Maybe the subject is not that Linux friendly, but the facts are somehow right.
Five ways the Linux desktop shoots itself in the foot - Computerworld Blogs
Its a good read IMHO.
When I look at the stated 5 reasons:
-
- Lack of Linux vendor support
-
- Lack of Linux advertising and marketing
-
- Too much bad techie attitude
-
- Too much infighting
-
- Not enough developer co-operation
I do not agree with #3. I’ve read that (bad techie attitude) stated as a reason many other times, but every time I have, its been posted by someone who either
- Not enough developer co-operation
-
themselves have a bad attitude or an inflated sense of their own superior knowlege based on Windows experience (or a couple decades of not applicable Unix or VMS experience) and they post how they have been using Unix since before it was created in Bell Labs, or note they have been using Windows since Bill Gates was in diapers, and ergo based on their inflated time scale of experience they are self appointed experts, and they are frustrated Linux does not do things the way THEY know is correct based on their inflated experience (and any one who disagrees is simply in ill informed techie with a bad attitude), or
-
themselves criticisize every OS they visit, and Linux distribution-x is just another in a litany of discarded distributions and OS the self proclaimed critic have decided to take a swipe at to bolster their own self esteem, so they put the distro forum down as having “too techie” an attitude to help feed their self worth
The VAST majority of times I’ve seen new users “flamed” is when they launch off their first post in a rant. By far the VAST majority of responses to polite new users have been many “welcome” posts, and many Links pointing the new user to where they can find more information.
I’ve seen far worse of a “bad techie” attitude in MS-Windows forums, and MS-Windows applications forums, than I’ve ever seen in Linux.
However I believe the other 4 points in the article have definite merit.
… all IMHO of course.
Lack of vendor support? Don’t make me laugh. On commercial distro’s the support is fantastic. People need to understand they can find support in the community, not in the company, since there often is none.
Lack of Linux advertising and marketing: true. But who’s gonna pay for it. And a change is coming: compared to five years ago (hardly anybody) most people know linux exists.
Techie attitude: yes, some found. But you cannot wipe out the patience showed to help out, to explain what’s going on. The ‘RTFM’ remarks are not unique to the linux world, in fact I find more disapprovement here, than in ‘other OS’s fora’.
Too much infighting: IMHO any is too much.
Not enough developper co-operation: covered by only one example. You cannot get something like KDE3, KDE4, Gnome without it. Plus, mentioning Adobe as a linux friendly company; ask any 64bit linux user.
Conclusion: IMHO the artilce it looks well based, thought over, but I don’t think much of it. There’s bits of truth in everything said, but bits of truth don’t make the whole truth. The whole truth is that linux has been improving with the ticking of the clock, that it’s share is growing by the day, that it can be compared to any OS and come out OK.
Agree 100% here.
Shortcomings truthfully reported by a friend to linux is always worth reading and taking on board, I believe.
Hey that blog shud b incorporated into the foundations of all linux forums. Especially points 3 and 4.
For me, I find far too many supposedly technical swavy x-sperts 
who would rather turn off new comers than to help.
Any Battlestar Galactica fans out there? If so you will probably remember a episode when a Galactica fighter pilot comes across a downed Cilon Ship (robot race that is exterminating humans) he interrogates the only surviving robot warrior and asks
“don’t you machines know how to work together or realize you were crashing?”
the Cilon robot replies … “Yes we consult each other, we decided to consult the manual when the ground came up and hit us”
cheers
As a moderator you can actually say this feel good? I came on board with this forum in June or July this year mainly to see what help was available on a few nagging issues and size up the forum for it’s ability to be helpful.
Reading posts and requests for support/help, and the responses give me a sour pit in my stomach when I see how people are being treated by some. Let me say this when I see certain responders always respond negatively as the first message, recognize the attitude was similar if not same as previous member under another name, and the characteristic “Post n/a”, it really makes me wonder if this forum is one to recommend.
There have been so many times that I would have just loved to call down a particular so called expert and hit them with a few volumes of facts but had to hold my tongue simply because they are people too! They have a right to an opinion, they have a right to dignity even when they are obviously not extending the same respect to those they are answering.
And there’s my IMHO:\
Say what?
Am I to tell the truth as I see it ? Or lie from my own perspective to fit a mold you have of moderators?
Users who come to rant on their very first post in a forum could be compared to people on a cliff about to jump, but of course on a much smaller scale. They want help, and yet they don’t want help. The cliff is their rant and they are on the edge of leaving the Linux distro (in our case their cliff is them about to leave openSUSE).
Should I deny they exist? Should I not think about their attitudes that drove them to post in such a manner?
Users who are frustrated with difficulty, but post politely, are almost always dealt in turn with politeness and kindness. Users who rant (in most case with inadequate reason to justify the eloquence of their rant) stir up annoyance in those who like openSUSE and who spend a lot of time and effort to help openSUSE move forward.
In life one gets back what one puts in. And if one puts in a rant, unfortunately that is what they get back. I have tried, and continue to try, to moderate rants when they happen, but to deny rants happen would be a lie. To deny some users will not make one, no not one, help request, but instead will immediately rant, would be a lie. What sort of person does not ask for help, but instead puts others down immediately? Would you want someone like that as your friend? Would you want as a friend someone who as soon as you contribute, picks away at you? Puts you down? and jumps into others who do things and puts them down, without once asking for help? Is that the sort of person YOU want as a friend. And if you are reluctant to have them as a friend, why is that? Is it because there is something about their personality that gives you pause?
Then IMHO you are focusing on a small % of the posts.
Why not take the time to add up ALL the help posts, and note what % give you this sour pit in your stomach.
There comes a time when even moderators get fed up with the exaggeration of those who criticize.
Well, so called experts by whom ? They may be knowledgeable in one area, but if they take a piece out of a new user who is polite, then IMHO they are no expert. My experience on this forum is all new users who post politely are dealt with politely. They get a LOT of volunteer effort and help.
But when it comes to dealing with a new user who does nothing but rant in their first few posts, or alternatively who offers minimal support to a forum, but rather enjoys picking apart the way it is run, then I have to ask myself, what drives their attitude?
Yes, forums need help. But negative criticism is FAR too prevalent by those who enjoy kibitzing, and far far more can be gained by positive support than by sneering at the efforts of those who are trying to help and trying to run things.
No, I stand by my observations. They are IMHO, and note the “H” in that IMHO. IMHO it is a sad reflection on those who enjoy ranting on their first post, and IMHO its a sad reflection on those members who enjoy picking apart everything where volunteer effort and time has gone in to set it up, but thats life and thats a reflection of their self inflated esteem. THEY have major problems in life that is being pushed back on the forum in how they post.
And thats still my unchanged IMHO.
On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:46:02 +0000, techwiz03 wrote:
> As a moderator you can actually say this feel good? I came on board with
> this forum in June or July this year mainly to see what help was
> available on a few nagging issues and size up the forum for it’s ability
> to be helpful.
>
> Reading posts and requests for support/help, and the responses give me a
> sour pit in my stomach when I see how people are being treated by some.
> Let me say this when I see certain responders always respond negatively
> as the first message, recognize the attitude was similar if not same as
> previous member under another name, and the characteristic “Post n/a”,
> it really makes me wonder if this forum is one to recommend.
>
> There have been so many times that I would have just loved to call down
> a particular so called expert and hit them with a few volumes of facts
> but had to hold my tongue simply because they are people too! They have
> a right to an opinion, they have a right to dignity even when they are
> obviously not extending the same respect to those they are answering.
Like oldcpu, I’d have to call it as I see it; as a moderator as well,
it’s hard to see everything. That’s why the web interface has a “report”
button. We can’t always get people to behave the way we’d like, but
there are certainly things we can do to encourage appropriate behaviour.
When you see someone behaving badly, feel free to call our attention to
the post by hitting the “report” button. As a moderator I’d much rather
those who want to see the attitudes become helpful instead of rude report
those posts to us so we can deal with them; we have tools that let us do
that, whereas a reply “in kind” does little to change the rude person’s
behaviour, but instead only inflames the situation. That doesn’t help us
bring the community to a place where the casual browser will say “this
looks like a good and friendly place to get help”.
The reason I accepted the request to join the mod team was to help move
the community in that direction. But in order to do that, I need the
help of the community in making sure that I know when someone’s really
out of line.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
I’ve seen plenty of rude forum posts over the years. Every forum has them.
OpenSUSE forums IMHO has very few.
Overall I find the members here to be very polite and cordial.
I can’t say the same for some other forums that I won’t name or flame.
The other four points I don’t know enough to comment on.
On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:56:01 +0000, markcynt wrote:
> I’ve seen plenty of rude forum posts over the years. Every forum has
> them.
>
> OpenSUSE forums IMHO has very few.
>
> Overall I find the members here to be very polite and cordial.
>
> I can’t say the same for some other forums that I won’t name or flame.
>
> The other four points I don’t know enough to comment on.
This is good to hear - and I’m glad to hear that your impression is so
positive. 
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
but but, this leave you out of work so eventually you’ll become too soft and lazy… I must start again to argue and flame, just to keep you in check and going rotfl!
On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:36:01 +0000, microchip8 wrote:
> but but, this leave you out of work so eventually you’ll become too soft
> and lazy… I must start again to argue and flame, just to keep you in
> check and going rotfl!
LOL, interesting point - but please don’t. 
Then I can perhaps step
up and help some more folks out with technical stuff as well.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
No flaming intended on you or oldcpu! Of the forum moderators I have noted the professionalisms and eagerness to help, as well as the breath of insightful contribs your have offered. If my poor wording has been taken wrong, accept my apologies. I guess in my own way I was trying to make a point that a disrespectful post causes more damage than 10 helpful ones. There are way fewer flameful posts here than other forums but when I see them it still boils me. So before I put my other foot in my mouth I’ll shut up.
I read up to here and knew the rest would be nothing new (which it is) and not really worth reading (which also turned out to be true).
Microsoft is the biggest reason. Microsoft is a jealous monopoly that doesn’t want to share the desktop with anyone. Desktop Linux is just another target in a long list that has included OS/2, DR-DOS, and – that eternal thorn in their side – the Mac. It’s no surprise, then, to see in the history of the Linux desktop that Microsoft has always tried to crush it.
yawn
Again it’s the “evil empire” beeing the main reason.
In german we say
“Wenn der Bauer nicht schwimmen kann, ist die Badehose schuld.”
(Translated: “If the Farmer can’t swim, it’s the fault of the swimming trunks”.)
Nothing special, nothing new, nothing which has not been said thousands of times before.
On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:06:01 +0000, techwiz03 wrote:
> No flaming intended on you or oldcpu! Of the forum moderators I have
> noted the professionalisms and eagerness to help, as well as the breath
> of insightful contribs your have offered. If my poor wording has been
> taken wrong, accept my apologies. I guess in my own way I was trying to
> make a point that a disrespectful post causes more damage than 10
> helpful ones. There are way fewer flameful posts here than other forums
> but when I see them it still boils me. So before I put my other foot in
> my mouth I’ll shut up.
Oh, please don’t misunderstand - I certainly don’t feel that you’ve
flamed me at all - I agree that a disrespectful post causes a not
insignificant amount of damage to the community; my comment was intended
as “so please, if you see this, report it using the report button so we
can deal with it”.
That is the most effective thing that any member can do when they see
that kind of disrespect. There are some who feel that it’s necessary to
“respond in kind” (I don’t think you’ve done that, though), and that
doesn’t actually help - rather, it makes it more difficult for the mods
to keep things running smoothly.
That’s all I was trying to say.
Jim
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
You do get some very polite communities around, but most seem to be polite because they’ve got strict rules and jumpy mods. It never feels quite like genuine politeness when you know someone’s holding a gun to the poster’s head. I think it says something about the positive environment here that you can afford to give people relatively free reign.
We could have a philosophical debate about what a desktop is, I suppose…
As to the article - definitely agreed about the tribalism. It’s pointless, but I guess it will always be there to an extent. Maybe the advantage of Linux becoming easier to use is that you’ll get more non-technical people coming in, with less emotional investment, and dilute the atmosphere somewhat. Many will see that as a problem, but I suspect it will calm things down too…
On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:46:01 +0000, Confuseling wrote:
> You do get some very polite communities around, but most seem to be
> polite because they’ve got strict rules and jumpy mods. It never feels
> quite like genuine politeness when you know someone’s holding a gun to
> the poster’s head. I think it says something about the positive
> environment here that you can afford to give people relatively free
> reign.
It does - and I agree in general with what you’re saying here.
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Moderator
In a perfect world, we would have a desktop in command mode, terminal mode, and GUI mode which would just plain handle each situation perfectly. Distribution specific tools would integrate into the system seamlessly. To a large extent, we have attained this objective getting the box up and running. Where I see a shot in the foot is the myriad of different methods needed to resolve device dependent issues, and applications which break with every updated Distro or version. I fully agress with the initial post that it’s hard to get application developers on-line when they have to work around the idiosyncrasies for each Distro and version with-in the version.
I may have been spoiled by early Mandrake Distro here. I used to fully read the description headers of apps before installing. What I have noticed though is that the newer Mandriva, RedHat, openSUSE contain so many apps which now just say “level of support unknown” or state so breifly what an app is for or why it should be or shouldn’t be used, that it lacks lustre. I have often had to ask myself, (as a business programmer), why would I spend so much time developing this new app only to not bother selling it’s good points.
It throws me back to a system of 1975 where each time I needed to restart the “fast idiot” I needed to manually throw 16 address switches, 8 data switches, and push a button and repeat 2000 times just to be able to finally access keyboard and video! Thank god for EEPROMS eh!
I haven’t looked lately at the actual RPM’s to see if it’s just the package managers which are no longer displaying the descriptions or if the description fields are not too descriptive anymore.
techwiz, we can can be guilty of poor wording, and many times I look in the mirror and see one of the biggest offenders of poor wording staring back at me. Someone who I wish could write much better. That someone, that offender, is myself.
I am likely as guilty, if not more, than your self, of leaving the wrong impression. We all try our best given the cards we have been dealt and are using.
Your concerns are noted, and as consused noted, all criticisms should be noted and taken on board. As to the emphasis that is given to each item, I guess thats another matter .
In the most past, a very good thing is all of us are trying to move things forward in the same direction. i.e. a direction where things improve.
Pondering the article “Five ways the Linux desktop shoots itself in the foot”, I note one aspect about Linux that many new users don’t grasp right away, is it (Linux) is an operating system that thrives on positive contributions other than money. Many coming from an MS-Windows environment find in MS-Windows that if they pay $$ for their software and are unhappy with the performance, their main recourse is to bad mouth it in the hope of motivating those who stand to lose money (by the bad mouthing) to fix the software.
In Linux, bad mouthing volunteers “might” work, but it has probably a better chance of irritating the developers, irritating the packagers, and irritating the support volunteers, and either cause those volunteers to strike back verbally, or to simply throw in the towel. End result ? In both cases everyone loses. Everyone except for the commercial software and commercial operating system suppliers.
Hence IMHO in an operating system such as Linux, where volunteer efforts are essential for it to move forward, positive/helpful contributions tend to have a far bigger impact and help things move forward quicker, than the rants and destructive complaints and sharp barbs that those who migrate from Windows are more conditioned to throw.
But your points and contributions are noted, and if I come back the wrong way, its likely my own internal grumpiness and issues that as I grow older in this world I try to work on and improve. I think we all want to be better people in life, as by doing so life can be a lot more fun.