TC on open source evangelists ( lemmy.ml )

[email protected] - Oh my gosh I just figured it out.

Okay, all you open source evangelist people: your knee-jerk reaction to come at people who are talking about a problem with whatever commercial software they use and suggest Your Favorite Alternatives™ is exactly like saying "why don't you just buy a house?" to someone complaining about their landlord.

[email protected] - Actually, to borrow from @DoubleA, it's worse than that.

It's like talking to someone who is in a crappy apartment as though they have the agency and skills to stake out a plot of land and build their own home.

You have to be at peace with the fact that some people just want to exist and not worry about so many things. And they still have a right to complain about their situation.

Link to thread: https://mas.to/@TechConnectify/111539959265152243

Jake_Farm ,
@Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz avatar

Except it is actually the inverse. FOSS is usually free to access and fork. Whereas commercial walled gardens cost you thousands.

Stowaway ,

The cost of something isn't always in the form of money. In many cases with Foss there are comprises in either simplicity, stability, documentation, or compatabiliry.

For instance I can boot my machine into a live garuda instance and it runs great, but as soon as I install it, it runs like trash. I spend something like 3 hours fiddling trying to get it going then wipe and try to install smaugos and it wont even boot. I install debian and it works okay but sluggish. Popos works fine. 2 days of fiddling around and I find something that works. Windows may cost more than just money, but it worked out of the box and I didn't have to fiddle or try a bunch of different distros. We can go down that rabbit hole, but let's look at other things.

Foss often has volunteer support that can be hit or miss and often requires more advanced knowledge of the os or software. There's also often toxicity like people shaming for not knowing everything about the application or os. Commercial support is often dedicated and may even remote into your computer. I'm not saying Foss can't do that, but I've never heard of it for free.

FOSS doesn't work nearly as easily or reliably as commercial software a lot of the time. Nextcloud is a good example. There are a million ways to install it, but now you need to learn docker, or how to setup a web server and even then maybe the docker image is buggy or straight up doesn't work. The different Linux distros is another example.

Then there's the learning curve. Even if FOSS has 1:1 parity in functionality, it often comes at the cost of learning a LOT about a new application, or the functionality is different or harder to use compared to a commercial alternative.

Don't get me wrong I live foss. I self host, I'm slowly getting rid of windows and degoogling. But there is cost to do all of this, even if its not monetary. Plus not everyone has the time, patience, or interest in it.

bou ,
@bou@kbin.social avatar

@morrowind funny to find this here when I wrote my reply just a while ago:

"It's like talking to someone who is in a crappy apartment as though they have the agency and skills to stake out a plot of land and build their own home."

Maybe if you're suggesting them to install Linux From Scratch, then yes, it is.

If you're suggesting them them to install any of the many very simple (and very usable OOTB) distros like Fedora, then it's not.

In that case it's like the house is free, already built and furnitured, and right next to their own; but they have to move their personal belongings from one house to the other and learn a different room layout.

Sure, they still have the right to complain about how their landlord treats them like crap. But they sound pretty damn stupid if they do so while having an available free house right next door, and refusing to move because they don't want to learn a new room layout.

Honytawk ,

How many times have you setup Fedora or any other Linux distribution and have every single thing working from the get go?

I'm talking drivers, audio, networking, libraries, DNF, repositories, plugins, runtime dependencies, ...

  • That house isn't furnished.

And don't forget, plenty of popular software isn't even compatible. Meaning you got to use alternative software that doesn't always do what you want it to do.

  • So buy a new couch, cause that one isn't getting in.
anothermember ,

How many times have you setup Fedora or any other Linux distribution and have every single thing working from the get go?

I’m talking drivers, audio, networking, libraries, DNF, repositories, plugins, runtime dependencies, …

Is proprietary software any easier than that though? Don't you have to put in much more time removing all the spyware and bloat they put in and then spend all your time perpetually fighting against forced updates and applications being installed without your permission?

Whereas with Fedora my experience is more or less install it and forget it.

The "it's easier" argument for proprietary software I think died at least 15 years ago.

Choice of applications is a different argument.

MangoPenguin ,
@MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Is proprietary software any easier than that though?

Yes, take nvidia drivers for example, on windows I just download the installer and run it and done.

Last time I tried to move to Linux desktop (attempted Fedora and then EndeavourOS) about a year ago, none of that worked properly. Installing drivers was not in any way straightforward, needing CLI commands and google, where every guide I found seemed to have a different method used to install them, I kept getting outdated ones, and I had no idea what I was doing.

At the end of all that I still didn't have HW acceleration in my browsers, my desktop had screen tearing, gsync didn't work properly in windowed apps, the GPU wouldn't downclock fully at idle like it's supposed to, I couldn't figure out how to get shadowplay working, and so on.

And yes I do know this is technically mostly nvidia's fault for not having as good quality of drivers on linux. But as an end user all I care about is that my stuff works properly without googling things, needing the CLI, and spending a lot of time on it.

Don’t you have to put in much more time removing all the spyware and bloat they put in and then spend all your time perpetually fighting against forced updates and applications being installed without your permission?

Definitely not, I don't really spend much time at all. I haven't experienced forced updates, my apps just update through winget manually when I want to. There are a few extra apps I don't need on windows but those take a minute to remove, I can't say I've ever experienced an app being installed without my permission other than edge I guess, but that replaces IE for embedded browser stuff so it's kind of needed.

Most of my 'admin' time is spent on the opensource apps I use, generally on my self hosted stuff. But also just on basic things like backup software, Veeam is my primary backup which is basically a 1 minute set up with a few clicks through the GUI, but I've been trying out Restic too which requires writing my own scripts to handle backups, more scripts to handle pruning and such, manually installing them as services so they run properly, and writing my own notification system on top of that just to get an email if something goes wrong.

Opensource is great, but it's usually extremely time intensive to get the same results, with lots of documentation, google, and just wasted time trying to figure out the basics.

qyron ,

"This program is really expensive and I keep having to buy a new computer every two years because it gets so slow."

You're being fucked with, when there are alternatives out there.

But that is none of my business.

Honytawk ,

Alternatives aren't always a solution.

AVincentInSpace ,

When I say to my sister "I will literally buy the house for you, help you move in, and give you my phone number you can call any time you need any help with it" and she comes back with "I'd rather sit here and complain about my landlord" I think I have a right to get angry

bionicjoey ,

Translation:"I refuse to try the thing that people tell me might make my life better. I prefer to rant and complain to random strangers on a public forum rather than accepting that a solution to my problem may exist"

It's funny, this is not at all his stance when it comes to hardware and appliances. It doesn't even sound like something he'd say.

dom ,

The whole point is that a bunch of people don't have the technical skills to figure out FOSS. Sure, sometimes the ux is just as good as the main competitor, but in my experience, usually it isnt and has a decent learning curve

bionicjoey ,

I'd be more sympathetic to that mindset if it was anyone other than TC saying this. He's a smart dude and I have every confidence he could figure out how to use a new piece of software.

dom ,

I think he's talking in general. But who knows.

Bitrot ,
@Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

He is, very obviously.

Some of his recent rants have been about technology that is actively unfriendly to people who are not good with technology. That doesn't mean he cannot figure it out, but it means his parents can't.

Inevitably people show up to suggest a giant convoluted solution based on the power of open source. Menu poorly worded on the ecobee? They should be using home assistant anyway!

Domiku ,

I follow him on Mastodon, and I think many regular users misunderstand his specific problems. They're unique due to his huge number of followers, and I think that if we want Mastodon to grow, it wouldn't be a bad idea to include more tools for folks with large followings.

valaramech ,
@valaramech@kbin.social avatar

In this thread, everyone getting caught up on the first toot and not the second where he clarifies his point.

If you step past the initial investment of buying a house, the analogy makes perfect sense. When you rent an apartment, your landlord (the provider) takes care of all the maintenance; you just live there and you get what you get. When you own a home, you take care of all of the maintenance, but you get to set the place up however you like. This isn't that different from a lot of FOSS out there.

EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted ,
@EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

In this thread, everyone getting caught up on the first toot and not the second where he clarifies his point.

To be fair, the second part is not included in the image.

morrowind OP ,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

Lemmy doesn't allow for multiple images as far as I'm aware, so I did the next best thing: put it in the description

EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted ,
@EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Not saying I blame you; you're bound by the limitations/restrictions of the platform.

I'm just saying it's not as obvious and so others may not have noticed it. :)

t3rmit3 ,

your landlord (the provider) takes care of all the maintenance

this is a dirty lie :P

ech ,

Better comparison would've been something like "Annoyed with your landlord? Go build a cabin in the woods!". Like, that's straight-up appealing to some people, but it's also not just something anyone and everyone can do.

OrnateLuna ,

Even then that's not that accurate, more like move to a different place.
It's inconvenient and might not have all the same things you wanted/liked from your old place but you can actually change things in the new place if you really want to

Hyperreality ,

More like moving to France. For me it wouldn't be an issue. My french isn't bad and I learn languages quickly.

I assume that's not true of everyone, just like everyone isn't great at PC stuff.

Fermion ,

Then you find out that while the new place doesn't have the problems the old place had, it has a whole new set of problems.

Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

misk ,
@misk@sopuli.xyz avatar

Guy wanted to vent about smart thermostats, explicitly said he doesn't need advice and got bajillion responses with advice, mostly from FOSS folks who couldn't contain themselves. I'd be annoyed too.

sexy_peach ,

That's the biggest annoyance with mastodon

ichmagrum ,

Damn, I didn't know people couldn't financially afford installing Linux.

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