Linked by Adam S on Sun 6th Apr 2003 17:18 UTC
This is my reaction to Tsu Dho Nimh's "Migrating to Linux not easy for Windows users" featured on Linuxworld.com recently. It's not a response, I'm not challenging his opinions, which I feel are not only valid, but mostly right, it's just a reaction.
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I think, by far, the most critical thing Adam mentioned was the concept of a target market. Linux, as it stands, should not be aimed at the masses of people. There's no point. They wouldn't switch anyway. Identifying exactly who you can sell to is the critical first step in being successful. You don't need a 99% Microsoft monopoly to be successful in the OS market. Getting a strong foothold in a few key niches is enough to ensure that you'll be around long enough to keep hacking away at other markets. Right now, Linux is ready for a few key markets:
1) The corporate desktop.
2) Public workstations (universities, schools, libraries).
3) Artists workstations (ILM has already switched most machines over).
4) Power users (the people who used to futz around with IRQs in Win 3.1)
At this point in time, getting a solid base in the above markets is going to be far more useful than trying to cater to the home user. And guess what: that's what the major distros are doing right now!
@Eugenia. You're comments about the VCRs and goats imply something very different from reality. The truth is, that once you learn Linux, you do your work far more efficiently than you can futzing around with wizards or "task oriented" menus. By the time someone finds a folder in explorer, opens the target folder, highlights everything, and drag-and-drops them over, I've done"cp -R <src> <dst>" and moved on with my life. Sure, I don't expect a clueless user to be able to know how to use the CLI. I disagree with you, in that I believe that pretty much every use can be *taught* how to use his/her computer efficiently, and the time and expense of training is greatly outweighed by increased productivity. What you're missing is that it's not like rewiring your VCR every time you want to record. It's like building it from scratch and never having problems with it ever again. A lot of people don't get enough use out of their VCR to justify building it from scratch. I certainly don't. But computers aren't commodity items for everyone. And for those people, the hassle of setting things up, and learning things beforehand is worth it.
PS> Programming a VCR is still a gaint hassle today. *I* have trouble figuring out our DirecTV receiver. It's not intuitive, at all. Almost no TV programming is (think: magic key combos on remotes to program the brand of TV). Yet, the world still manages to go around without too many people that have "12:00" blinking on their VCRs.