[CogitoCogito]

> More to the point it shows the inherent weakness in open software - that is better open products have difficulty in competing against commercial ones because of stupid squabbles amongst the Open community - disagreements over minor technicalities and useability issues† means the greater objective has been lost.

What "greater objective" do you refer to? My objective is to have an OS that I have control over and can reasonably understand. For me that tends to be debian. So I guess for me the greater objective is satisfied.

[hilbert42]

The greater objective is for everyone - normal users - to have a choice to select from a reasonable number of comparable competing products as they do with other products they're familiar with. This situation does not exist at present despite the fact that the computing industry has existed for over 75 years.

For starters, this is a serious social problem as computing has become ubiquitous and is now essential for almost all of the population worldwide. Unfortunately the only really practical solution to suit the needs of typical average users is for them to go to monopolies such as Microsoft, Google, etc.

It's a serious social problem for at least two reasons: first, many people cannot afford costly software from these price-gouging monopolies; second, in more recent times these monopolies now sap users of all vestiges of their privacy as a condition of use of their products and users have no way of stopping the leakage.

The fact that governments haven't acted to break up these monopolistic practices and to stop the privacy violations is a disgrace. It's also a testament to the power of these mega corporations not to mention the sorry state of our democracies (in that corporations hold the ear of government better than does the populous).

OK, I've stated the bloody obvious that just about every thinking person in the open software movement is aware of so where does that leave us?

As there's no middle ground - that being either a choice of choosing from competing like products or software supplied by revenue-neutral cooperatives that would pay software programmers and then charge users a modest fee for their software, or both - then we're only left with two alternatives - the monopolies and open source software. (Here perhaps I should point out that I'm principally referring to key software that's universally used by all users, operating systems and such, Windows, MS Office, Gmail, etc.)

Before going further I must say I'm strongly in favor of open source software and use it where ever possible. So what's wrong with it? Nothing really except the situation above and, unfortunately, that is a big problem.

The principal driving force for the developers of open software is that it interests them or otherwise they wouldn't develop it. Moreover, for most, this self-interest overrides any magnanimous feeling or desire to improve the software lot for the multitudes (note, I'm not saying develops don't have a magnanimous streak I'm sure many do, it's just that self-interest always comes first, especially so in the absence of money/payment for their efforts).

To say this isn't the case simply denies or belies the facts, we wouldn't have so many versions of Linux if this weren't so. Similarly, software like Thunderbird, Firefox, LibreOffice and such would be much more user-friendly, instead, we see a never-ending stream of new features rather than sorting out issues with boring utilitarian features the lack of which drives both users and help desk people alike to utter distraction.

If you want an example of this then there's hardly a better instance than Thunderbird, I've been rialling against its problems and issues for years both here on HN and elsewhere, even with this latest release Thunderbird still lacks sensible ergonomic features that Eudora Mail had from the outset quite some decades ago!

Right, both your objectives and those of other open software users have been satisfied and that's fine - and you are not to blame, as everyone on the planet has self-interest at heart and that comes first.

The trouble is that the greater unwashed isn't often listened to - not at least until there's been an outcry for years. Moreover, this situation is more likely to prevail with open software as commercial operations have a financial incentive to fix problems (at least they usually do so for the most glaring and egregious of issues).

On the matter of having control over one's software I can only concur with you to the fullest extent. Over the many years I've been using software both professionally and for personal use the single biggest problem I've had is the lack of control that I've been able to exercise over the software.

Some would say that to solve these problems users should either write new programs from scratch and or recompile open software with suitable changes. Yes, it's one solution but hardly viable in many situations. As someone who programs, I'm only too well aware of the fact.

All that said, as I see it we are no nearer any realistic solution.

[CogitoCogito]

> The greater objective is for everyone - normal users - to have a choice to select from a reasonable number of comparable competing products as they do with other products they're familiar with.

Well that's not my objective. If it's yours, then good luck with that battle. I'm okay ignoring users who don't want to put in the time necessary to become proficient in GNU/Linux. I mean sure it would be nice if there were some unified simple way to do things, but I personally wouldn't use a Linux-based OS that I don't like simply to decrease fragmentation. Basically the whole point of free software is that you _don't_ have to do that if you don't want to.

Regardless I wish you luck in all the development/community work you put into turning your vision into a reality.

[hilbert42]

Essentially agree.

C'est la vie.

[umanwizard]

You are complaining about something that would cost huge amounts of money to develop not existing for free, but not proposing any way to raise that money or provide an alternative incentive structure causing it to exist.

> The greater objective is for everyone - normal users - to have a choice to select from a reasonable number of comparable competing products as they do with other products they're familiar with. This situation does not exist at present despite the fact that the computing industry has existed for over 75 years.

Sure it does: iOS, Android, Window, macOS, Linux. You're not complaining that there isn't a choice, you're complaining that the free choice isn't highly polished. Yes, it'd be nice if it were, but the fact that it isn't is just a logical consequence of the forces involved; it's like ranting that the sun rises in the east.

[hilbert42]

"You are complaining about something that would cost huge amounts of money to develop not existing for free..."

I was not implying that such a project be started at this late juncture as clearly what you said would be correct if it did.

Perhaps it's best to illustrate what I meant with an example (there are of course many variations on this theme). Had the seemingly dead-in-the-water project ReactOS had at its outset decades ago in 1996 charged a small sum of say $10 to $20 for its Windows-like compatible operating system sufficient to cover costs then by now we'd have a viable clone of Windows that Windows users would be very familiar with and actually use.

Right, in the broad sense Linux is also an alterative to Windows but even with Wine installed it's still a very difficult call for many Windows users - the proof thereof is in Linux's take up numbers - even after decades, Windows users haven't moved to it in sufficient numbers to bother speaking about.

If the ReactOS project had paid its developers a living wage from the outset then it's hard to believe that by now - over a quarter century on - that ReactOS wouldn't be a viable alterative to MS Windows.

Given the longstanding and continuing angst many users have with both Windows and Microsoft's profiteering monopoly, it stands to reason they would readily jump to a viable alterative if it were available, especially so if its price was cheap in comparison to Windows. Similarly, there'd be precious little difficulty in getting large numbers of talented developers - and many developers means a quick finish to the project (er well, at least a much quicker finish than the current haphazard arrangement has produced, as the project stands now it could be strongly argued that it's not much further ahead than when it first started).

Perhaps this is a bad example due to possible controversy but I think not, specifically because there are many, many users who are disgruntled with both Windows and MS. Furthermore, as much of ReactOS's development has taken place in Russia, I doubt that any potential cries of plagiarism and or of copyright breaches from Microsoft would hold water, as we're all tragically witnessing, Russia isn't too enamored with the US or helping its corperations not to mention the way it's protected Snowdon. Any objections from Microsoft would be further weakened if the project were to demonstrate openly that it enforced clean room code development.

There's a lot more I could mention about this matter but I'll leave it here for the moment.