-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Slawek Drabot wrote:
| Choice is great. However we need to ask ourselves if we really need 20 different media players, for example, instead of 3 or 4 really good ones? | | The nature of open source means that there are always more bugs than resources to fix them and therefore the tendancy for spawning new projects in response to shortfalls in another. I'm quite happy to live with this arrangement when using open source in the home, but I see this as a big obstacle for commercial/corporate adoption. I don't agree. Open source is very organic and very Darwinian: the strong survive, and the weak fail. Yes, there are dozens of spreadsheeting and word processing software options, but only OpenOffice is making serious in-roads into corporate adoption. Similarly, there are hundreds of distros available. Speaking purely from the desktop perspective, I've only ever seen 2 in operation in the corporate world (RedHat and SuSE), and on other in use in the commercial/non-corporate world (Ubuntu). The dozens of fly-by-night distros out there don't make it, because they don't have the backing needed by industry. | Let's face it, the pointy haired bosses struggle with making a decision when faced with 2 or 3 options. Expand that to 20 and beyond and we have decision deadlock. Speaking as someone who makes a living implementing free software in businesses, I have not once in my entire career given a PHB-type 20 different options. Anyone who has even the slightest clue understands that of eh 20 different options, only 1 or 2 of them are serious contenders for the particular need at hand. Sure, there are hundreds of network file systems. Only Samba is a real contender in an network full of Microsoft desktops. Sure, there are hundreds of email clients. Only one of them (Evolution) is a contender if there's an MS Exchange server in house. And if you're using generic IMAP, you'd be mad to use use Claws, Mutt, or any of the other dozens of mail clients. Only Evolution and Thunderbird are worth your time. Don't make the mistake of assuming that the 20 different options are your disposal are ALL contenders. If you want to start pushing hobbiest homebrew software infront of corporate types, you dig your own grave. Open source covers an enormous range and quality of software - some of which is professional and polished, some of which is rubbish. What irks me about this mindset is that the same happens in the proprietary world. I can name for you dozens of image editing applications, all of which are proprietary. When architecting a graphic design studio, would I give all of them as options to the business owner? Hell no. They'd get the top 3 in the market (Photoshop, Corel, Xara) as options, and they could pick from there. No need for them to see every single low-end, niche or hobbiest bit of crap on the market. Ditto for open source. The above makes the assumption that "just because it's in the package manager, it's a viable option on the desktop". Tell me: when was the last time you installed all 27,000 packages available to Ubuntu users via APT? Answer: never. You pick and choose the ones that work. Same goes for the proprietary world. Software is near infinite in choice and range, yet nobody claims that it freaks out PHBs when faced with hundreds of choices of proprietary software. Just because it exists at all, doesn't mean you have to install, use, or even consider it. - -Dan -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIYwDveFJDv0P9Qb8RAodpAKCuc8x7ewdhtTWmVNHjvA7nZAZe0wCcDuor 26rRtH5SCXMYQw9KHBcLrV0= =AIBE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au