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May 14, 2003
The Cost of Change
There are a lot of Linux command-line users who think its the best thing there is in operating systems (OS). And for what they use Linux for, they may be right. That is, they can run their web and mail servers for months without having to lift a finger and the total cost of doing so is low relative to other operating systems.
But when it comes to the desktop, things get a little more cloudy. Oh, these people still look down their noses at anyone who doesn't use Linux, but then, most of them probably don't earn a living by running a word processor or spreadsheet.
Those that do are the early adopters. These are the people that enjoy exploring new environments. To boldly go where no man has gone before. They seek out the challenge of getting the OS to do your bidding. To conquer it, to beat it into submission is sufficient justification to continue.
But for the rest of us, all we want our OS to do is run the applications that help us do our jobs. We don't care what OS it runs on as long as it runs.
The Linux adherents respond saying: There are thousands of applications that run on Linux. And they are right. But most of them are alphaware full of bugs. Of the few that are stable, many are not compatible in reading and writing file formats with what we use.
Still, even if Linux desktop applications were as stable, compatible, and usable as any other operating system - people still wouldn't switch to Linux, or any other OS, because they would have to learn a new way of doing things.
People do not like change that costs them something (e.g., time, money, or effort) but results in nothing more than a net of zero. Hence, if another OS is to catch on with the rest of the human race, it will have to much better than what people use now. Not as good. Not a little better. But much better.
It must be faster, more stable, backwards compatible, cheaper, and marketed better.
Otherwise, inertia alone will keep people from changing to it.
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Sorry for no post yesterday but I was down with a cold. I haven't been able to get much sleep because we were working on the second draft of our capstone thesis paper. We turned that in on Monday. This afternoon we will get feedback from our professor and probably do a third, and hopefully last, draft by this weekend. We have our work cut out for us.
Aloha!
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Comments
I'd guess that "linux is free" isn't really an attraction in reality, but the lack of a detraction. Until they give us money for it, it probably won't be.
Posted by: Phil at May 14, 2003 09:32 AM
The cost of the OS is a major part of the equation but not the only part. The "full" version of Windows XP costs almost $300 USD. Compare that to various distributions of Linux that are "free" for the cost of the download. So, price is definitely a factor. But the download is all you get from the distributors. No manual and no customer support to transition people from one to the other.
For many people, learning how to run another OS is not a trivial thing. In addition, for a business trying to support a change to another OS, the cost of helping users to get productive with another OS is also not a trivial thing.
Hence, the price of the OS is sometimes overshadowed by the cost of supporting the change to something else. However, in the bottom-line world that we live in, free is sometimes chosen over (short-term?) productivity.
But given a choice, people will make a change only when it is to their advantage to do so and not a second sooner.
Posted by: DanS at May 14, 2003 09:48 AM
Another point is that Windows is also free for most users.
Not in free being costless. But they don't see the price cause it's included in the hardware. A lot of people never upgrade the OS to a new version. They replaced the box after some years and get the new OS included again without explicitly paying for it.
If all computers were sold as 'bare metal' with the OS being sold separately things would be different.
Posted by: sjon at May 14, 2003 11:43 PM