[TriLUG] Open Source Empowerment

[Roy Vestal]

Tanner,
 I'm actually going to disagree on one point. There are a lot of folks that
don't *want* to learn something new.

Real world example:
My dad, is still in the Windows world only because of one program. When I
showed him that I could load it on Linux with Wine, he was interested. He's
interested in Linux and has acquired an old PC to play with. He has this
ability to learn because he's decided he wants to.

My stepmom is also an intelligent person. However, she *doesn't* want to
learn and therefore I make house calls. It's not because she doesn't have
the aptitude to learn it or the ability, she just doesn't want the desire.
She'll admit that Linux does what she needs it to, but she doesn't want to
have to learn how to fix it.

My dad would be fine in the Debian world. My stepmom would benefit from the
Red Hat/Mandrake RPM world. I would agree with Ilan on part that most
consumers are now used to having point and click, insert CD, click setup,
wow it works! mentalities.  This is what the Linux community has to move
towards, a simple to install/maintain installation. Red Hat and Mandrake, in
my opinion, were leaders in this consumer line. Red Hat has changed their
model, and I cannot make a call on Mandrake at this point because I don't
know their model and their financials at this point.

I, a big Red Hat supporter, am looking around at my options. I am toying
with the idea of moving away from Red Hat because of the model change. I'm
not sure I like it. This kind of thing that can/will cause problems for Red
Hat, folks like me leaving because they find another distro that meets their
needs and has a solid model in which they can use to teach others on Linux.

Just my $0.02

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tanner Lovelace" <lovelace at wayfarer.org>
To: "Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list" <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2003 1:41 PM
Subject: [TriLUG] Open Source Empowerment
Ilan Volow wrote:
> <heresy>
> In a response that has nothing to do Novell/Suse et al but just with
> some ideas that have been forming in my head about Open Source, I
> recently came to the conclusion that Open Source only empowers those who
> have the technical knowledge to make changes. For anyone who isn't a
> programmer or a sysadmin, they are as powerless and unable to make
> changes as they were with Microsoft. It only gets worse when you have a
> situation where there are people who know how to fix things but don't
> have the technical knowledge to do so, and there are people with the
> technical know-how to make the fixes but who don't think there is a
> problem and will in no way listen to the first group of people.
> </heresy>
>
> Sorry for the off-topic rant; just had to get that off my chest.

Ilan,

I disagree here.  With Open Source you have the opportunity to teach
yourself what you need to do to fix whatever problem you have.  Or,
you can find someone else and pay them (or barter or persuade, if you
want) to do it for you.  You can't do this with MS at all.  That's
a huge difference.  You aren't locked into one vendor who probably
doesn't care that much about you.

Tanner
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