Dvorak Likes Linux
pcmag.com
Long time Microsoft supporting, Mac Hating columnist says: "The critical mass has been reached. Go download Ubuntu 8.10 and see for yourself what the fuss is about. You won't regret it."
pcmag.com
Of the people I have introduced to to Firefox and OpenOffice.org, some adjust and like using the free software, but some people revert back to IE or go and buy MS Office almost immediately. They seem to just really hate change of any kind.
Another example is the number of people complaining every time Facebook changes their UI -- the last two big changes I've been impressed at how well thought-out the changes were, but there was still those groups of people complaining and wanting things to go back to how they used to be.
Why do some people persist with what they're used to in spite of annoyances like malware? They've had to change to what they're using now at some stage, so what is it that makes them change? Is it only when something different allows them to do something they couldn't do at all before, like say a Firefox extension? Are these people more "feature driven"?
The other problem is that she takes online classes and they tend to use packages that have very fussy browser support. I wouldn't trust that it would work on Linux without a thorough test -- don't want to find out you have a problem during a timed test.
Mac was rejected on cost (she went with a sub $600 laptop).
But it seems to me that some people are just resistant to change and won't go to something new unless there's a compelling positive reason, ie. to do something new, and a negative reason (avoiding malware) won't suffice.