Pride in Linux it manifested again. This time the excuse was el End of Windows 7 support. But, it shows in the treatment of new users and their doubts. Or, in the use of words like Hasefroch or Winbug $.
All the replacement proposals for Windows 7 that I read agree on something. Must recommend easy distributions. Those who come from Windows do not want something new since they can only use something similar to what they know. And you don't have to tell them anything about the terminal.
Let's not ask what they need either. Let's not include distros that we don't like. We we know better than they what they need.
They are lucky to have us.
Spoiler
Most will be moving to Windows 10. Or, they will continue to Windows 7.
Pride in Linux and what we need to change
The Royal Spanish Academy is clear:
Pride:
1. f. Haughtiness and disorderly appetite to be preferred to others.
2. f. Satisfaction and puffiness at the contemplation of one's own garments with contempt for others.
Linux users usually boast of the 4 freedoms of free software. That most of us cannot read code and that it does to the 4 decorative freedoms is irrelevant. Others believe themselves superior because do not use graphic installers or other facilitators. They leave out the fact that they are just following a tutorial. You take them out and they are lost.
La major concern from the creator of Linux this week It wasn't like easing the transition for Windows 7 users. He was very entertaining arguing over a minority file system.
Among the communities in charge of open source projects, we were from Guatemala (A meritocracy with programmers as absolute kingss) to Guatepeor (The dictatorship of political correctness where eIt's more important to be from a minority than the contributions you make)
Let's look at lto list of projects of the Linux Foundation. All focused on the great trends of the industry.to. Nothing aimed at creating the next Facebook or iPhone.
We are Linux, we are based on the GPL and we comply with the 4 freedoms of Free Software. Who cares if a video card runs at half capacity for lack of a decent driver? Why aren't they using us?
They don't use us because we don't know who they are and what they need of us.
Microsoft saw that the programmers wanted to use Python and not Visual Basic. That Silverlight could never replace Flash, but HTML5 and that in the cloud customers preferred open source solutions. The company is worth more on the stock market than when it was a near-monopoly.
Just yesterday, January 17, the open source appeared with a competitive alternative to Office 365 and Google Docs. Is about Nextcloud Hub, a self-hosted platform that allows collaborative document editing, calendar management and photo management with geolocation.
While we continue to release forks and more forks from PC distributions, Microsoft is testing its desktop operating system in the cloud. For now it is only available for the corporate field, but it will not take long to extend to common users.
And, it is no longer necessary to buy a license to have Windows 10. The Insider Preview program allows you to use it for free (I have been doing it for years and although it is a technically unstable version I never had problems). Or you can pay a monthly fee for W10 and Office 365 without having to worry about updates. The system takes care of everything.
What the user wants
A couple of days ago on social networks I asked the inverse question:What distro would you recommend to steer users away from Windows 7? Leaving aside those who did not understand the question and the prejudices, the winners were Arch Linux, Gentoo and Linux From Scratch. All distributions whose installation requires the heavy use of the command line.
But i know Windows users who use the command line all the time. In fact. PowerShell, MIcrosoft command line tool has Linux version and can be installed as snap package. On the other side there Linux users who want to just press buttons and have the system take care of everything. Distributions such as Linux Mint or Manjaro were made for them.
Perhaps, if we put aside prejudices and decide to leave the ivory tower, Let's make it the year of Linux somewhere.