With apologies to Richard Stallman, I must repeat - not all software is best free. New distributions like Xandros and LindowsOS are taking action not usually taken in the free software realm: employing graphical designers to make the system and logos cleaner, brushing up on points that are less important to the functionality of the system but important to the user actually using it. We, as techies, too often overestimate the priorities of the home user. We insist that security is an issue, when it's usually not. Many people set their computer to log in automatically or use blank passwords. We believe speed is more important than eye candy, but the average user doesn't always agree. Developers aren't excited by the mundane, but these details must be painstakingly covered to ensure the system "feels" right. Many companies in the "Linux business" know this; they are doing their best to make Linux usable, and many of the best improvements, like XFM and Click-N-Run, are non-GPL programs! Let's face it, if the source to these programs were publicly available, they'd be in many distributions within a few months.
When I move the mouse around in Linux - it feels a little like it plays catch up with me. When I click on objects, I feel like the system has to figure out what I meant to select. It's a strange sensation that I have a very hard time putting into words. This as a likely limitation of Xfree86's lack of the proper threading support. As a member of the IT community, I understand the complexity of this issue. As a user, I don't care. A company like Apple or Microsoft has the resources to pay developers to work out whatever problems they decide need fixing. The open source community relies largely on developers working for free on what suits them in their free time. We can't decide if we should be improving X, or ditching it in favor the replacements, most of which have been in development for years.
There are some applications out there that are part of what I consider a new generation of Linux apps that are top notch - K3B for cd burning, Ximian's Evolution PIM, and the entire Mandrake Control Center, to name a few. While open source developers sometimes produce great products, with free software, developers can (and often do) skip over features that aren't important to them personally. In fairness, that is not a bad thing - a developer should not be required to write something, for free, that they do not need. But an end user doesn't want to use an application that doesn't completely suit their needs. We're still missing even passable counterparts for Photoshop, Access, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, and Front Page. And there's a good reason.
These products are impossibly large scale projects, but projects that a corporate interest would easily be able to accomplish, if it weren't for a community so dead set in their intolerance of non-free software. Adobe, Macromedia, and other large software companies know the audience - they know Linux users don't pay for software. We collectively sing the mantra of free software only, so we have to wait. We wait for someone somewhere to start a sourceforge project, recruit a team, decide on a programming language, and then begin to code. Then we wait for the forks - the guys who port a Qt app to GTK or create a Java version. We wait for it to mature. We report on our various successes. And then we download endless betas waiting for the 1.0 milestone. And when we implement it, there's no support. At best, there's a message board that helps you find out why you can't compile the app or why the rpm doesn't work on your distribution or how come the author's didn't include feature X.
It's important to note that the FSF also states "Free software does not mean non-commercial. A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important." The problem is that some companies and their developers need to be compensated for their time in order to make the manufacturing their product worthwhile for them, and that often means withholding source code, restricting redistribution, and forbidding decompiling, which disqualifies the product as free software.
My intent here is not be presumptuous or didactic, but rather to suggest that we all revisit the notion of free software solving all problems. One of the problems we face is legitimitizing Linux. I believe that Linux's eventual desktop success relies upon corporate and commercial interest. I dream of enterprise software makers catering to the Linux desktop and hardware manufacturers including Linux drivers on their companion CDs. Free software has its place, but not everything should be free. Sometimes, when developers have a quality product, they don't want to give away their hard work for free. It's not unreasonable to pay for goods and services, and I don't believe that software should be an exception. If Linux users would concede that non-free software can fill in their swiss-cheese application market, perhaps the Linux software landscape wouldn't be so hit-or-miss.
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Adam Scheinberg is a regular contributor to OSNews.com. He works as network administrator in Orlando, FL. He runs Linux and Windows at home.
- "Free Software, Part I"
- "Free Software, Part II"
