Do Linux users suffer from lack of software?

[skaertus]

I agree, people are the enemy of themselves. Because they do not care to donate, they will forever be stuck in the proprietary and data hoarding-privacy invasive software+services. I have used amazing FOSS software like Firefox, Handbrake, and VLC. If we can continue the implementation with office software and operating systems that will be great.

I think we should advocate for people paying for FOSS software, and we should concentrate the efforts instead of having 42 different versions and forks of the same software all asking for donations.

I agree, people are the enemy of themselves. Because they do not care to donate, they will forever be stuck in the proprietary and data hoarding-privacy invasive software+services. I have used amazing FOSS software like Firefox, Handbrake, and VLC. If we can continue the implementation with office software and operating systems that will be great.

I think we should advocate for people paying for FOSS software, and we should concentrate the efforts instead of having 42 different versions and forks of the same software all asking for donations.

Well, I think this is something difficult to achieve. I have zero issues in paying for commercial software, and I trust that big companies such as Microsoft, Apple or Google will not use my private information against me on a personal basis. I used to be more concerned about this, but not anymore.

The problem with open source software, in my view, is lack of efficiency. People should of course concentrate their efforts in one good product instead of forking development as they do. But even if they concentrate, there is no guarantee that they will be as efficient as a commercial company.

Microsoft, Apple and Google have to be efficient, otherwise heads will be chopped.

But then, again, I am no enthusiast of open source software.

 

[skaertus]

Yeah, I can see why you would say that. However, there are the major players. You have GIMP for photo editing, Kdenlive for video, and open shot (both very good applications), theres Libreoffice in place of MS Office, you have firefox or chrome, Thunderbird... I think for email, but hey there are a ton of those and most people use google anyways. VLC for video playback, Steam for gaming, I mean I think those are all the bases for the average user. I mean, if they offered a paid version of linux that was put together well, much like Ubuntu, then I'd consider it. Speaking of which, Conical, who owns ubuntu, has paid developers. At least I think. people knock it, but Ubuntu is pretty good.

Yes, there is good software for Linux, and I have used some (in their Linux, Windows and Mac versions).

Even though some of them are good, they are not on par with commercial software.

I have used LibreOffice, and it is good. However, Microsoft Office is far better. I use Microsoft Office professionally, and my organization would never be able to replace it with LibreOffice. The lack of polish and of some features make all the difference. If I were a student and did not have many requirements, I could do with LibreOffice. But I need Microsoft Office's polish, features and compatibility.

I have used GIMP as well. It is a competent piece of software. But Photoshop is far better. I do not work with photos, but I can understand someone willing to pay for Photoshop instead of using GIMP.

There are some software which I simply do not care whether it is the best or not, if it delivers what I want. I think VLC is pretty good, and Firefox as well.

I would remember, though, that LibreOffice and Firefox were born as commercial software, and then became open source. Many of their features were not developed by the community.

 

[amgff84]

Yes, there is good software for Linux, and I have used some (in their Linux, Windows and Mac versions).

Even though some of them are good, they are not on par with commercial software.

I have used LibreOffice, and it is good. However, Microsoft Office is far better. I use Microsoft Office professionally, and my organization would never be able to replace it with LibreOffice. The lack of polish and of some features make all the difference. If I were a student and did not have many requirements, I could do with LibreOffice. But I need Microsoft Office's polish, features and compatibility.

I have used GIMP as well. It is a competent piece of software. But Photoshop is far better. I do not work with photos, but I can understand someone willing to pay for Photoshop instead of using GIMP.

There are some software which I simply do not care whether it is the best or not, if it delivers what I want. I think VLC is pretty good, and Firefox as well.

I would remember, though, that LibreOffice and Firefox were born as commercial software, and then became open source. Many of their features were not developed by the community.

In terms of professional use, linux is not a great option. Microsoft is just too advanced, so I agree with you there. I'm not sure about Libreoffice though, as I understand it a fork of Apache Open Office.

 

[TiggrToo]

In terms of professional use, linux is not a great option. Microsoft is just too advanced, so I agree with you there. I'm not sure about Libreoffice though, as I understand it a fork of Apache Open Office.

A far better maintained fork. If I was forced to choose between Open Office or Libre Office, then hands down, in a heartbeat, it would always be Libre Office.

That said, on my Mac I've come to start liking Numbers and Pages a lot. I try not to use MS office any more, unless I really truly have to.

 

[amgff84]

A far better maintained fork. If I was forced to choose between Open Office or Libre Office, then hands down, in a heartbeat, it would always be Libre Office.

That said, on my Mac I've come to start liking Numbers and Pages a lot. I try not to use MS office any more, unless I really truly have to.

I have never tried Macs office suite. I'll have to give it a go sometime.

 

[TiggrToo]

I have never tried Macs office suite. I'll have to give it a go sometime.

It does have the benefit that it's free to use (albeit closed source).

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[MacUser2525]

Think of the cloud as a really big, really complicated and quickly changing app.

Or actually think of it as what it really is. The mainframe server for client machines. It has existed since the beginning for computers only they change the name to sound fancier plus more expensive I would think...
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In terms of professional use, linux is not a great option. Microsoft is just too advanced, so I agree with you there. I'm not sure about Libreoffice though, as I understand it a fork of Apache Open Office.

I am the Star Office suite was the beginning of all them, a company produced piece of software.

StarOffice - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[TiggrToo]

Firefox was not born as a commercial application. It traces its history back to NCSA Mosaic in the early Nineties.

Jim Clark at Silicon Graphics took note of the upstart Worldwide Web and thought it had a future. The rest of the board members at SGI said, "Jim, you're crazy. No one cares about the Internet." Jim basically gave them the finger, walked away from the company he founded and all of his unvested stock options.

Jim hired most of the college hackers who created NCSA Mosaic. This begat Mosaic Communications which quickly renamed itself Netscape Communications after trademark disputes.

What happened next was IPO history. All Silicon Valley startups dream of the Netscape IPO.

Netscape was bought by AOL, then spun off later as the non-profit Mozilla after the browser wars had ended.

THAT is where Firefox came from.

Mosiac - Oh good dog, that brings back memories. I still remember that browser with the animated S logo that played as it was connecting to a site.

Those were the days: when you would buy books like "The Internet Yellow Pages" and TV programs would give out URLs starting off with "H T T P colon Slash Slash W W W Full stop..."

Days of innocence....
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[MacBH928]

We don't need to wait to see what happens. It's been happening for 20+ years.

After gamely sticking with Linux for 14 years the Munich city government finally threw in the towel and started deploying Windows 10 replacements. They were Linux's highest profile large organization user.

Not quite what one would call a ringing endorsement for Linux, is it?

Munich did not single out one reason why it chose to return to Windows nor did it rush into the decision. Interoperability was one cited reason. There were development issues. Also, they kept a number of Windows boxes to accomplish certain tasks that couldn't be done on Linux (read: software). All in all, there were probably 5-6 major reasons that tipped the scales toward a Windows return.

Let's not forget what an operating system is. It's a big complicated program that lets other big complicated programs coexist peacefully on the same system. However as we start the third decade of the 21st century, operating systems are also being called to provide support for cloud services as well.

Think of the cloud as a really big, really complicated and quickly changing app.

Cloud support's importance will continue to increase as people use smartphones and tablets more frequently for tasks that they formerly did on computers. That's why Apple has made a concerned effort to get some iCloud functionality on the Windows platform.

One of Linux's greatest failures was its inability to field a viable mobile OS candidate. Like Microsoft's mobile OS bungling, that ship has sailed for Linux.

Android is a heavily modified version of the Linux kernel, but it's not marketed as a Linux mobile OS nor is there any Linux distribution associated with Android. Its Linux heritage is pretty much unknown to Joe Consumer and all efforts at turning Android into a desktop OS have been unsuccessful.

Well... thats seriously sad. When some one decides to PAY for software instead of using a FREE one, it says something. We are talking gov. level here so its not like they couldn't hire tech. support.

Firefox was not born as a commercial application. It traces its history back to NCSA Mosaic in the early Nineties.

Jim Clark at Silicon Graphics took note of the upstart Worldwide Web and thought it had a future. The rest of the board members at SGI said, "Jim, you're crazy. No one cares about the Internet." Jim basically gave them the finger, walked away from the company he founded and all of his unvested stock options.

Jim hired most of the college hackers who created NCSA Mosaic. This begat Mosaic Communications which quickly renamed itself Netscape Communications after trademark disputes.

What happened next was IPO history. All Silicon Valley startups still dream of the Netscape IPO.

Netscape was bought by AOL, then spun off later as the non-profit Mozilla after the browser wars had ended.

THAT is where Firefox came from.

Netscape Navigator will forever symbolizes for me the "surfing of the web". It really felt like the window to the global network. Now everything is so integrated and on all the time, you just don't feel it.

 

[alex cochez]

Well... thats seriously sad. When some one decides to PAY for software instead of using a FREE one, it says something. We are talking gov. level here so its not like they couldn't hire tech. support.

The powers that be. May have been political. New mayor, different party in charge. While, soon after the decision was made, MS HQ in Germany moved to Munich.
Youtube got a documentary about it:

Starts at 17:43.

But don't overthink all this, just enjoy the OS that works for you.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[MacBH928]

The powers that be. May have been political. New mayor, different party in charge. While, soon after the decision was made, MS HQ in Germany moved to Munich.
Youtube got a documentary about it:

Starts at 17:43.

But don't overthink all this, just enjoy the OS that works for you.

Thats a different perspective, I just assumed the German govt. will be doing whatever best for their people, I didn't consider some sort of political/economic side to it. There is good news though, other European govt. seem to be adopting FOSS!

The German guy makes such a great arguement saying that using Linux frees the Germany govt. from being under the power of a foreign company. Makes lots of sense...you never know whats in the proprietary software...

Thats such a great video... thanks for sharing! spot on the topic too...I wonder how you stumbled on it.

Linux isn't free if you examine the total cost of ownership. There are rather extensive system administration demands.

Munich had to write a bunch of their own applications. In fact, they basically created their own distribution for internal use only. They had to provide their own OS support.

You can't just dial 1-800-LINUX-GUYS and expect a battalion of Linux geeks to show up on your doorstep and fix everything for free.

Government IT staff isn't free. Government programmers aren't free.

If you place no value on a person's time (your's or anyone else's), then Linux is great: FOSS forever.

Once you associate a dollar value to a person's time, then the "Linux is free" argument breaks down in a hurry. It's one thing to be a Linux nerd living in your mom's basement. It's something else when you think "Oh, I need to drive my daughter to her ballet lesson in a few minutes during rush hour" or "someone needs to weed the garden."

I completely get what you are saying, but to be fair, even Windows has its trouble tinkering and problems that needs system maintainers and dedicated software built for. Windows also costs money, but which costs less?

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[amgff84]

Well... thats seriously sad. When some one decides to PAY for software instead of using a FREE one, it says something. We are talking gov. level here so its not like they couldn't hire tech. support.




Netscape Navigator will forever symbolizes for me the "surfing of the web". It really felt like the window to the global network. Now everything is so integrated and on all the time, you just don't feel it.

whoa, never thought of it that way... you really don't. Everything is internet and the "cloud".

 

[skaertus]

Firefox was not born as a commercial application. It traces its history back to NCSA Mosaic in the early Nineties.

Jim Clark at Silicon Graphics took note of the upstart Worldwide Web and thought it had a future. The rest of the board members at SGI said, "Jim, you're crazy. No one cares about the Internet." Jim basically gave them the finger, walked away from the company he founded and all of his unvested stock options.

Jim hired most of the college hackers who created NCSA Mosaic. This begat Mosaic Communications which quickly renamed itself Netscape Communications after trademark disputes.

What happened next was IPO history. All Silicon Valley startups still dream of the Netscape IPO.

Netscape was bought by AOL, then spun off later as the non-profit Mozilla after the browser wars had ended.

THAT is where Firefox came from.

Yes, It is true. But as far as I remember the software was mostly developed during its commercial days.

 

[splifingate]

There is a learning curve though, you don't expect the user to learn C++ to be able to sync his iPhone to iTunes like device.

But this is really the gist of the situation...

...Players *did-do* write all this stuff in C(+(+(+*whatever*))) . . . Carl, Guy, David, Richard, et al. all created a bootstrap toolkit that brings all of us to where we are today, from scratch . . . the effrontery in having any random individual show-up in the foyer demanding [that the inheritors of this legacy] further-craft bespoke tailored to the comp-de-jour is to be expected nought but with silence, if not (as luck might have it) an "Er..."

It really used to really bristle the nape of my pate when I read "DYOR", and I often got mad at the man, but it just boggles my mind that these things were consciously created out of thin slices of shared resources that pale in comparison to what I have available at-hand (multiple times).

It's almost like asking Henry Ford to help me change my oil . . .

Regards, splifingate

 

[satcomer]

All I know most traditional radio stations run on Linux and Audacity!

 

[MacBH928]

But this is really the gist of the situation...

...Players *did-do* write all this stuff in C(+(+(+*whatever*))) . . . Carl, Guy, David, Richard, et al. all created a bootstrap toolkit that brings all of us to where we are today, from scratch . . . the effrontery in having any random individual show-up in the foyer demanding [that the inheritors of this legacy] further-craft bespoke tailored to the comp-de-jour is to be expected nought but with silence, if not (as luck might have it) an "Er..."

It really used to really bristle the nape of my pate when I read "DYOR", and I often got mad at the man, but it just boggles my mind that these things were consciously created out of thin slices of shared resources that pale in comparison to what I have available at-hand (multiple times).

It's almost like asking Henry Ford to help me change my oil . . .

Regards, splifingate

The whole idea is to make FOSS available to the average person and this is what I believe Richard Stallman's idea and what the FSF stand for. Asking people to write their own software is akin to asking people to perform surgery on themselves if they get ill. Yes they will have to go to 7 years of medical school. The doctor did it, so can you!

Henry Ford built a car that the less than average person can learn to drive within some hours of training, he did not require them to achieve masters degree of mechanical engineering just so they can operate their own car.

 

[Nugget]

The whole idea is to make FOSS available to the average person and this is what I believe Richard Stallman's idea and what the FSF stand for.

Stallman's philosophy is broader than that in that he hopes to bring about the elimination of all closed-source software as well. In Stallman's world, all software should be GPL and there is no place for more permissive open source licenses or for closed-source "proprietary" software at all.

It goes without saying that this view is not representative of the open source community as a whole.

 

[skaertus]

The whole idea is to make FOSS available to the average person and this is what I believe Richard Stallman's idea and what the FSF stand for. Asking people to write their own software is akin to asking people to perform surgery on themselves if they get ill. Yes they will have to go to 7 years of medical school. The doctor did it, so can you!

Henry Ford built a car that the less than average person can learn to drive within some hours of training, he did not require them to achieve masters degree of mechanical engineering just so they can operate their own car.

And Henry Ford actually sold cars to the average people. He did not give them away for free. And Ford Motor Company holds trademarks and patents, it does not let anybody else use its intellectual property for free.