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Comment by gahahaha | Hacker News Reader

"no binary compatibility between distributions"

That is a feature, because it gives Free software an advantage. Why make it easier for closed source developers?

Because most users don't care whether software is open or closed source. They just want software that works.

I wish I could mod you up more. I am a big foss fan boy (can see by my nick), but most people don't care about licensing, if the code is open or not, etc.

They want something that works and fit their needs. That's it.

Amen to that! I wish more developers understood that people don't care about freedom, they just want the stuff they buy to work without major effort. 99.9% of people don't want to setup MythTV, they want a PVR that works

Hackers are people too!

If all OSS developers shared this attitude, there would not be free software today.

Let me fix it for you: If all desktop OSS developers shared this attitude, there would be not be good free desktop software today.

And this is kind of true, isn't it?

I fail to see why people think "Free" and "Easy to use" are mutually exclusive. If Firefox required people to run ./configure;make;make install on Windows to get it running (not to mention dealing with missing dependencies) it wouldn't have the marketshare it has today.

If OSS wants to become truly mainstream the people creating it need to focus on the experience, not just the code

Disagreed; i think all it is is that FOSS developers like making cool stuff, and for them the setup is not a chore.

In a commercial app there is a requirement to make the installation routine simple because you have to sell the app. With a Linux (and sometimes just generally with FOSS) that drive isn't necessarily there.

It's a general FOSS problem; programs tend to lack that last little bit of polish that would "sell" them - but that is a ball ache to add in.

This is true! Many users aren't even aware of the difference between platforms, and there's no reason for them to be. (My mom isn't a dumb person because she does not understand her computer more completely.)

And why should we care about most users? Gnu/Linux is a great platform for free software, why make it something it isn't? If you want a great proprietary platform, go for windows. Windows won the proprietary war 20 years ago, foss can't beat them at their own game. Gnu/Linux is good as a foss platform and that's where we should put work into. Not into making another windows, we'll never catch up on that front.

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