this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
1038 points (96.8% liked)
linuxmemes
24305 readers
2334 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
- Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudoin Windows. - No porn, no politics, no trolling or ragebaiting.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
5. π¬π§ Language/ΡΠ·ΡΠΊ/Sprache
- This is primarily an English-speaking community. π¬π§π¦πΊπΊπΈ
- Comments written in other languages are allowed.
- The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
- Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
6. (NEW!) Regarding public figures
We all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations. - Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
- We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
- Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed. Β
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Eli5?
There is a practice where software companies will either provide their software to schools and colleges for free or will pay schools and colleges to use their software. This leads to the students using this software, learning that software's sole paradigm, and essentially forces them to use that software going forward because of how difficult it is to shift to another software with a different paradigm. This is Vendor Lock-In. The vendor locks you into their software.
This leads to all future workers being trained in that software, so of course businesses opt to use that software instead of retraining the employee in another. This contrasts with the idea of what an 'industry standard' is. The name suggests that it's used in the industry because it's better than other software, but in reality it's just standard because of lock-in.
This is how Windows cornered the operating system market - by partnering with vendors to ship their systems with Windows pre-installed.
My kids use Chromebooks at school. What I call "Word" they call "Docs". It's very clear why Google gives this operating system away for free.
For decades Apple paid schools to teach on their computers. In the 80s and much of the 90s, all you'd find in computer labs was Macs.
It didn't work because PCs were just better for businesses at the time.
How so?
Software mainly. Apple made software companies pay a license to release software on the Mac, so most companies chose to release on PC exclusively.
Your description of vendor lock-in is obviously solvable by developers making a competing UI and workflow similar to the most popular software, and enabling new features under another menu. That said, there is obviously minimal interest in doing so.
This is UI. UI is not vendor lock-in. Lock-in costs users money to break out of, not developers.
Oh yeah, when a school receives a hundreds of computers with Windows preinstalled, they obviously consider spending hundreds of man-hours on installing a different OS, but decide against it because Windows has quantifiably superiour UI. Because that's exactly how it works.
Have you ever heard of SAP? Salesforce? UI quality and UX workflows have never been the deciding factor for choosing a piece of software in a corpo setting. It's money and whose friend is pocketing it. That's all that CFO make decisions on. Windows became a standard because Microsoft literally paid schools to buy computers with it, in exchange all schools had to do was let them conduct their indoctrination workshop, disguised as a "how to use a computer" course. But of course they exclusively talked about Windows.
That entire solution immediately falls apart when the paradigm is patented by the vendor, who immediately sues any competing software using UI elements even vaguely similar to theirs. This has been going on for decades, and the three things that usually happen are that the competitor either gets bought up, sued out of existence, or has to keep their UI different enough that there is little-to-no bleedover between the userbases (and usually starves to death from too little revenue).
It's an thing people used to say when they wanted to justify not using the software gimp
You mean a common user experience that leaves many new users frustrated.
I kept seeing recommendations of gimp as a photoshop alternative, so I installed it and... I was convinced that I must've downloaded the wrong thing. It didn't even look like an image editor to me. I'm sure it's a wonderful program, maybe the UI got better since then, but I ended up much happier just using paint.NET
Agree, Adobe products always leave me frustrated, and my experience is universal.
Yup and honestly the hostility those users get when mentioning it is the same reason Linux doesn't get more traction in the mainstream.
When a lot of users expect software to work in a particular way and it doesn't, you change the software - if you insult, belittle or otherwise expect the user to change their working habits then you're going to have a bad time and be all shocked Pikachu when the user doesn't use the software.
Apple is (was lol) the most valuable company on the planet because they understood that the user experience is the absolute most important thing. They are the textbook example of vendor lock in and yet people flock to them because "it just works".
"Hey, why this free software I tried once IS SO SHIT AND UNINTUITIVE AND EVERYONE WHO MADE IT IS PLAIN STUPID AND WRONG, NOW HELP ME IMMEDIATELY YOU FUCKING NERDS. Man, nobody fixed my problem immediately, what a hostile envoroment".
Oh, so that's what big corpos were doing this whole time? Damn, what a cool environment that should be, you buy software and it behaves like you want it to be, and if it doesn't, you complain to the corpo and it fixes it for you immediately.
that you don't need to sell software or hardware, you need to sell brand recognition, feel of premium exclusivity, and smug satisfaction of being better than the plebs. And as long as your shit doesn't crap out tremendous amount, you can ruse the rubes.
This is the hostile attitude they were talking about
They didn't came for help with their problem or whatever, they came to argue about their favourite way to organise software development, brandishing hostility and accusations from the beginning. Different situations, really.
I think your response is unintentionally proving my point lol
Maybe, but people who demand volunteers to provide more labor than they are willing to also are the problem. You don't seem to grasp the nature of volunteering. It isn't meant to serve youβvolunteers do what they want when they want to because you won't do what they want. They have your same frustrations: I want it to do X! So they do it.
I'll also say this: arguments like yours have been used for decades while Linux is getting more and more popular. Maybe, just maybe, you're wrong.
Linux is getting more popular because corporations like valve have put the effort into refining the user experience. I'm not just talking about a pretty UI either, I'm taking things like proton that makes playing games on Linux as easy as playing on windows.
I'm not saying there aren't people out there that demand free labour from volunteers - of course there are; I maintain and have contributed to a few open source projects myself so I know all too well what that's like.
However, I would say those folks are a very small (albeit vocal and annoying) minority. The vast, vast majority of users simply dismiss Linux/GIMP/Whatever because it's not suitable for them. They don't go screaming into GitHub demanding features, they don't post on Lemmy that the software sucks or otherwise create a fuss, they just gravitate towards the stuff that works for them (usually something proprietary) with the least friction.
Then maybe we shouldn't be complaining about GIMP's UI and instead be giving them money :D It seems like that's how you fix Linux, not posting "can't make circle tho" or "it isn't like Photoshop and I refuse to use Krita tho"
I'm just bringing it to the main thread topic: GIMP often has complaints that it isn't like Photoshop. Well, Krita is. So what's the point of complaining about GIMP anymore? Just complain about Krita please. Let GIMP do its own thing with the people that care about it and let Krita be the Photoshop replacement that everyone desires. I use Krita instead of GIMP because I am very used to Photoshop---I don't complain about GIMP because it's literally pointless when I have a tool I enjoy.
I'm not complaining about GIMP, I'm complaining about the attitudes people have towards potential users of free software.
That's fair, but those users seem to not know what they want: they think posting it will fix the problem. It won't, we have discovered with valve that money is the problem in FOSS. Turns out if you just pay people shit gets done in Linux. We should focus efforts to get money flowing to GIMP, not laying blame on the existing users who don't care. It's literally not their fault, it's the lack of funding which is why Linux isn't more popular.
And I think you missed the point of my response
Yeah you're right, it's the users that are at fault.
And now I know you missed the point of my response