[elch]

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

Linux was made by programmers for programmers, but it is getting popular thanks to distributives like Ubuntu that are user friendly and because many things are similar to Windows.

Yes but not everybody's in favor of this movement. Being a Linux user was meant to be 'alternative' and 'special'. Now it's nothing unusual anymore and professionals see themselves answering the same beginner's questions over and over again. Even though I'm quite new to Linux myself, I think the mass migration to Linux of the technology-uninterested crowd did more harm than good. Why? For various reasons:

1. Developers are less efficient:
   Ever seen a distribution's bug tracker? It's filled with duplicates. Naive people think they might speed up the process of fixing a bug by opening a new bug. Most of them are not even aware of the fact that it's very likely that their bug is already known.
2. Windows-biased demands
   I'd say that most people coming to Linux migrated from Windows. Therefore they are used to certain concepts and circumstances. They expect that Linux handles things the same way. It's obvious that people who've never worked with computers before will prefer Ubuntu over Windows because GNOME is in fact the most simplest desktop environment.

Even I'm to code, I would like to earn money from it and spend spare time with with family, travelling, learning,...

You can earn money from it, sure, but in the Linux community money and capitalism is not the central aspect. People are fascinated by concepts, ideas and by the code. They just want to share ideas and want to develop something great by collaborative work.

The problem is that you can write a GUI for a simple program. One can hardly write MS Office, Autocad, Photoshop, Nero and even Total Commander.

Who cares? If you really need those applications, just use Wine. I don't think that MS Office is good. In fact it really sucks. So does Open Office. Both are fundamentally flawed. They are WYSIWYG editors. I only use Open Office to write short texts but when it comes to writing an essay containing only 20 pages but with table of contents, pictures, references, footnotes, it's just too complicated. Open Office and MS Office lack the flexibility. The only application that does this right is LaTeX. I only know the basic commands but it's sufficient to do what I needed so far but with a much fewer time amount than I'd require with Open Office/MS Office.

While freeware Open Office is OK, I still think that MS Office is much better.

Please elaborate. Why is it better?

Actually it's Open Source but I don't want to be petty here.

Freeware GIMP is OK, but it can't replace Photoshop.

Does GIMP say so? It does not aim to replace it but do YOU need the features Photoshop offers?

Freeware k3b is OK, but Nero for Linux still has sales and I do understand why.

Why? I'm using cdrecord to burn my disks. I never needed Nero though. Did I miss something?

There are several freeware open source CADs, but they are not even close to CADs for Windows.

Is it important? There's still Wine and if that fails, you might be better off using Windows either completely or in a virtual machine.

Where did I mention that Linux has to replace Windows? I said, it's a developer operating system. It has the best tools I could never dream of when using Windows. Valgrind, GCC and lots of others. There are equivalents for Windows but they don't offer the same and don't even implement things the same way as they are meant to be.

There are several freeware open source torrent clients, but they are not as good as uTorrent for Windows.

Really, I think that torrent clients are something where Open Source really excels in.

By the way, I've even used aria2 for a while and it still downloaded all files at full speed and without file corruption. So they cannot be that bad.

I can't replace Total Commander with an open source product either.

Which features do you miss in other file managers? I'm perfectly fine with Xfe and the shell.

And I haven't found anything that can replace image cropping of Fast Stone Image viewer (I've tried many programs, but all of them don't offer that easy of use).

Again, same question. Why is it so great? I can watch my pictures with feh and they get displayed flawlessly without quality losses.

I've spent 2 days trying different approaches in syncing my Windows Mobile PDA with Evolution for Linux, although there are several open source programs that are supposed to do it and so many users need this feature.

I'm curious, what are your expectations?

I disagree. Companies always want to return their investments. The same thing is with IBM and Novell. They invest into Linux, but then earn money on selling software, hardware and services. Their contribution is great, but it is not just a donation.
I second selling code. The commercial product still can be an open source one.

No, you're wrong. It really is a donation. If you donated money to the WWF, you'd expect it to lessen the deforestation of rain forests. That's the same Novell does. They contribute code but hope that they can make money with it in return.

This is really a good example. You need a license to drive your car, but you don't need to build your car from scratch, not do you have to be a mechanic to use a car. This is for enthusiast and professionals, other just want to get a car and enjoy driving. This is why I want Linux to be more user friendly and to have more commercial applications. I do not mind software to be open source.

But Linux developers belong to a community of like-minded people. Like I said in the other post, developers have the passion for code, of writing stuff on your own, rather than using existing solutions. Most ideas come originally from the UNIX/Linux-department and then were adopted by business men who said a chance of making money easily. But judging from these applications, it does not necessarily mean that they are really superior. Just take Windows as an example. For a long time (and even nowadays), Windows was behind all other BSD's, carrying unfixed bugs from version to version. Protocols were implemented poorly and even their POSIX sockets implementation is very different form the specifications. It's not important to make it right. It's important to advertise it good. Microsoft knows how to make money with crap and people seem to like it because they trust the lies.

I think Linux is very user-friendly. Everything just works great for me. I don't want it to be any different.

Perhaps, you'll be more interested in ReactOS. It's an Open Source Windows but Wine has proven many times how complex and poorly designed Windows' concepts are. There are lots of unnecessary workarounds to restore the functionality of certain applications relying on Windows bugs (!) etc. The whole Windows code is a mess but the UI isn't even better.

If you'd ask me, there's no other operating system than Mac OS X that's easier to use. You don't have to know lots of technical stuff to get things done (tm). That doesn't imply that it's also good for advanced people. In fact, it's horribly inefficient, but as its user base mostly consists of people with lots of money who needs it as a prestige symbol, there's no need for them to do work efficiently.