from geeknews.net

Why penguins can't fly on the desktop
July 12th, 1999 - Article #1


The other day my Mom was over at my house for dinner. As I was checking my
e-mail between small talk, she wandered into my office. I thought this would
be a great chance to show off my great LiteStep setup. After going through
all the neat functions, the fact that it has a smaller footprint, the
productivity enhancements, the fact that I WORKED on it, and the fact that
it was Free (like speech..). After mulling over all the factoids I had
thrown at her, she did something I fully didn't expect her to. She replied,
quite simply, "So what?" I was astounded. This was the neatest thing I had
run across in my years and years of computing and my technophobe mother
wasn't even phased by it. I got angry, I presumed she didn't understand, so
I went over it again with her, using smaller words and talking slower. She
gave me a nasty look, and trying not to yell, said, "I understood the first
time. I just don't get what the big deal is. I can do everything I want to
already, why would I change it? Why should I care?" Rather than simply
flying off the handle, as I would've done when I was younger, I thought
about what she was saying. She just honestly didn't care about my wondrous
creation, it didn't matter to her. She surfs the web. She types things, and
prints them. She doesn't care what the heck she's doing it on, to her it's
simply a typewriter with a monitor attached. At this point, it was I who was
lost, so I pulled my sister into the office. I proceeded to go over
everything that I had explained to my Mom to Sis. She shrugged, "It looks
pretty, but who cares? Where's ICQ?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing!
My sister, 18, isn't exactly a Geek, but she's not of the "hey look, it's
got color!" generation. She's supposed to like this crap! Being totally
flabbergasted at this point, I sat down to the dinner that I made, and ate.

After dinner, I started into the typical Geek questionnaire. "What do you
think of Microsoft?" "What do you think of Windows?" Etc. The answers amazed
me. "Microsoft? They make the stuff we use to print stuff out" was the gist
of their answer. What? No political stance? I was becoming disenfranchised
rather quickly here. "Windows? Yeah, it's neat, I love the start button." My
jaw hit the table. I couldn't believe I was of the same bloodline as these
people. I got quickly frustrated, and questioned their motives. I was
totally unprepared for what followed. "It's just a computer Brad, sheesh."
When was the last time you heard that? This showed me two things. 1) I need
to get out and talk to more real people. Geeks all think the same,
basically. 2) Microsoft is successful because people are generally
apathetic. They ARE just computers, and if they can print out your term
paper, they're just peachy. Linux needs people to be active, to be part of a
community, to succeed. Unless there's a major shift in thinking amongst the
general populace, I don't see people wanting Linux. The rhetoric of RMS will
simply not work with "real" people. Telling them they have a right to Free
software will only make them look at him funny, but from what I understand,
that's commonplace.

That's the catch, I guess. It's not that people don't want Free software.
It's not that people are Microsoft clones, drudging away in a life tied to
Windows against their will. It won't be Microsoft doing something dastardly
that keeps Linux off the desktop. It's simply that real people don't care
what operating system they use. They just want to print stuff.


-- Scott Little, 3:712/848@fidonet | slittle@bbs.slittle.com

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