblows.
I am in university, and the attitude from many first-year CS students I have spoken with is that "Linux sucks", even if they have only used PuTTY on their Winblows boxes to program their small C apps to the server with GCC. And they are all asking "Why not Visual Studio?", which they all have pirated of course. It is ridiculous. They do not believe me about the crappiness of proprietary software, and some even choose to use Vista just because it is the "latest".
It's free except when... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Misleading Story Content (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rather Free AND Legal! (Score:5, Insightful)
That right there is the problem. GIMP isn't just a little weird. It's off in its own world. Most GIMP defenders write it off and say "use a better window manager", but the reality is it just doesn't play well with the normal usage patterns most window managers are coded for. And of course it's a much bigger issue on Windows, where you can't change the UI.
Don't blame the user for not understanding when you throw something at them that works totally differently than every other program they've ever seen.
And they are all asking "Why not Visual Studio?", which they all have pirated of course.
Why pirate it? It's free unless you want the high end editions. If you're the type of person who doesn't know why they should or shouldn't be using Visual Studio, you don't need the versions that cost money.
They do not believe me about the crappiness of proprietary software
Because to most people, especially home users, it doesn't matter. Most of them would never be able to do anything with the source code, nor would they have the money to pay someone who could. And they like having a company to call for support.
Proprietary data formats, however, are a completely different story. Those are bad for everyone but the maker of the software.
Re:Free Speech is Not Free Beer (Score:3, Insightful)
And the other (non-GPL) license often offers exactly the same terms as the GPL, including the open source, but explicitly limits the redistribution.
The point is that "free" software has lots of different meanings, some subsets, some complementary but respecting different kinds of transactions (eg. reading the source vs not paying for it). CNet's statement was the grossest oversimplification, which made it wrong.
Re:Free as in Beer then Free as in Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)
There are always two factors to choosing software:
1. Price of the software.
2. The amount of time it takes to acquire and learn to use said software.
Example:
Given the choice of purchasing the expensive Photoshop or downloading user unfriendly GIMP for free, which will the average user do?
The answer is they will pirate Photoshop for free and Win/Win!
But seriously, most people tend to go with what they can their hands on for the least amount of trouble. Most people think that Windows and or MS Office is free because it comes with the computer
Re:FOSS (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that is a failing of source forge and not open source. Anyone can register an open source project on source forge. It will get deleted after a while if you let it completely stagnate. The problem is, in generally, everyone forgets your failures and remember your successes. If you search sourceforge, you have to wad through everyones failures.
There are a million closed source failures. There is just no way to search for them all. They either are on someone hard drive or deleted. If you have trouble wadding through the open source failures, I would suggest you use Google as it will rank the results better and you will get non sourceforge hosted projects.
Thoughts About Perceived Value and Open Source (Score:4, Insightful)
First a bit of background, I am a general all-around tech support person for an island with a population of approximately 15,000 people (on the South end of the island). Most of my clients are either retired and/or are tech-shy.
As a dedicated user of Open Source software I consistently advocate it to my clients as a solution for many of their needs. The attitude that I run into time and time again that if you are not paying out the wazoo for software then it can't be any good. Many won't even try a piece of software unless they pay for it.
I have taken to creating a DVD or CDs of Open Source programs (particularly OpenOffice.org), charging for them and donating that money back to the respective project. It's a system that seems to be working for everyone - clients feel they are getting something valuable because they paid for it and the projects are getting much needed donation money.
Forget promoting Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Expecting people to switch en masse is not reasonable until the UI is completely idiot proof and requires no advanced diagnostic. Even Ubuntu is not there yet.
A better strategy is to promote open source software running on Windows. Firefox, Thunderbird, Gimp, Open Office etc. all run on Windows. Introduce users to these great apps and allow them to use them at their own pace. They can even run the open source apps side by side with the MS equivalents if they like. Since most open source apps run on Windows and Linux, it means the underlying OS is of less relevance.
Later when Linux for the desktop is more mature they can be tempted to move. It may even be that Dell / Compaq etc. off cheap machines with Linux on them. If the apps are the same then the pain in moving is so much less.
Re:Misleading Story Content (Score:3, Insightful)
What they can't do is charge £5000 for the binary and then another £5000 for the source -- additional charges for the Source Code are limited to covering cost of media and delivery.
Re:Rather Free AND Legal! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Free as in Beer then Free as in Freedom (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rather Free AND Legal! (Score:1, Insightful)
It doesn't even work if you legitimately buy non-Free software. I've worked in two companies where MS Office Professional was described as "Free Software" because it came on the workstations we bought.
Joe Public doesn't care about free as in speech... (Score:3, Insightful)
(This is in response to the tag freespeechisnotfreebeer.)
Re:Free Speech is Not Free Beer (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think the average person reading that article would make the logical leap from free to "I can steal this source code and get away with it," but that's just me.
Re:WTF? What does C|Net know about FOSS?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ever hear of THUNDERBIRD?!??
It doesn't have the scheduling capabilities of Outlook and doesn't automatically set up Exchange accounts like Outlook, along with a number of other useful corporate features. Most of which would have to be provided by other programs.
The point of the article is an intro to free OSS for average computer users or corporate environments. CNet is trying to make the transition as smooth as possible. A business isn't interested in replacing their relatively inexpensive multi-user Office license with 3+ different programs and investing the time in retraining and support. It's simply not a cost effective way of doing business. And that's the bottom line for most businesses.
Re:Rather Free AND Legal! (Score:3, Insightful)
About trying "commercial" software, I spent last week trying commercial free software, I think you mean "proprietary" software, as in "non-free", or "non-open-source". There are valid reasons not to try proprietary software. There are technical reasons to reject some stuff just based on their licenses, for example integration issues. Strategical reasons too, licenses are more important than the quality of the actual product most of the time, because they establish your future relationship with it. Anyhow, ethical reasons should be enough. Just because some people might think ethics are not important in some context it doesn't mean they are not valid reasons.
Re:Round up the usual suspects (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, what an astounding example of misinterpretation of the given information. A low-cost course in MS Office is quite a success, so you interpret that to mean OpenOffice is "a ticket to nowhere" to "most folks." So if a course in OpenOffice has good attendance, would that be a sign that MS Office is "a ticket to nowhere?"
Whether you like to admit it or not, there is room in the marketplace for more than one office suite. And OpenOffice is growing in popularity as more people become aware of its existence. Most folks aren't even aware of OpenOffice, and I would say that is the main reason its uptake hasn't been faster. But as I noted, its usage grows nonetheless.
The same argument holds for FOSS applications in all of the other categories. You may not like them, but there are plenty of others who have embraced them wholeheartedly and are introducing them to friends and family at a growing rate.