Not all may be astroturfers.
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| Author | Content |
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| Libervis Jun 15, 2009 4:12 AM EDT |
Does this mean everyone who genuinely supported Linux and Free Software and then ended up on Windows or at least became sufficiently frustrated about known Linux deficiencies to talk about them openly will now be immediately branded an astroturfer? Just wanna have that clarified, because there ARE people who at least did love Linux and were its fans, but ultimately found it not THAT significantly better than other operating systems. There is a lot of lying and FUD going on here and Linux advocates aren't always exactly innocent about it. I've just read a comment on this story which supposedly quotes a former Microsoft marketing manager without naming him and barely making clear where the actual quote ends and commenter's conjecture begins. The quote says how the reason Vista failed is because it was popular to badmouth it in the Web 2.0 sphere (blogs, digg etc.) and that Windows 7 is in fact no different at all from Vista aside from the UI change. But MS is paying people to praise it around the Web 2.0 sphere and thus it is succeeding. I just can't believe this crap. If certain Linux advocates begin to use this kind of rhetoric it wont be long before Linux is associated, among other things, with conspiracy theory lunacies (it's enough we have things like BoycottNovell already). Is it really possible that the SOLE reason Windows 7 gets good publicity is because Microsoft is manipulating it? Really? And here's a nice disclosure for everyone. I have been using Windows 7 Release Candidate for about two weeks now, even after writing an article in which I make points as to why I chose Ubuntu over Windows 7. I changed my mind within a day because ultimately the advantages I felt I had on Ubuntu were more a matter of familiarity than anything else. And Windows 7 is NOT Windows Vista. There, of course, are similarities, and former is based on latter, but I'd say that reviewers who said that 7 is Vista done right are.. right. It feels leaner, the new UI is actually, for once coming from Microsoft, something oddly innovative and it seems to harass my hard drive with pointless scanning far less. Am I gonna be branded an astroturfer now? Is there anyone out there who will now immediately think I am somehow being paid by Microsoft? Or are you just gonna call me crazy? Or maybe you'll simply acknowledge the fact that not everyone who has a word against Linux or occasionally chooses Windows over it must be in on some sort of a conspiracy... Btw, I still am not sure I'll stick with Win7 once time comes to shell out money for it (this is just an RC, which is legally free). I might buy a newer video card and switch to OpenSUSE 11.2 or Ubuntu Karmic Koala once they're out. |
| jdixon Jun 15, 2009 6:38 AM EDT |
> ...because there ARE people who at least did love Linux and were its fans, but ultimately found it not THAT significantly better than other operating systems. Significantly better for what? Playing games? Running Windows only programs which are required for work? Visiting some Windows only website or service (mercifully few any more)? No, it's not better for those. For your average home user who is simply browsing the net, getting email, instant messaging, writing the occasional letter, and maybe keeping a checkbook? Yeah, it's better. A lot better. Now, you're a fairly long time poster here, so your posing such a question on a location you often show up at isn't unusual. Have you ever seen most of these other posters here before? You try to answer question posed to you and offer legitimate arguments supporting your position. Have they done so? The arguments they're using are the same old ones that have been used before, often for years. They're easily refuted, and they offer no counter arguments when you refute them. They're trolls and astroturfers, pure and simple. > The quote says how the reason Vista failed is because it was popular to badmouth it in the Web 2.0 sphere (blogs, digg etc.) and that Windows 7 is in fact no different at all from Vista aside from the UI change. But MS is paying people to praise it around the Web 2.0 sphere and thus it is succeeding. Have you stopped to think that Microsoft may actually believe this? It's not like they haven't exhibited a significant detachment from reality before. > Is it really possible that the SOLE reason Windows 7 gets good publicity is because Microsoft is manipulating it? Really? Not likely, no. Windows 7 probably is quite a bit better than Vista, at least as far as the user interface and interaction goes. It's still Vista underneath though. However, you're also overlooking an important consideration in comparing Vista and Windows 7. Is this the same machine you would have been running Vista on? If not, you may wish to reconsider exactly how much better it is. Most users are running Windows 7 on machines quite a bit more powerful than the ones which were around when Vista came out. If Microsoft had released Vista on new machines today, it would not have anywhere near the performance problems it did originally. > have been using Windows 7 Release Candidate for about two weeks now, even after writing an article in which I make points as to why I chose Ubuntu over Windows 7. I changed my mind within a day because ultimately the advantages I felt I had on Ubuntu were more a matter of familiarity than anything else. Familiarity is also the only real advantage Windows has over Linux for your average home user. :) > Am I gonna be branded an astroturfer now? Depends? Are you claiming that you can't possibly recommend Linux to folks? Or are you simply saying that Windows 7 is enough better than Vista that there's no real reason people will want to switch? The latter may very well be true. > Or maybe you'll simply acknowledge the fact that not everyone who has a word against Linux or occasionally chooses Windows over it must be in on some sort of a conspiracy... You want to use Windows? Use Windows. You have a legitimate complaint about your distro? Make it. We'll try to help, though that help will probably be pointing you to the relevant support site for your distro. That's not what these folks have been doing. |
| Libervis Jun 15, 2009 7:18 AM EDT |
Good points..Quoting: Significantly better for what? Playing games? Running Windows only programs which are required for work? Visiting some Windows only website or service (mercifully few any more)? I would also add hardware support in limited amount of cases. While Linux supports stuff that it supports out of the box and detects it without effort, when such support is incomplete or buggy I think most people would still rather put up with having to download and install a driver manually if it'll then work beautifully then have everything detected and enabled automatically if it WONT work well. Case in point, of course, is my own case with a Radeon X800 graphics card. Although there is no driver for Windows 7 either, the fallback driver on Windows 7 still performs better than a fallback in Xorg (the free radeon driver) which freezes KDE desktop effects (and sometimes even without them), shows artifacts on the screen and generally feels flakey and sluggish. Another thing to add to that is audio and video support, from the general lack of comparable tools for music production or video editing (though things may be improving with PiTiVi being funded, I'm yet to try it..) to the deficiencies in the kernel itself (at least as far as my amateurish understanding of it goes) which has to be specifically tuned to get any decent real time audio support meaning one either has to have two kernels in the same installation or dual boot with a "studio" variant of the distro (like Ubuntu Studio or Studio64). There's also the whole mess with ALSA, pulseaudio etc.. I've heard some advocate OSS as a standard replacement that is more stable and better performing (but don't quote me on that...). I think OS X uses OSS. Note that sometimes insufficient hardware support (like flakey video card drivers that can freeze the desktop) can put a shadow on even the basic uses for which you say Linux is better. Quoting:Have you stopped to think that Microsoft may actually believe this? It's not like they haven't exhibited a significant detachment from reality before. I didn't.. but it's a good point. Then the question would be should we believe it.. If it's not true then of course we shouldn't since if it IS the case that Win7 actually is a better OS (arguably best Windows ever made) and if we know where it is better then we're better equipped to make Linux OS's competitive in those areas (though if you're a non programmer all you can do is talk about it constructively). Quoting:However, you're also overlooking an important consideration in comparing Vista and Windows 7. Is this the same machine you would have been running Vista on? Well I built this machine in May 2007 and Vista was released in January 2007 for what that's worth. I've upgraded RAM and HD since, but it'd probably be quite capable. Anyway good point, but then again I don't necessarily consider high hardware requirements a sin if it actually means it's improving the experience. I'd rather have an OS take full advantage of my hardware and then provide me with awesome than not use all of hardware yet perform crappy... (not saying Linux OS's do that all the time). I think 7 was still slimmed down in terms of requirements. They do have netbooks to worry about now don't they afterall? :) Quoting:Depends? Are you claiming that you can't possibly recommend Linux to folks? Or are you simply saying that Windows 7 is enough better than Vista that there's no real reason people will want to switch? The latter may very well be true. I can definitely recommend certain Linux OS's to people with specific kinds of needs and if their hardware is all very well supported, which to be entirely honest in at least half the cases it is. Video cards are a baddy, but at least with proprietary drivers, both AMD and Nvidia seem to have good support now.. IF you have a newer card (unlike me). I would have to agree with the latter though, except legally people still need to pay for Windows 7 and make some kind of a "switch".. though I guess they're similar enough for this to be less painful than full switch to Linux. But I also have another concern. It is possibly better enough that it can (and trust me, does) switch *Linux users* to Windows! Two friends of mine with whom I meet almost daily on IRC have been using Windows 7 these days and they were big Linux guys for years! That's 3 long time Linux users who have been impressed by Windows enough to consider paying for it. I know Free Software purists will never be impressed by this stuff, but those who actually believe in the merit of technical and experience superiority as incredibly important elements for wooing people over to Linux must be concerned at least a bit. MS may be a slow monolith, but they don't have the disadvantages of chaos that exist in Linux lands, are still slowly evolving and have billions to shove into whatever they call innovation. And this means that sometimes it will actually work and they actually come up with something good. Windows 7 might be an example of that. Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSUSE have got to prepare a response. :P Oh and btw I think KDE4 will be increasingly important in enabling such a response! Anyway.. this ended up waay longer than I indented. Rant over. |
| caitlyn Jun 15, 2009 7:48 AM EDT |
Quoting:Does this mean everyone who genuinely supported Linux and Free Software and then ended up on Windows or at least became sufficiently frustrated about known Linux deficiencies to talk about them openly will now be immediately branded an astroturfer? I have yet to meet such a person in real life. I am not saying they don't exist. I am saying that they are quite rare. I am also saying that there aren't many deficiencies compared to Windows. Som, immediately branded an astroturfer? No. Are most of them astroturfers? Probably. > Just wanna have that clarified, because there ARE people who at least did love Linux > and were its fans, but ultimately found it not THAT significantly better than other > operating systems. If you are talking about MacOS I'd say that of course that's true. MacOS is expensive but it is, at the core, UNIX with a pretty GUI. If you are talking about the BSDs I won't argue. If you're talking about Windows then I'd ask "better for what". You acknowledge that hardware is well supported in over half of cases -- I'd say it's much higher than that. Of course, if you have a poorly supported graphics card it's 100% an issue for you. For those of us who don't have that situation is a 0% issue. You say that high hardware requirements is not a sin. In a deep recession or possibly a depression I say that it is. Granted, folks who are doing well won't care. Those who aren't will and people are more conscious of this issue than ever before. So, no, I don't discount what you say in all cases. However, your claim that Linux advocates are generally using FUD or lying is over the top most of the time. There is no doubt that Microsoft has an organized anti-Linux campaign. |
| Libervis Jun 15, 2009 8:16 AM EDT |
I can agree with most of that. I'm not saying Linux advocates are *generally* using FUD or lying, just that this isn't below ALL of them. Majority of Linux advocates may be fine, but given the feather shaking nature of FUD even a minority is enough to raise a pretty bad ruckus and do enough damage to matter. |
| jdixon Jun 15, 2009 9:59 AM EDT |
> I would also add hardware support in limited amount of cases. Agreed. Though I would point out the the current video problems are temporary, and should be fixed in a fairly short amount of time. > Then the question would be should we believe it. I don't think we do. I think Microsoft does, and has reacted accordingly. There's nothing wrong with noting that. > ...though I guess they're similar enough for this to be less painful than full switch to Linux. From Vista, yes. From XP, probably not. > It is possibly better enough that it can (and trust me, does) switch *Linux users* to Windows! And this is a problem how? If Windows 7 is better for any specific user than Linux, then they should use Windows. This isn't a zero sum game, and we're not out to deny people the freedom to use what they want. We (or at least I), simply think Linux is better. > And this means that sometimes it will actually work and they actually come up with something good. Windows 7 might be an example of that. And if it is, good for Microsoft. My problems with Microsoft are with their management, not their actual products, though I still think Linux is better than anything they have to offer. > Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSUSE have got to prepare a response Linux will keep improving, even if there are missteps along the way. If Windows 7 is that good, it will only spur development. And do you really think Windows 7 would be such an improvement over Vista if Linux weren't providing competition? |
| Bob_Robertson Jun 15, 2009 1:54 PM EDT |
> If Windows 7 is better for any specific user than Linux, then they should use Windows. This isn't a zero sum game This is a distinction which an astounding number of people cannot grasp. There is so much that people focus upon that is zero-sum, it seems to infect much of what people expect of everything in life. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 15, 2009 4:06 PM EDT |
I find it counterproductive to insist on a certain specific OS/distribution for a certain specific computer and task. When I set up a system, Ubuntu is right for some things, Debian for others. I'm not limited to those two, either. I haven't gotten to the point over the past couple years where I need to use Windows, but I wouldn't rule it out. I might choose to do it in a VM (first I'd have to figure out how VMs are done) if WINE wouldn't work, but for 99.9 percent of what I do, a free Unix-like OS can accomplish it. Right now I'm helping someone use Final Cut Express. That's a Mac-only app. If I absolutely needed to run it, I guess I'd have to get a Mac. But there are other ways to edit video. On my current "to do" list is figuring out how to use Blender to cut video. Blender is everywhere, including OpenBSD, and that's the kind of cross-platform app I value extremely highly. To run Web browsers, office suites, image editors, text editors (to code just about anything), FTP clients and mail clients, Linux and the BSDs have served me very well. Depending on the situation, I'll use Ubuntu, Debian, Slackware, PCLinuxOS, Puppy, Vector, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD or Solaris (yep, I've got a legit copy of Solaris 9 for Sparc). There are numerous distros/projects that are probably as good as or better than these, if only I knew more about them and why they'd do the job better (or at least better for me). We all tend to use what we're most familiar with, and familiarity isn't something to be sneezed at, especially if said familiarity goes beyond a single operating system. I don't know about the rest of you, both LXers and the occasionally-posting lovers of Windows, but I find that the more I know about Windows, the less I want to use it. |
| Bob_Robertson Jun 15, 2009 4:21 PM EDT |
> When I set up a system, Ubuntu is right for some things, Debian for others. I'm not limited to those two, either.
Which made my head ring with that wonderful line from _The Blues Brothers_, "We like both kinds of music here: Country, AND Western!" |
| phsolide Jun 15, 2009 4:30 PM EDT |
You know, it's unfortunate that some people genuinely like and use Windows. Not for the "those pitiful losers" type of reason, but rather because Microsoft's documented FUD campaigns (http://inlumineconsulting.com:8080/website/msft.shilling.htm...) mean that nobody in their right mind takes a pro-MSFT opinion seriously. Well, maybe trade-rag journalists at ComputerWorld and InfoWorld do, but MSFT does a lot of advertising in their papers, and no matter how much a journo protests about "chinese walls" and "separation of editorial and marketing", nobody believes that either, and for the same good reason. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 15, 2009 7:25 PM EDT |
The less time we spend on inter-geek war and the more on user interface, user experience, user education, marketing and promotion and good old evangelism, the further we'll get with bringing more Windows and Mac users over to free, open-source solutions. I'm willing to give up a great deal of purity in order to make that happen. |
| Bob_Robertson Jun 15, 2009 8:27 PM EDT |
> I'm willing to give up a great deal of purity in order to make that happen. Mamphred, do you know why I drink only rain water and pure grain alcohol? It's the purity of essence. But seriously, I'm not sure that compromise is going to work. It is the value of principle that puts F/OSS head and shoulders above proprietary software in terms of quality and speed of development. Yes, the nay-sayers get to say "You can run FireFox and GIMP on Windows and get the best of both worlds", but we know that the more people experience the benefits of Our Precious Essences, the easier it will be to tell them that they will get exactly the same usability that they love without paying the obscene price tag in money and liberty. |
| azerthoth Jun 15, 2009 8:36 PM EDT |
Ken brought up an interesting point some time ago, are you an application user or computer user. The answer for most is application user. Email, writing, websurfing ...etc. In this Linux is head and shoulders a superior product to windows, so they dont even try to compete but muddy the waters with bullet points, Photoshop and CAD. Over and over this implies on the face that if these two dont work then there are a untold plethora of others that dont work either or that there are no replacements for. So the issue is, are you an application user or computer user. Short of the bobbing head response above, FOSS in general does have a replacement application, or via wine which adds immensly to the list of apps that work on Linux. |
| softwarejanitor Jun 16, 2009 3:37 PM EDT |
Not all may be astroturfers... some may just be weeds. |
| TxtEdMacs Jun 16, 2009 4:23 PM EDT |
Quoting:... some may just be weeds.Well if ;you really think so, I suggest we get some Roundup™ and test to see if they have been genetically altered. They do have some very anomalous survival characteristics on specific forums to be just be weeds. My bet most are manufactured as are their post. YBT |
| hkwint Jun 16, 2009 7:58 PM EDT |
If they are genetically altered, at least they can be banned from some countries I guess. |
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