From:	 Larry Augustin <lma@valinux.com>
To:	 <fsb@crynwr.com>
Subject: Free software as a replacement for Microsoft
Date:	 Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:02:19 -0700


I've been lurking on this list for some time, and some of the things I
hear seriously bother me.  They bother me because nothing I've seen on
this list indicates to me that people here have any real concept of
what users like about Microsoft products or what they do with them.

How many MS Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, or Access gurus are
there on this list?  If the goal is to displace Microsoft, we must be
experts in Microsoft technology.  We must understand it inside and
out.  We must understand how and why people use it.

We must put ourselves in the mind-set of the *user*, not the mind-set of
the *developer*.  Remember, the user doesn't know anything about code.
The user doesn't write software.  The user just wants to get their job
done.

The free software community was able to recreate Unix because it
understood Unix from its applications to its kernel.  The free
software community was Unix users.  They understood how and why
people used Unix.  I see no one in the free software community that
similarly understands Microsoft software.  If we don't understand it,
how can we displace it?

I recall a discussion (not on this list) some time ago where a group
of people were arguing that Gnumeric was a replacement for Excel.  I
was appalled.  They were arguing about Excel vs. Gnumeric features.
They were arguing about reading and writing Excel file formats.  They
didn't understand why Excel users complained when they tried to use
Gnumeric.  The prevailing opinions were that users were just not
willing to learn to use something different.

I finally asked the question, "Can Gnumeric do pivot tables?"  I go
the response, "What's a pivot table?"  My point was proven.  The
Gnumeric advocates didn't even understand the technology they were
trying to replace.  I can hand an Office power user an Excel
spreadsheet with thousands of names and addresses, and with a few
point and click operations, out come pages of stick-on mailing labels.
How do you do that with Gnumeric?  I'm willing to bet that few or none
of us on this mailing list have that level of proficiency with MS
Office or Excel.  If we don't know what it can do, and we don't know
what people do with it, how can we replace it?

I recently switched my wife from Netscape on Linux to IE on Windows.
Why?  Because Netscape is *awful*.  It's slow, crashes often, and too
many things just don't work.  Any impartial analysis would tell you
that IE is vastly superior to any other browser from a users point of
view.

But many free software people I know argue for Netscape or Mozilla.
Why are they advocating inferior technology?  They do things like
disabling Java or Javascript.  I hate to tell you this, but my wife is
like most people - she just wants to browse the Internet.  She doesn't
know or care what Java is.  She doesn't want to have to care.  All she
cares is that when she goes to Yahoo Finance Vision that she can watch
it.  She just wants to *use* it.  She doesn't care about the *how*.

I'm not sure that free software people get that.  To free software
people, the *how* seems as important as the *what*.

In order for free software to succeed, it has to be *better* software,
where better is defined by the user, not by the developer.  Again,
this is about the what, not the how.  Netscape could have an elegant
architecture underneath.  IE could be crap.  IT DOESN"T MATTER.

Again, we must put ourselves in the mind-set of the user, not the
mind-set of the developer.  Remember, the user doesn't know anything
about code.  The user doesn't write software.  The user just wants to
get their job done.  And their job has nothing to do with software.

You want to displace Microsoft on the desktop?  Go spend some time in
the shoes of a MS Office power user.  Spend some time watching a true
Excel wizard at work.  Refuse to write a line of code.  Learn what MS
Office users really do.  Until we have that kind of knowledge, we
won't win.

Larry

-- 
Larry M. Augustin, Ph.D.			Email:  lma@valinux.com
CEO, VA Linux Systems, Inc.			Direct: 510.687.7029
http://www.valinux.com				Fax:    510.683.8680