I like a freebie as much as the next guy but I have never been much of an enthusiast for open source operating systems. And neither is the rest of the world come to mention it. Last time I ran a report over at NetApps it seems only about 1% of internet users have an Open Source operating system on the computer they use to browse with. I’m going to be fairly cocky and state categorically that this means only about 1% of computers in the world run an open source OS.
Now if it really is the case that “everybody hates Microsoft” which we hear so often in the pub and on forums, why is it that we all still use Windows when there is a free alternative? The open source guys will tell you a whole load of reasons why Linux, and specifically their favourite version of Linux is so much better than Windows as well as being free.
One reason is that the blowhards and Linux fanboi types you meet on the internet or at techy conventions are a very small proportion of computer users. If you asked my wife for example, she doesn’t give a monkeys what OS her notebook runs. It just runs. She can get on the internet and she can pick up emails and she can sync her iPod and copy photos off her camera etc. Like most PC users she is interested in what it does not what does it.
Windows is the default because every new PC ships with an OS and that OS is almost always MS Windows. While the user is of course paying for the licence they don’t see it as a separate line item and as such regard it as free, or just a part of the package in the same way as you don’t get a separate bill for airline food when you fly long haul, the meal just comes. You paid for it as part of the ticket, but it’s not charged for so it doesn’t feel like it cost you anything...
What is even more interesting is that (historically at least) people will pay extra for MS Windows. I am reminded of the Netbook boom of a couple of years ago. Many Netbooks were offered in Windows or Linux versions. The Linux version was always cheaper because there was no OEM OS licence cost in there. In fact, many Linux Fanbois point to the netbook boom as proof of the case for Linux. What they don’t point out it’s that consumers rejected Linux. Figures from Best Buy show that the return rate on Linux netbooks was about 70-80% (you know I’d look way smarter if I could ever remember the exact numbers) and that most of the returns were exchanged for MS Windows versions...
OK, that was then, this is now. Linux (and Windows) has moved on since then. But it proves that simply being free isn’t enough to make it happen. It also proves that all those advantages touted by Linux proponents are also not going to win any regular users over.
So what will?
User experience.
Ordinary non-techie consumers are going open source like you would not believe in one market sector: mobile phone handsets. Android has open source Linux at its core. In the smart phone marketplace there are many established players such as Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry and Nokia. Android is eating all of them for lunch, with the exception of Apple who it is saving for dinner. How has Android got into this position? Not by being free or even because of the ease of third party application development. The answer is that some guys with a vested interest took it and made it work, and made it work well enough that it became an aspirational technology. No longer do I want a smartphone, I want a GooglePhone. Or more exactly in my case a HTC Desire-HD. iPhone sells because it is aspirational as much as because it works or because of its app-store or whatever. Android is just doing the same thing.
This is what the open source guys need to be doing. And they are finally catching on. Ubuntu 10.4 launched a while back and the interface was made over, the whole user experience was upgraded. But still it did not quite seem to be consumer-ready, not in that same “ooh, must have that” way that the better flavours of Android are. Now we have release 10.10 of Ubuntu and there is some really rather groovy thinking going on at Canonical. Stream your own MP3s as a cloud based service to your iPhone or Android handset or to any other compatible device (PCs included!) which you may be using. Inherent support for this sort of application and technology is what is going to make the Linux based OS the WIN for the consumer. And while we are on the subject of MP3s and supported formats we need to get past the puritan nature of the FOSS crowd over what is and isn’t a “kosher” open format or standard. Sure, in an ideal world we’d all subscribe to the FOSS standards of freedom and openness but in the real world the consumer has DRM, MP3, AAC, MP4, AVI and Flash and wants access to that without having to hear a pile of whining about how it’s a closed standard and we should reject all but the true FOSS ideal blah, blah, blah. But I just want to sync my iPod...
Security is an interesting issue with FOSS offerings. Many Linux types seem to believe that they, or maybe their OS, walk on water. I have heard this from the Mac quarter as well. “You don’t need any security software on a Mac or Linux box because viruses all work only on Windows”. This is not true. The majority of viruses are written for Windows but there are viruses for Mac and Linux too. Also remember specific malwares out there which run in a virtual machine like Java don’t care whether you are on Mac or Linux they run like the scripts on web pages run. If you can access Web2.0 functionality of say Facebook then you can run the malware too. “I don’t need security” is sloppy thinking and I just don’t like sloppy thinking. Understand the threats and take appropriate action. But recently, you know what? There are some neat security suites coming out for the various FOSS operating systems. I’m still dubious about open source in any environment which is really high security (I mean, you publish the source code, so only the good guys will read it? Yeah?) but for the average user who isn’t running a nuclear facility or whatever, meh. Secure enough...
One of the big current barriers to Linux adoption though is the FOSS community at large. At the moment FOSS fanbois are a fairly exclusive club. They like to explain how their stuff is better than Microsoft and so forth and they like to tell anyone prepared to listen how they should also switch to open source. But really, I think they like their little club of l33t users... I say this because most people I know, and I include myself in this, who have tried on open source OS or other significant product have come across the same issues. The Linux guys will tell you “all the support you need is available free from forums etc.” and the problem is that, well, that. Telling new users with queries that they are lame, n00b, need to read the FAQ or whatever when asking questions is not going to endear that new user. One line answers which are 99% code and 0% actual explanation are either stereotypical poor communication skills or a desire to look cool and clever rather than a desire to help and spread FOSS into the wider community. Also the FOSS world needs to get over itself when talking about commercial products. Telling someone to “ditch that MS crap in place of a proper FOSS product” is not going to fly. Business users will very likely need to make FOSS products live in a mixed environment with Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, IBM, whatever. Much as many of us would probably love to walk away from complex legacy systems with expensive bespoke support and development costs the reality is that business sponsors won’t pay and more often won’t take the risk. Again, the consumer will have toys which run proprietary formats and drivers which aren’t part of the open source remit and won’t want to junk these (not while they are still fashionable anyway).
Many Linux proponents talk about the ease of making your PC dual boot so you can retain all the stuff which is unsupported in Linux. This is the one big thing I think they are doing most wrong. The minute you admit Linux can’t do what Windows does - you prove to 99% of the PC using world that they are better off sticking with MS Windows. Most of us don’t want a dual boot PC. It’s more complicated and it’s a faff. You are in the middle of doing something and you need to do something else? Switch between applications is OK but between OS? C’mon! Again, some of the Linux distros seem to be looking towards more compatibility with the non-FOSS Windows stuff and this is a good thing, even if the die-hards will call it selling out the principal.
To my mind I can see Linux moving forward in the work place first. Most users will use at home what they use at work because they can’t be bothered to learn two systems so this will probably drive the home user too. The joy of Linux for the business environment is that users will not be installing all their own junk on it, there just isn’t the same ability to grab unauthorised (and potentially malware ridden) software off dodgy websites and so forth. There is less opportunity for them to be installing their own communications packages and operating outside of the corporate safety boundaries. So long as you can configure your chosen distro and OpenOffice and any other items you may need for business use then you are in business and life is looking peachy.
With the rush to the cloud and SaaS the OS itself becomes less important strategically. So maybe for some businesses a free OS and maybe locally installed office suite would be attractive with them accessing their CRM, finance system and any other apps of that nature from the cloud. The big killer for this idea though is the incredibly slick ways you can now manage Windows desktops either remotely or even via automation. It goes without saying to get the best of this you need to be up to date with your desktop, server and management suite (let’s just say System Center Suite because it’s easier to say it than afford it) but there are amazing efficiencies which come through this tried and tested stuff which many CIOs are going to be reluctant to walk away from even for the price of a free OS. I can see the enterprise level IT being Microsoft core for a long time.
We’ve had a decade or so of people centralising around a Microsoft core. 94% of Office “productivity suites” out there are MS Office. Pretty much every data centre has MS server OS running in there, and for many it’s the exclusive OS of business. Now my crystal ball suggests fragmentation of this homogeneous state of affairs with businesses looking to a range of solutions or blends of those and some new players will be seen as the heavy hitters (e.g. expect Amazon to be real big in the business services space before long). If FOSS wants to be more than a niche player it needs to come up with a differentiator which is more than its purchase price. It’s done that on the phone platform, but by allowing proprietary technology and monetisation thereof. If it is going to have a real stab at the desktop and server market this is a lesson the FOSS community has to learn, and be able to stomach.
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