Re: free "software" & geeky nitpicking (was Re: [DotGNU]paying for free software (was Re: `freeing' proprietary software))

[David Bradley]

S11001001 wrote:

> `People' just don't get up in arms about their computers, which I feel 
> is the biggest barrier in bring Free Software principles to the 
> masses. :( I would personally love to have a bunch of vocal Free 
> Software fans who were users, not hackers/sysadmins/everyone obsessed 
> with "free as in price". Because "reduced TCO" is not very useful, and 
> it will be a while before people can make the connection: free 
> software -> no central control && get your fav. hacker (u kno u hav 1 
> ;) to fix it.
I think the biggest barrier is that your average users doesn't have the 
time or knowledge to find and deal with free software. Most computers 
come with an OS and basic applications installed. They're quite happy 
with what they have. Also you can find books and other people to help 
you with the commercial software.

My first experience with Linux a few years ago really dowsed my 
enthusiasm. I had hoped to quickly setup a simple web server. I spent 
many evenings trying to get the system configured. None of the books and 
online documentation I had at my disposal was accurate. I had to piece 
information together from all sources before I finally was able to get 
things up and running. Only then to run into the exact same problem with 
the SQL engine. I gave up. While if I was in a tinkering mode, I might 
have enjoyed this, my goal was not to tinker and play with an OS. I've 
setup similar commercial systems in a day.

The same will hold true for dotGNU. If the startup costs and learning 
curve are significantly higher than .Net don't expect Windows developers 
to flock in droves to use this. dotGNU will be an alternative for the 
Microsoft Haters Union, but not the main stream Windows developer. If 
you want to be more than a fringe element you have to be attractive to 
these types of developers. And at least from what I've seen so far, it's 
just not there.

I think Microsoft realized this many years ago and why they do invest as 
much in their dev tools as they do. They got bit early on by Borland. 
Microsoft used to be lagging behind Borland and others. And I think they 
realized the importance of having a large group of developers willing to 
write software for your OS. It was a long term investment that has paid 
off. While the cost of acquiring free software is free, development 
using free software has a higher cost than developing with commercial tools.