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RE[4]: Old news
by Spiron on Fri 22nd Jul 2011 06:18 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Old news"
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I will reply to just one of your posts but will answer both.

The fact that these pieces of software aren't on linux isn't really the issue. There are pieces of FOSS software that fulfill similar roles. But professionals are most likely to use these industry standards on their computers. For example, i have a number of professional photographer friends, and one of them uses FOSS tools and OS's. But when he wants to do top-of-the-line editing he switches back into Windows with Photoshop, because he thinks a better product for doing complex editing in. Another example, everyone making an full-feature animated film that is for cinematic release, either hollywood or independent, use Maya. It is the recognized standard for its field and nothing proponents of Blender say is going to change that anytime soon.

When I said that the 64Bit experience was good on Windows i was speaking from the point of view of someone that does have fairly new hardware, but also from the point of a developer. With any hardware made in the last 3 years it works pretty much as expected, and all the frameworks and system libraries work at least as good as anything on 32Bit versions. And while I cannot say that IE9 64Bit is a good browser i can say that the lack of a decent one from Microsoft should have left it open to other browser makers to make one, but Adobe Flash held them back with their refusal to make a 64Bit plugin. All i was trying to point out was that the ability had been there, it was just that no-one had come along with a good version.

As to the stigma that free != good, a suprising amount of people dislike open-source software because of this reason. It's not a problem with them, perse, it's a problem with how and what we are taught. For example, a shopper sees two speakers, slightly different in size and shape. One is being offered at $15 while the other is being offered for $10. The majority of people will pay the $15 instead of getting the $10 one. Why? Its not because they are different. It's not even really about the varying quality of either speaker. It's just that our society is a consumer-driven one and consumer-logic dictates that if its more expensive then it must be better quality. Because of its general truth among other areas of consumation people also apply this rule of thumb to software without really thinking. And because of the open-source movement this can be a rather large pitfall.

So the problem here isn't the populace view itself but more their unthinking application of it to every area of consumerism including those where it possibly shouldn't belong. Early education is the key here, because after people get to a certain age, and it differs for every person, their ideas get locked in place. But schools are generally resistant to the idea of linux/FOSS powered anything, and that is including the non-government ones. This can also be partly attributed to the stigma.

Another thing to keep in mind about people and software is that most people are not technically minded. A lot of people just use software that is preinstalled on their computer or comes on a disk. If they install other software it is generally other people doing it or the process is soo simple that it's trivial, ala Google Chrome. In such cases it is generally the adverts provided by google/facebook/other that are the reason they're installing the software. Infact, it has been estimated that only ~35% google chrome users care about the speed and other things. The other ~65% use it because they saw the add on google about using a "Faster Internet".

Edited 2011-07-22 06:25 UTC

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