TC on open source evangelists ( lemmy.ml )

TechConnectify@mas.to - 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.

TechConnectify@mas.to - 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: 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.

Jake_Farm ,
@Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz avatar

Then why is photoshop so buggy?

averyminya ,

My cracked version seems to be just fine ;)

Holzkohlen ,

Eh, sounds like the average person in that he just wants to stick to what is familiar to him. Can’t save 'em all

MrDrProfKelev ,

It’s not always wanting to stick to what they know. I have a few programs I hate and every time I have to use them I try to find a better alternative. Unfortunately, none of the other programs I tried had the functionality I needed to use them.

mexicancartel ,

Not to buy a house but to get a house for free?

HiddenLayer5 , (edited )
@HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml avatar

Because the reason companies are brazen enough to pull the crap that they do is because most people have viewpoints along the lines of this post. Reddit for example has almost certainly performed a cost-benefit analysis and wouldn’t have locked down their API like they did if they suspected an actual risk of enough people switching to Lemmy and other alternatives where the lost revenue would have been significant. And they were right, the vast majority of Reddit users tangentially looked at Lemmy and similar alternatives but are still on Reddit. The people actually here on Lemmy saying they’ll never use Reddit again are a tiny minority of Reddit’s total userbase.

I’m genuinely surprised that a creator who has a ton of op-eds in his videos and constantly pushes for electrification and heat pumps citing their lower environmental impact, which is very correct and noble of him mind you, doesn’t apply the same logic to software.

Also, obviously it’s not good to be a dick when promoting FLOSS as you’re more likely to push people away from it, if that was his point then I’d tend to agree (admittedly I’ve been guilty of that before). Maybe that’s what he meant, but he doesn’t mention that in the post and seems to imply that even a friendly or matter of fact suggestion that a FLOSS alternative is available is unacceptable. Like are you complaining just to complain or are you complaining because you want suggestions on how to solve the problem? I don’t know what his experience with FLOSS discourse is, but I’ve personally complained about a proprietary software, had someone point out that an alternative exists, and immediately tried it out and often end up switching. Literally the other day, I was complaining about the Unix cp command, someone suggested I use rsync instead because “it’s better”, and what do you know they were right.

onlinepersona ,

Are houses free now?

JustinHanagan ,
@JustinHanagan@kbin.social avatar

Exactly! I actually talked back and forth with him a bit and eventually said that "complaining about a missing FOSS feature is like complaining to the volunteer ladeler at a soup kitchen about the lack of a gluten-free option. It's just not the path to getting the change you want."

In the end he seemed to get what I was saying, but was still irritated. I've been really learning lately how hard it is for some people not to see themselves as customers in FOSS land.

onlinepersona ,

I’ve been really learning lately how hard it is for some people not to see themselves as customers in FOSS land.

It perplexes me, because when people get free stuff that isn’t FOSS, they have no place to complain. Their only option is to pay for the software, but most don’t. As soon as they see a place they can complain, they go twitter on the place.

sukhmel ,

People often can’t make companies to do stuff even if they pay for it, so that is a really meh argument 😔

RiikkaTheIcePrincess ,
@RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social avatar

He’s still being a dick about this?? Thought he’d chilled out a bit but now he’s lost all damn sense about the matter. Maybe he’s at least gotten past insulting all Linux users in his videos and will be keeping this crap to a somewhat more appropriate environment.

JustinHanagan ,
@JustinHanagan@kbin.social avatar

I and a few other people kinda chatted with him a while and the reality kinda seemed to click with him? He was very stuck on "it is a product and I am the customer" mindset that is very ingrained into so many people. He said filing a bug report felt "dehumanizing" and we tried to illustrate that it can actually feel empowering if you view yourself as a collaborator, not a customer. I think he's coming around.

At least I hope he is because (opinion on FOSS aside) he really is one of the all-time best creators on YouTube right now.

millie ,

That’s goofy.

It’s like someone hearing someone complaining about a slum lord and pointing them to a company that gives out free parcels of land with free trailers on them. It’s not usually, like, a mansion, but it’ll do.

dallo ,

You can pay each month or be free forever.

Luisp ,

You are not buying a house, if the software is free it’s more like a expropriation

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

You could be tied to a specific piece of shit you don’t like because it’s what your job requires you to use.

I had to work with Salesforce and when I’d complain about it, Id be given all sorts of alternatives. These are nice but… The dude in charge of what the rest of us had to use liked Salesforce, so we all suffered.

drwho ,
@drwho@beehaw.org avatar

Atlassian, too.

pkulak ,

Ah yes, put your problem out in the internet, then get befuddled when people suggest solutions. Classic.

morrowind OP ,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

Ah come on, don’t tell me you’ve never ranted on the internet, with no interest in a solution, just to rant

Templa ,
@Templa@beehaw.org avatar

But he was asking for a solution, people just weren’t giving solutions that were suitable

Fisk400 ,

But they are not solutions to the problem. They are asking you to fully abandon the problem and tackle a completely new set of problems.

The most annoying part is that they know this, they just want to signal their own moral superiority.

pkulak ,

Using a different tool is not abandoning the problem.

TacoNissan ,

“Hey, so my car is making a weird noise” “Just go out and get a different car then”

JustinHanagan ,
@JustinHanagan@kbin.social avatar

"Hey so my free car that was built and maintained entirely by volunteers who received no financial compensation and was provided to me no strings attached is making a weird noise and I don't want to learn how to fix it myself nor am I willing to wait for someone else to fix it, nor am I willing to even tell the car-builders it has a problem."

In this context suggesting they complainer pay for a car doesn't sound so crazy?

TacoNissan , (edited )

No you have it backwards. More like

“hey, this car I bought for a couple grand is being fucky”

“nah man fuck buying a car. Leave that one in the ditch out back, and start driving this one my buddies made and have been fixing for years. Yeah it breaks a lot but hey it’s free. Oh you wanna keep using your old car, you just need an oil change? Bitch, what did I say? Use mine.”

Oh yeah btw, that new car, gas and brake are reversed. Nonono it’s ok just get used to it or you’re a dumbass

pkulak ,

No, not at all. More like, if your car is broken you could also ride a bike, or walk, or take a bus or a cab or a train or an airplane. Sometimes it’s helpful to have solutions presented that you didn’t even think of. Like how you assumed that the only way to deal with a broken car is to fix it or buy a new one. That’s not true at all, and I’m here to help you explore all the ways to solve your problem, not just the ones at the top of your mind at the moment.

TacoNissan ,

Yeah but I wanted my car fixed. Sure I’m riding my bike while it’s broken, but I want to fix my car.

Honytawk ,

If they ask help with a problem in software, then telling them to switch to a completely different software is never a solution.

If the software is forced by the company they work for, then they do not have a choice to install a different one.

So stop looking at problems from only your perspective.

pkulak ,

It’s the only perspective I have, unfortunately.

tuhriel ,

There are always two opinions: mine and the wrong one

somegeek ,

That makes no sense. I think he should use home assistant for his home automation.

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.

Tathas ,

Well. And maybe the new house doesn’t support their bed.

LapGoat ,
@LapGoat@pawb.social avatar

i mean yeah but they can just dual boot to metaphorically keep the old house too

morrowind OP ,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

sleeping and living in different houses, with your original house able to “accidentally” blow up your new one at any point.

Honytawk ,

Or you can just keep your old house where everything works, and the only annoying thing is the landlord.

ArcaneSlime ,

Just gotta figure out if you’re ok with your landlord reading your diary.

Honytawk ,

Most people are completely fine with it.

morrowind OP ,
@morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

It’s somewhere in between, you’re not building your own software, but oss software does usually tend to need more work. It’s like telling someone with a shitty landlord to move to a new house which they get to own, but it has no paint, or lighting, or flooring and they have to move their furniture and learn a different layout

niisyth ,

Or even, just move to my building that has a much better landlord, but it’s a 5 storey walkup.

Some folks will be able to use that no issue, some folks might bitch but be happy in the end, and for some folks it’d be a nigh impossibility to do so.

And all of that, provided the house they have to be in, is within their control.

Da_Boom ,
@Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

And If it doesn’t require more work, it requires different work. The beast you know is easier and more comfortable to understand than the beast you don’t know, even if it would be more beneficial to learn to deal with the newcomer.

JustinHanagan ,
@JustinHanagan@kbin.social avatar

It’s like telling someone with a shitty landlord to move to a new free house which they get to own

BluesF ,

Isn’t the point that you don’t have a choice to just buy a house, because there are obstacles that prevent it. In the same way, I don’t have a choice to use Linux or whatever other foss alternative to the stuff I use daily because my laptop is owned by the company I work for and their policies dictate that it runs windows etc.

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.

Honytawk ,

That is the thing, the software will function even with all the spyware and bloat.

Doesn’t bother a non-tech person.

anothermember ,

Or could it be that it might bother them but they just keep quiet and put up with it, assume that it’s part of owning a computer and feel powerless to change anything?

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.

tuhriel ,

Yep, got the same experience as you. Not with nvidia drivers bit my huawei laptop had a broken audio driver where only half of the speakers worked… Unless you plugges in a headphone… Then the headphone and the other half of the speakers worked… All in all, it took me at least a da to get that working

Also, still no fingerprint support…

You can do a lot with opensource and tailor it to your need, but you have to invest a lot of time… And that’s what a lot of people don’t have

anothermember ,

Admittedly I do have the bias of experience which could blind me to the difficulties, when I phrased my first two sentences as questions they were genuine questions. Between work and personal life I must’ve installed Linux in some form at least 200 times over the last 20 years, so I’m not most users.

I’ve also not used Windows in many years, the last I think was when I had to use Windows 7 for work about 10 years ago and I found it extremely difficult to get it to do what I want. If it’s improved then it’s improved.

On the other hand a novice user can ask somebody to install Linux for them, what about that? That’s what my non-techy parents have done, and it’s easier for them to use Linux (they say so) and easier for me to provide technical support for them.

Also yes, avoid Nvidia.

MangoPenguin , (edited )
@MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Yes we do get sort of blind to what the average non-tech person wants out of their computer, I certainly have plenty of Linux experience on servers, but that just doesn’t seem to translate across to being able to easily troubleshoot desktop Linux issues. I think because a server is a ‘set up once’ type thing, whereas running linux on my desktop feels like a constant battle with installing programs, and driver updates or new versions of a game breaking things.

IMO windows has vastly improved since W7. I can’t even remember the last time I had to troubleshoot a game or program not working properly. I have W11 on 3 PCs and it’s been extremely stable, almost every program other than games is installed via the winget package manager which also handles updates, and it doesn’t get that ‘windows slows down over time’ feeling that used to happen on 7, vista, etc… Obviously there’s some bloat to remove when you first install it, and a few annoying settings to change, but that’s not that big of a deal to me and I spend just as much time on a fresh linux install getting things how I want them.

As far as the GPU choice, right now nvidia just makes a better GPU IMO, with their DLSS and frame-gen that AMD so far can’t compete with. Shadowplay also works a lot more reliably than ReLive in my experience. I briefly had an RX 6700XT for a few weeks before returning it due to driver/software issues.

I spend enough time fixing IT things at work and on my selfhosted server stuff, I just want to get home, hit the power button on my PC and play some games or work on some code for a project without anything getting in the way.

ArcaneSlime ,

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

“Every”

RandomVideos ,

With 0 experience with linux i installed nobara without any problems. I didnt need to install anything else(edit: excluding the software you can install in the “welcome” app), to change something in the settings etc

The only “hard” thing i had to do was to disable secure boot in the BIOS

Nalivai ,

I think you are talking about the situation that might be true 15 years ago, vut right now you’ll be hardpressed to find anything that doesn’t work out of the box on any modern distribution. I don’t know what plugins and dependancies don’t work on your machine, but I assure you it’s not a universal experience, far from it.
Also, most of the software that you use on Linux is free, so you don’t “buy” new couch if your old is built specifically for your old house, you learn to sit on any of the new ones that you can get for free at any moment

DestinyGrey ,

I say this over and over again, but I’m going to say it again. I disagree firmly with the second point because there is such a lead and usability and ease of use for popular commercial software such as Microsoft office and Adobe software. It’s available in so many languages, it has so much functionality, and yes, both surpass FOSS solutions by a wide margin in functionality.

If you don’t need Excel, I think Linux and libre office might work fine for a lot of people, but there are still gaps in usability and accessibility. I don’t really see the same for anything Adobe does in the Linux space however.

Linux is like 90% of the way there, but these are people with jobs and families and shit. You can’t expect them to spend time having to overextend themselves with technology.

Nalivai ,

I wasn’t saying that we have everything available for Linux. Not yet, anyway. I was saying that whatever we have there is usually free and very customisable.
People committing from Windows and especially Mac infrastructure think that since they spent hundreds of dollars on software they use, they will have to do that again if they will swith to Linux. For a lot of people the thought of free software just never crossing the mind

Stowaway , (edited )

DraugerOS wouldnt even boot from the thumb drive for me. Garuda sort of worked, the live boot was damn near perfect, from a stability and basic performance perspective, but after a basic install there were some annoying artifacts like a block behind the cursor on some windows, steams store page would flash rapidly and performance was trash in any game even on low settings. A Logitech mouse scroll wheel was hit or miss working. I mean like you spin the wheel and while the wheel was free spinning the browser would start and stop responding to it. 8 hours of messing with kernels, drivers, and settings it I threw in the towel. Not worth the effort to just get it to run normally let alone

Arch was similarly poor performance. Mint was also poor performance. Im not a fan of the PopOS style, but it actually ran great on my machine so, I’ll take it.

Point being, I tried 4 different distros before finding one that worked mostly well out of box.

Edit: wrong name for draugeros

Nalivai ,

Where the fuck have you found whatever weird esoteric distribs you are talking about, and why on earth did you went with those? Depending on the answer to the question, I kind of understand how you managed to make Arch “perform poorly” whatever that means in that regard, you need to have at least basic understanding to use Arch (or treat it as an opportunity to learn).
But you don’t start your experiments with something from third page of Google, at that point you’re an alpha tester.

Stowaway ,

Google best gaming Linux distros. DraugerOS, Garuda, and popos are all prominent distros focused on gaming.

DraugerOS is Ubuntu LTS based.

Mint, not gaming focused, has been around for ages and is Ubuntu based. I’ve used it previously on older hardware with no issue. Just apparently doesn’t like newer hardware.

Garuda is arch based, probably why it was such a pain.

Popos is Ubuntu based as well.

I’ve also tried KDE plasma, ubuntu based, and man was that slow as hell. Works great on some hardware not on the hardware I tried.

I’ve installed Ubuntu in the past and had WiFi driver issues.

You mentioned any modern distros should work out of the box. The only one listed that mostly worked out of the box with semi reasonable performance was popos.

if someone is looking to install a distros to play games, theyll probably google “Linux for gaming” install one of the prominent distros listed above geared toward gaming then bang their head against the wall and quit.

We may understand arch is a full time job, but when Joe from sales builds a new gaming rig and took someone’s advice to install Linux and save money he doesn’t know all Linux distros are not created equally. Maybe he gets garuda or draugeros and bangs his head against the wall then goes back to windows.

There are a million different distros and yes some of the major ones work fine, but not always and if you run into issues it can be exponentially harder to fix the issue especially if you have no IT experience. Making it even worse is toxicity in forums or other support places where people treat you like you should know better because they have of knowledge of Linux and forget that we all have different levels of experience, many people have no experience.

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.

qyron ,

You can’t know until you try it.

Professionals are trained on already available answers, often target marketed, which moves forward the penetration of such answers into broad society.

This does not mean they are good or bad, just popular.

Any alternative solution will always be compared to the more popular, even if better.

Honytawk , (edited )

No you definitely can know.

Because if your company tells you you should use this software, you do not get a say in what software you use.

So it is either this, or nothing.

qyron ,

Funny how we jumped from an implied personal use to an enterprise use all of a sudden.

To which the same basic rules apply. The added problem on enterprise is that you have legally binding contracts to force the company to stay with a bad software.

Knusper ,

Normally, I would reply to the guy, because, you know, he’s a human being, but there’s so many replies, I doubt, he can actually read all of them and potentially someone else has already made that point.

Anyways, I feel like something he kind of misses here is that many of us do it from a heartfelt place. Like, we’re all techies. We’ve all used commercial software to a point where we’ve grown so frustrated with it that we decided it is a waste of time.

So, it’s not us saying “Why don’t you go and just have more time/money?”.
Rather, it’s us saying “This thing is wasting your time? Here is a solution that I felt wasted less time in the long run.”.

Yes, sometimes that does miss the mark, because not every complaint is looking for a solution. Or because we may be frustrated with restrictions of commercial software, which are not a problem for less techy people. Or even because we’re embedded in this tech world and are hoping to make it a better place, which someone just quickly visiting may not care about.

But other times, I do just happen to know a lot about technology and a non-techy genuinely did not know about the solution I suggested and is actually really appreciative of me bringing it up. It does happen. And it’s not easy to discern who would appreciate a suggestion and who won’t.

JustinHanagan ,
@JustinHanagan@kbin.social avatar

I actually did jump into the replies and went back and forth with him a bit and I do think he (finally) understood the FOSS perspective. I think a lot of people get very hung up on this concept of a customer-product relationship and for some people it's a very hard mindset to break out of. I often forget that while "FOSS" is software, the "free software movement" is not really about software, it's political.

d0ntpan1c ,

The political aspect is especially true. The FOSS confusion is often similar to the communism confusion, especially when it comes to small-scale things.

Take the concept of a neighborhood garden that no one is expected to pay money into, for instance. “Wait, so the people here who like gardening don’t expect me to pay or provide labor unless I’m able to? What do you mean i should take only according to my needs? What about Jimothy, he never helps but he takes way more than I do! What do you mean Jimothy contributes as he is able or in other ways? How can i trust everyone to be fair?”

Take the money for goods/services exchange out of the equation and it can really throw people off.

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