2013-06-22

The Problem

So I was slumming in the Linux Community on Google Plus, and this came up:


I presume as a joke.

And it occurred to me that this kind of attitude that Linux fan-bois have, this "you can build whatever you want" kind of attitude, is a problem.

But the big problem is that they don't understand that it is a problem.

Imagine if cars were really sold like this.  Where you bought a chassis and everything else,rig Dow to the trim and seat belt buckes, were individually optioned.  And then the new owner had to spend three weeks assembling the thing.  You would end up with a lot of cars built and assembled to a simple cook book put together by some authority.  And most of the resulting cars would be poorly put together, and probably quite unsafe.  Those built by the enthusiasts would be works of woder, one-off customs which excelled in some way or other, but on average most of us would drive pieces of junk.

Being able to buy a car that has been properly designed, and assembled by a professional workforce, lets us all drive cars which are, on average, much safer and better.  The cost of enthusiasts being bored is frankly an easy one to pay.

Actually it occurs to me that this is exactly the way kit cars are/were sold.  And the market spoke.  The sheeple wanted reliable, boring cars.  

But back to computing.  The fan-bois claim that you can do anything with Linux that you can with Windows; and while in broad strokes it is true (you can write a letter) it isn't in the way that most people care about (you can't write a letter in Word 2013).  

(But why do you need Word 2013?)

Because that is the format that all these other letters are in.

(So everyone should change!)

Yeah, good luck with that.