Yesterday I posted an article on the iProduct parody, and on what I called “zealotry in the choice of consumer products”. I had anticipated the danger of agitating some Mac users among the few people who read this blog, but I had not expected to ruffle the feathers of manchicken, himself! To those of you out there that are new to blogging like I am, it seems that when you link any other WordPress blog to your own, a link your page will automatically be added to the blog that you linked to – that is, if it is set up that way on the other person’s blog.
Anyway, manchicken didn’t like the fact that I linked to a certain article on his blog using the word “zealotry”. He felt that I was “marginalizing” his viewpoint to make it seem like it was less important than my own. First of all, I apologize to manchicken if the way I linked to his page seemed disrespectful. Certainly, I do not think his viewpoint is unimportant, otherwise I wouldn’t have linked to it. In fact, I encourage everyone to read his article right now. Also check out the Free Software Foundation website and read up on free software. There are a lot of people in the Linux community that believe as manchicken does, and I don’t mean to just pick on him.
I’ve read a number of manchicken’s posts on Planet Ubuntu. He is actually a contributor to the KDE version of Ubuntu, called Kubuntu. Although I disagree with much of manchicken’s views regarding free software, I highly commend him for his work on Kubuntu. In fact, do you have an old computer lying around that you don’t use much anymore? Why not head over to the Ubuntu website and download Ubuntu 7.04? It won’t cost you anything to try it out, and it might breathe new life into your new computer, especially if it is old enough to still be running Windows 98 (which is no longer supported by Microsoft).
While my post yesterday mostly tackled the zealotry of Apple fans, I tried to temper my arguments to Apple lovers everywhere by pointing out that there is zealotry in the Linux world too. And while I certainly didn’t intend to be dismissive of manchicken’s article, I still think it is an example of zealotry. Not that zealotry is necessarily bad, though it can be. It may be zealotry for a cause: the spread of free software everywhere, but it’s still zealotry. And unfortunately, I fear that this zealotry is hurting the Linux movement, and is keeping Linux from reaching it’s full potential.
You see, many people in the free software movement do not believe Linux is just another product. They believe that it is important that Linux stays completely open source (free as in “freedom”). There are some Linux distributions available like Linux Mint, that not only contain open source software, but also contain some parts that are closed source and proprietary. These are things like video drivers and multimedia codecs. These proprietary pieces of software may still be free as in “price”, but they don’t include the source code. And that is what free and open source software is all about: being free to modify the programs you run and free to distribute your modified programs with the source code. Don’t get me wrong. I think open source software is COOL. At work, I often use two GPL-licensed open source programs: WinMerge and 7-Zip. I wish a lot more software was open source and protected under the GPL.
But most people using a computer don’t care as much about using open source software as they do about simply using software that works. And while Linux Mint certainly isn’t 100% open source, I’ve personally found it a lot easier to use than most other Linux distributions, including Ubuntu. Unfortuately, many people in the Linux community do not like distributions like Linux Mint, even if they are easier to use. And they fight any effort to bundle proprietary codecs and drivers into more popular distributions like Ubuntu. This often makes Linux quite frustrating to use, as there are often no equivalent open source drivers or codecs. To get the drivers and codecs that people need to make their computer run as they want, they often have to download them separately. Granted the new “Restricted Drivers” page in Ubuntu 7.04 makes this somewhat easier, but I still had to download packages manually to get MP3 support fully working in my copy of Ubuntu (after consulting the instructions on the unofficial Ubuntu Guide web page). The entire Linux desktop experience could be made a lot easier for many people, if more Linux developers were willing to bundle proprietary software with Linux to fill in the “holes” that free software doesn’t yet cover. To most people, Linux is just another product, and if they find Linux is too much trouble to put up with, then they will gladly pay to use Mac or Windows.
And that is sad, because to be quite honest, for an operating system that was mostly built by volunteers (albeit with a lot more corporate backing now), Linux is an amazing operating system – especially since it doesn’t cost you anything to try it out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have anywhere near the commercial software development support that Windows or Mac has, so trying to find the programs you want that work the way you want can be quite frustrating (especially if they are games). And although Ubuntu is very easy and quick to install these days, configuring it to your liking afterwards often requires spending a lot of time searching through the online forums for help with problems, unless you want to use Automatix, which is not officially recommended by the Ubuntu developers (I won’t dive into that controversy!).
Maybe Microsoft’s insistence on putting WGA, Trusted Computing, and Digital Rights Management into their software will annoy the public so badly in the future that they will get fed up and leave Windows in droves. Maybe Apple’s overpriced and restrictive hardware will be the last straw, and all PC users will flock to Linux. This little gnome would be happy as a clam if it happened, but right now, he’s just not seeing it.
Like I said, zealotry is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it’s definitely hurting Linux. It may also hurt Apple to some extent as well, but not nearly as much. Although it is pricey, the Mac is a really cool and easy computer to use.
So is there a time when zealotry is good? Well certainly, but I think that subject really should be devoted to it’s own post, which I’ll put up later. In the meantime, try out Ubuntu, my friends. You may be surprised by what you see, and although it is isn’t perfect, you may prefer it a lot more than I currently do.
Take care!
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