Desktop open source advocates need to do some research - Open Source Software Up the Stack

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April 14, 2008
Desktop open source advocates need to do some research

An article I saw recently on PC World caused me to change hats and become an interviewee, rather than interviewer. The article says:

“You may be intrigued by the idea of switching to Linux. But how will you get your job done without your favorite Windows programs?”

I am such a person. So I interviewed myself.

I do a lot of research about the open source movement from an investment research point of view (it’s been good for investors!) as well as from the culture/development model point of view here on ebizQ. For that reason I do use open source software (OSS) experimentally. But I do not use it day to day.

Perhaps I should cut the cord from my 20 years with DOS/Windows (of course I never had to "buy" either of them), and my 10-year Microsoft (MSFT) Word dependency. Before that my word processors were LotusWorks and WordPerfect. Ironically an employer that was a Mac shop "hooked me" on Word. And I should stop my short two-year use of Outlook. Before that, as with presentation and spreadsheet software, my email was whatever an employer or client told me to use. Primarily it was Data General CEO followed by IBM Lotus Notes but I have also used everything from CompuServe to Eudora to a great little package called TLC Express that came out of Mass Mutual Insurance (and that a client tried to market to other insurers).

The PC World article presumes you start by dumping Windows for Linux, but points out that many of the OSS applications its author suggests also run under Windows.

The article goes on to list some open source alternatives to Notepad, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows ability to burn CDs, Office, Outlook, Quicken (or Quickbooks), and instant messaging--and six other closed-source application products I don’t use. (So--although I am the interviewee--as a good market researcher, I have to tell you that the opinion that follows does not necessarily apply to a “market set” of users that deploys the applications I mention above plus Microsoft Publisher, BitTorrent, Skype, a digital video recorder, Photoshop, and a Windows disc partitioner. And, more important, the following research has an N=1. )

The PC World article is primarily based on the oft-stated premise that Office is “expensive.” This is one of the most prevalent arguments in favor of desktop open source but has never been backed up that I can find, at least within the research scope that the PC World article frames. The problem I find is that articles like this never define "expensive." I spend about $100/year for full-bore Office including Outlook, Quicken Home and Business edition, and TaxAct (which includes the fee for electronic filing).

The annual cost would be lower if I didn't upgrade every other year, or mailed in my tax forms. I update every other year for tax return preparation purposes but otherwise would not need to. The article does not mention tax return preparation at all but it might be one of the major uses of desktop PCs.

The tax return preparation angle also points out another factor in an individual's use of closed-source software. It is not the software I want, it’s the content. The latest tax laws. The grammar checker. The clip art library. And so forth.

But, OK, for the sake of discussion, I'm thinking of doing what the article suggests. Here's the first thing that hits me, a non-IT person, on the GnuCash web site:

"To install GnuCash on other platforms (other than Windows), users will need Gnome 2, guile, and slib. Neither the currently used swig nor the previously used g-wrap packages are needed anymore when compiling from tarball or when installing a binary."

Huh? I can't imagine what the message says that tells me how to first install Linux.

There are hundreds of millions of desktop Windows users. If the OSS comunity really believes they should become Linux/OSS users, they better start talking to some of them.