The Quiet Jiminy Cricket of Open Source
There's a lot of talk in "the business" right now about open source software. Slowly, it's becoming universally understood that shared software just makes sense when it's stuff that everyone needs, especially when we all need basically the same thing. Web servers - they're pretty much all the same, databases, yup, 98% of what you need is basic, even word processors and spreadsheets are pretty much standard fare. Everyone chips in to write it once, and after a while, it just gets so good you don't remember when it didn't exist.
The other 99% of programs that people use are going to be a bit more of a challenge because they're more about user choice and comfortability than just getting a job done, and that's a big part of the reason that the real guru's don't see Linux on the desktop in the mainstream in the next year, or two, or ten.
Open Source desktop programs are, admittedly, still a bit klunky. Even as I write this in OpenOffice, I don't have it configured the way I would like, and it's doing something where it finishes most of my words for me in highlighted text, but I have no freaking idea how to get it to use that highlight, so it just taunts me, going "I know what you're going to write, but you've got to type it anyway!"
Of course, I could read the docs, and I will eventually, but my decade of mastering the "Microsoft PC" is just a basis for learning this whole new application stack, and although I've picked it up relatively quickly, my past experience has provided me with strikingly little advantage in this new geek battleground.
After a year of wrestling with Linux on my home desktop, missing my favorite web design and graphics apps and p2p clients, I find myself struggling to answer the fundamental question: why stick with it. What is it about Linux that keeps me working to master it's idiosyncrasies?
The answer came to me recently when forced by a hard crash to redo an XP box with all of my applications, which were now horribly out of date.
On Linux, I am becoming a master of Open Source applications. Apps which have an ideological principal behind them that I can agree with, and that are freely available for my use. I've even contributed to their development here and there, reporting and tracking bugs, and submitting patches.
On Windows, I was forced to be a master theif. All my applications were acquired in that grey area of morality where I knew that I would never purchase said applications, but if I could get it on the sly and learn on it, you can bet I would.
Without an alternative, I felt compelled to remain in this cycle, travelling in and out of the warez circles, keeping ties to and trading favors with old buddies so that I could always get whatever software I needed. I had no desire to take money from these software companies, I simply needed to train on their product so I could one day afford to use them.
With the advent of a (marginally) usable Linux Desktop, I no longer have that excuse.
The great migration won't happen because corporate America decides it doesn't want to pay the Microsoft Tax, and it won't happen because people just want a change.
The Great Migration to Linux is going to happen quietly and slowly as us teen-hackers and script-kiddies grow up and start listening to that little voice telling us that "I can't afford it" or "I'm just learning" isn't an excuse anymore.
One by one, we're going to get sick of having to sneak around to get the basic software we need to do our jobs, and we're going to switch to the Open Source alternatives. Maybe, along the way, we'll start contributing to them too.
People are going to notice too, and start wanting the cool gadgets and toys we've got over on this side of the fence. Hell, I've already had a few inquire about their own MythTV box. I bet before the decade is out, I'll have had more than a few friends ask me to help them "upgrade" to linux.
It should be an interesting ride.
