| |
Linux Is Not Ready For The Masses
By: Dave Taylor
Expert Author
2008-03-19
There's an interesting, albeit very (very) long article written by Rip Linton entitled "Linux Not Ready for the Masses? Bull" that, rather inadvertently, does a great job of demonstrating one of the main reasons that Linux is not, in fact, ready for the masses:
Rip makes an impassioned intellectual argument for the positive value of change but in this instance completely misses that perception is more important than reality.
His arguments are based primarily on his own experience in the computer industry, years of learning how to wrestle with and overcome the challenges of new and different technology. Interesting reading, particularly since I too have been involved with the Unix community for decades.
There are a few key points he makes that I want to address:
"Most users love to learn new things and really like it if they are one of the first in their group to learn something"
In my experience that's not true. In fact, most people - particularly in a corporate environment - are interested in getting their job done and getting out of there, not learning new tools and techniques. That's why there's still such an installed base of Windows 95 and Windows 98, along with MacOS 9 (yes, I hear from users of all these systems).
This is a key point, because just about every Unix / Linux / GNU person I've bumped into during the 25 years (jeez!) I've been associated with that community has a high level of intellectual curiosity about the tools they use for their work. They like getting incremental updates, they like playing with new tools, they're curious. That's great, but it's not the way most people work and it's a mistake to assume that it is.
"Training and perception are the keys to successful change"
Agreed, but this assumes that people want to be trained and that the benefit to the business - and the individuals - after the training is sufficiently high that they'll accept being trained in the first place. Worse, most corporate trainers are terrible teachers, boring and fairly unforgiving of those who aren't immediately grasping the new concepts or tools.
Nonetheless, my main point is that, yes, perception is key to successful change. And since the perception of Linux is that it's far more geeky and difficult to work with than Windows, this needs to be addressed directly in the marketplace too.
And, to be honest, it is harder to work with Linux than Windows or Mac OS X because you can't go to Kinko's and buy an app for your Linux box, you can't just plug in a printer and get it to work, and you can't get your friend to pop over and help you fix things. No perception involved, this is just the reality of working with an unpopular system in the marketplace.
"The person installing and training on new systems and software must know it so well that they make it look easy"
That's a good point, but it's extraordinarily difficult to pull off. If nothing else, there's the whole "demo syndrome" where things inevitably fail when you try to show others how to use them. You see that again and again at trade shows, for example.
"If there are problems, they should be resolved without making it look like it is difficult to overcome issues."
This is good in the sense that it recognizes that perceptions are critically important, but on the other hand, so many things associated with Windows are mind-numbingly complicated (and some times well nigh impossible to fix) and yet... somehow that doesn't seem to slow down the adoption of Windows in the corporate environment or at home, for that matter.
Finally, my main disagreement with Rip is that people don't embrace change, they run away from it screaming. There's a cliché that addresses this too: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Windows, particularly Windows Vista, is basically broken, but it's not so broken that people are eager to fix it by going into a completely different world, an alien world of geeks and hourly system patches called Linux.
Is Linux ready for prime time? No, it still isn't. After decades of development and effort by the folks that enjoy new tools, gizmos, and poking around with things on a daily basis.
But maybe you disagree? Share your thoughts, let's talk about it!
Comments
About the Author:
Dave Taylor has been involved with the Internet since 1980 and is
internationally known as an expert on both business and technology issues.
Holder of an MSEd and MBA, author of twenty books and founder of four
startups, he also runs a strategic marketing company and consults with firms
seeking the best approach to working with weblogs and social networks. Dave
is an award-winning speaker and frequent guest on radio and podcast
programs.
AskDaveTaylor.com
http://www.intuitive.com/blog/
|
|
