software freedom and choice (was Re: [Discuss] excuse me?)

[R. Langkamer]

On 8/15/07 6:48 AM, pw wrote:

<snip>

> Getting people to work long enough outside
> of their narrow range of experience is the problem there.
> 
> People tend to learn one way of doing things and then
> stop learning. ie: windows, photoshop, dreamweaver, McDonald's,
> Pepsi (<---Stallman), Matlab, R, Octave, linux.... etc
> 
> There are, of course, only so many hours in a day. It's
> impossible to try every package or know every package well
> enough to always get the best one, as opposed to the one you're
> used to using. It becomes more economical, at some point, to stick
> with the stone axe rather than spending the time to drop-forge
> a chainsaw.


	I agree with these words. Getting people to try something different is 
near impossible after a certain age. Couple the fact of them being stuck 
in a rut with the time required to switch "cold turkey", and you are one 
degree closer to impossible. This is not a FOSS only problem. The Mac 
"zealots" have to fight the same battle. Even when you prove the 
effectiveness of the item to switch to, the end user often does not want 
to let go of their "security blanket" even when it abuses them daily.
	Personally, I have found the best way to learn is to break it down to 
the most simplistic and basic form. Take for example the recent 
"discussion" about web design. You don't need some multi-hundred dollar 
package from adobe. All you need is a text editor. Once you are fast at 
that, then look into a "professional" application that can often 
increase your work pipeline and/or streamline your workflow. Coda is an 
excellent example of this. The people at Panic looked at the workflow 
they had when dealing with web design and they suddenly realized there 
had to be a better way.
	Apple has been doing this since Steve Jobs returned and "took back the 
keys to the kingdom". There are some organizations in the FOSS universe 
that are close in their methodology to Apple, but the big problem is a 
now decades old way of thinking about FOSS and how it has to be marketed.

-- 

Sincerely,

R. Langkamer

cross platform specialist
Mac - Linux - windows

Langkamer I.T.
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