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Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 13:28:43 +0200
From: Gael Duval <gduval@mandrakesoft.com>
To: lwn@lwn.net
Subject: New editorial...


Response to Bill Gates regarding ease-of-use with Linux and the Open
Source model.

by Gaël Duval, Co-Founder of Mandrakesoft, with additions by Phil
Lavigna.  This essay is published under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License (see http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/fdl.html)

Mr. Bill Gates recently said three things, in addition to many others,
in an interview with "Australian IT" (0). First he said that Linux was
just hype and that it cannot compete with Windows on ease-of-use. He
also said the Open Source model doesn't offer any great benefit in
terms of reliability and security. Even if we can feel a twinge of
satisfaction that Microsoft seems to be concerning itself with Linux'
existence, his remarks deserve a loud response because it's blatantly
just false. Much of what Mr. Gates said is commonly referred to as
"FUD" (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (1)).

About the so-called "hype"

What Mr. Gates calls "hype" is actually a worldwide, grass-roots,
fundamental change in how computing is performed. This evolution
(revolution) had its modest beginnings in Finland in 1991 and
continues to enjoy a phenomenal growth rate. The truth is that
thousands of new users are discovering Linux each and every day and
finding it a complete replacement for Microsoft Windows. Many of these
new users have grown weary of relying on an Operating System that is
not reliable and has a tendency to crash regularly for apparently no
reason; many of these people are tired of the forced uniformity, tired
of having no control and no power to fix the many bugs and
shortcomings faced while performing everyday computing tasks,
distrustful of waiting for answers that never arrive, exhausted from
the endless cycle of paying and paying again for an operating system
and applications that always seem to do what they need -- but only in
the next release.

The truth is, according to IDC figures, Linux is now the second most
widely used operating system in the world (2). The truth is also that
the most widely used web server in the world is the Apache web server
(3) which is free-software. The truth tends to be quite a bit
different from Mr. Gate's claim of "some single applications and web
servers".

About ease-of-use

Linux is still considered to be harder to use than MacOS and Windows -
why is this so?  First of all, Linux has inherited a great deal from
Unix which is often seen as a complicated system -- not particularly
because it's hard to use, but because it is VERY featured and
different in many ways. People discovering Linux are always surprised
of the great many things that can be accomplished with Linux,
especially the power that lurks behind a seemingly simple shell
command line which can be used to read and write email, edit files on
remote servers, talk to friends on the other side of the world, listen
to MP3s, burn a CD and compile an application -- all at the same time.

Until recently, addressing these ease-of-use issues was difficult
because the issue is actually two-fold based on the presumption that
security and ease-of-use are mutually exclusive. We don't ever wish
Linux to become unstable as the cost of making it easier to use, just
as we never want Linux to become unsafe. People who regularly use
Windows are accustomed to system crashes and viruses as a normal daily
concern -- this is not the way computing has to be! With Linux, this
situation largely doesn't exist because of the fundamental
architecture of the system which consists of independent layers that
have specific features and strict permissions. Additionally, normal
users have a strict and limited role on a Linux system; it's only the
"root" user (administrator) who has the power to expose an entire
system to possible danger. With DOS, Windows 95 and Windows 98, users
have the ability to do anything to a system -- this is a dangerous
scenario in these times of widespread Internet access and extensive
networking.  With Windows NT and Windows 2000, Microsoft introduced
some mechanisms that LOOK like Unix features such as authentication,
permissions and others, but they don't remotely come close to the same
level of security that Linux provides.

Linux-Mandrake, in particular, has always focused on ease-of-use
issues and has been working hard on this particular challenge of
blending common-sense security features while maintaining the same
user-friendly operating system that has become so popular with Linux
users. With a Linux-Mandrake system, you can choose a level of
security for the system based on its intended use while maintaining a
very friendly system at the same time.

"Ease-of-use" seems to have come to mean graphical interfaces for
everything.  While it's certainly not true that a nice interface
instantly means something is easier to use, it is true that users have
come to expect and appreciate slick-looking interfaces to do their
work in. This is one area where Linux lagged until KDE (4) and GNOME
(5) appeared. Now Linux is extremely easy to use day-to-day with these
great desktop environments.

One of the remaining issues we in the Linux community need to address
is the refinement and polishing of the wonderful tools we already have
at our disposal. For example: it's true that most applications don't
use anti-aliased for display purposes which might cause a user to
think: "Well... it doesn't look as good as Windows, I wonder what else
it's lacking".  Of course this single point doesn't mean the
application doesn't contain all the features that would make this user
extremely happy, but people's perception is their reality so it is a
valid issue to consider.

About reliability and security in the Open Source model

Reliability and stability have long been major benefits of Linux and
this is proven every day by the thousands of Linux servers that run
for months and sometimes even years without as much as a
hiccup. Security has also been an important feature of Linux -- not
only one of the fundamentally most secure operating system itself, but
also the way security flaws are handled. When a security issue is
discovered it doesn't take very long for Linux vendors to release an
update.  Sometimes a fix can take a week, often a few days, or even a
few minutes depending on the bug. The Open Source model provides an
extremely efficient process for handling these types of matters that
can't be matched by a proprietary software maker such as Microsoft who
often take weeks, months or even years to fix a problem.

So how exactly does the Open Source model excel? Even if Microsoft had
the best and brightest engineers in the world, we have the power of
numbers. When a serious bug is discovered with Linux, hundreds
(possibly thousands) of experienced users and developers can
spontaneously work to fix the problem because they have access to all
the sources. And we, as Linux vendors, quickly receive patches from
the community or develop a solution ourselves. This patch is then
validated (or not) very quickly so an update can be released in record
time. This extremely efficient process is strictly impossible in the
proprietary/closed software model, it's simply the nature of that
beast.

Once upon a time there was a young boy and a PC...

He couldn't do much because he only had DOS/Windows installed on his
computer; he was very saddened to realize he had to buy additional
software to actually do anything with his new pride and joy. But since
he had already spent most of his money on the PC, he unfortunately had
to copy some proprietary software. And this wasn't an ideal solution
because then he couldn't get the documentation for the software. This
was extremely unfortunate because he was very interested in learning
programming but couldn't find any information about the libraries that
were shipped with the C compiler that a friend had copied for
him. Furthermore, the operating-system calls that he used were
apparently undocumented and there wasn't even an assembler provided
with the system. He really couldn't understand why he didn't have the
opportunity to create his own software for this computer and operating
system that he already paid for.

That was 1990. Five years later this young boy discovered he could run
Linux on that 386 - and it was free! Well... he just had to buy 50
diskettes and he was with his new OS. This operating system provided
several full-featured compilers and all the documentation he needed to
enable him to program anything for his computer. It was then that he
realized how limiting Windows had been for him all that previous time
and how it stifled his personal desire to create. He realized how
Linux couldn't even be compared to that other operating system.

Linux provided the freedom this young man needed; the freedom to
control the technology at hand and also his own future. Linux provides
the opportunity to express one's self through creating code and
empowers the individual -- which is where power best belongs.

The Future will be Open.. or it won't be

People know about icebergs. They know that unless they're swimming
underwater in that sea, they're seeing just a little bit of the
iceberg. That's similar to how it is with Linux companies and the Open
Source model. Linux companies won't ever be as rich as traditional
software companies because they offer much more than proprietary
software does, and nearly for free. But this doesn't mean we can't all
make a living with Open Source software and live well.  Mandrakesoft,
Red Hat, SuSE, Turbo Linux... all these companies will tell you that
they grew much this year, they also grew the previous year and will
grow again the next because there are ever increasing numbers of
people having their own personal discovery with Linux. These people
will buy a Linux pack, then their friends will purchase a pack, as
will more and more enterprises who will also require services and
support. These Linux companies and this wonderful community we're all
a part of are helping change the way people use software and directly
affecting people's lives and how we all work.

So to potential new Linux users, just tell them they can have a full
operating system for their PC that contains an office suite, a web
browser, just about everything they could want.. for free. This is the
first step to entering the Linux world. This will put them on the road
to discover for themselves what the "Free" really means in Free
Software. With time they'll also come to know what we already do; the
same way your mind evolved between the first day you decided to get
Internet access -- no matter whether the reasoning was because it was
a "fashionable" thing to do or if you really wanted to know what it
was -- and the day when you first browsed those personal web pages to
the day of posting your first words in a forum.

All readers who switched definately from Windows to Linux are welcomed
to give their feedback about their experience in the Mandrake Forum on
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php3?sid=20000918042153

Notes:
(0) « Empower the people: Gates' vision » - read the article on
    http://www.australianit.com.au/common/storyPage/0,3811,1184200%5E501,00.html
(1) FUD - see http://nofud.linuxtoday.com/MainTOC.html
(2) Linux second server OS (1999) - see
    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1549312.html?tag=st.ne.ni.rnbot.rn.ni
(3) Apache first web-server (2000) - see
    http://www.netcraft.net/survey/
(4) KDE - see http://www.kde.org
(5) GNOME - see http://www.gnome.org
(6) Mozilla - see http://www.mozilla.org
(7) Open-source StarOffice - see http://www.openoffice.org/