Does Linux Marketing Really Suck? DistroTube
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Date: 2022-03-30
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Comments and reviews: 10
AlucardNoir
There is one thing that you mentioned and then brushed aside: -consumer grade-. Linux isn't consumer grade, linux is a kernel. Whenever an OS does in fact become consumer grade people tend to stop referring to it as linux. Just look at Android. It's consumer grade GNU/Linux, it's also not only not referred to as linux, nor marketed as linux nor is it considered -real- linux by quite a large margin of the Linux community. Over two billion people use linux every day in the form of Android. The problem isn't marketing, the problem is the current user base. Most people don't want to learn hot to use a computer, they just want to use it. You can explain to most people how to use Android, you can't do that with a CLI, let alone have them RTFM when that manual might not be available in their own language or worse, the project might be a one man job with no documentation whatsoever.
Linux isn't consumer grade. And every time someone does in fact make it consumer grade the 'community' just turns it's back on that project and badmouths it. The Linux community is made from two very different kinds of people, people that know what they want and aren't afraid to tinker with Linux to get what they want and people who reject Microsoft and Apple for whatever reason and make use of what the tinkerers produce.
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There is one thing that you mentioned and then brushed aside: -consumer grade-. Linux isn't consumer grade, linux is a kernel. Whenever an OS does in fact become consumer grade people tend to stop referring to it as linux. Just look at Android. It's consumer grade GNU/Linux, it's also not only not referred to as linux, nor marketed as linux nor is it considered -real- linux by quite a large margin of the Linux community. Over two billion people use linux every day in the form of Android. The problem isn't marketing, the problem is the current user base. Most people don't want to learn hot to use a computer, they just want to use it. You can explain to most people how to use Android, you can't do that with a CLI, let alone have them RTFM when that manual might not be available in their own language or worse, the project might be a one man job with no documentation whatsoever.
Linux isn't consumer grade. And every time someone does in fact make it consumer grade the 'community' just turns it's back on that project and badmouths it. The Linux community is made from two very different kinds of people, people that know what they want and aren't afraid to tinker with Linux to get what they want and people who reject Microsoft and Apple for whatever reason and make use of what the tinkerers produce.
reply
Matt
Obviously I love your videos, since I join every live stream I can and am one of your patrons, and I agree with most of what you said, but honestly I feel like a lot of us don't really care if linux becomes THE most-used desktop operating system in the world and completely overtakes windows. MacOS has shown that you don't need a 40 percent market share in order to get support from all the big top-tier software makers. Now, I PERSONALLY could care less if photoshop and the like come to Linux, I would never use it. But for things like gaming, we hear time and time again from these developer studios that the market share is just too small for them to bother ANY kind of support, whether that be wine/proton or native ports. If we could just convince enough people to get up to 10 percent of the market, I think all of that changes pretty much instantly. However, at that point, there would probably be a critical mass reached where the scales would tip and then linux would indeed become the dominant desktop OS, which a lot of people don't want, myself included. I don't want linux to be THE OS on the desktop, I would just like it if we could at least take Mac's spot.
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Obviously I love your videos, since I join every live stream I can and am one of your patrons, and I agree with most of what you said, but honestly I feel like a lot of us don't really care if linux becomes THE most-used desktop operating system in the world and completely overtakes windows. MacOS has shown that you don't need a 40 percent market share in order to get support from all the big top-tier software makers. Now, I PERSONALLY could care less if photoshop and the like come to Linux, I would never use it. But for things like gaming, we hear time and time again from these developer studios that the market share is just too small for them to bother ANY kind of support, whether that be wine/proton or native ports. If we could just convince enough people to get up to 10 percent of the market, I think all of that changes pretty much instantly. However, at that point, there would probably be a critical mass reached where the scales would tip and then linux would indeed become the dominant desktop OS, which a lot of people don't want, myself included. I don't want linux to be THE OS on the desktop, I would just like it if we could at least take Mac's spot.
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Linux
Does Linux need marketing? Do we need the masses to join Linux? It might make Linux better and more usable, but it would also bring some bad things... The bad things many people using Linux are trying to avoid. When someone starts to pay for something they usually start to influence decisions... There are why questions. Why would someone want to move masses around? Money, power, influence - things not achievable without help of others, also things rather extremely unequally distributed. Other things having similar properties are slavery and exploitation, neither of which sounds like freedom. I(and I hope many other people in the community) want others to join Linux with their own and not somebody-else's reasons.
There is one Linux which got all the marketing and the masses - Android. I am extremely unsatisfied with what my phone does and does not. I can't get things I need working there and can't get rid of things I don't need without breaking everything. That does not feel like Linux...
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Does Linux need marketing? Do we need the masses to join Linux? It might make Linux better and more usable, but it would also bring some bad things... The bad things many people using Linux are trying to avoid. When someone starts to pay for something they usually start to influence decisions... There are why questions. Why would someone want to move masses around? Money, power, influence - things not achievable without help of others, also things rather extremely unequally distributed. Other things having similar properties are slavery and exploitation, neither of which sounds like freedom. I(and I hope many other people in the community) want others to join Linux with their own and not somebody-else's reasons.
There is one Linux which got all the marketing and the masses - Android. I am extremely unsatisfied with what my phone does and does not. I can't get things I need working there and can't get rid of things I don't need without breaking everything. That does not feel like Linux...
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Andrew
I would like to see market share go up to 5 to 7% instead of 2 to 3% like it is now. but I don't want thel to grow over 20% and a bunch of commercial software freedom hating businesses to jump in and ruin everything. I also don't want the job market for system administrators to blow up either like software engineeing and coding has. Leave -real- Linux to the Elites and let the casuals use Mint and PopOS that are consumer level.
The Free Software community is for people who are into computing and care about having control, choice, collaboration and freedom. FOSS and Linux is strength in numbers. BSD is more like the nerdy lonely kid and GNU/Linux is like the unpopular kid with a few close nerd friends.
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I would like to see market share go up to 5 to 7% instead of 2 to 3% like it is now. but I don't want thel to grow over 20% and a bunch of commercial software freedom hating businesses to jump in and ruin everything. I also don't want the job market for system administrators to blow up either like software engineeing and coding has. Leave -real- Linux to the Elites and let the casuals use Mint and PopOS that are consumer level.
The Free Software community is for people who are into computing and care about having control, choice, collaboration and freedom. FOSS and Linux is strength in numbers. BSD is more like the nerdy lonely kid and GNU/Linux is like the unpopular kid with a few close nerd friends.
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Sproid
I disagree with some of your arguments because the people advocating for Linux marketing are experiencing something that they want to share with the world. They want to encourage spread use of what many of us perceived as a better desktop OS in many ways, worth the adoption. The challenge is not -why or how to market Linux as fragmented as it is- but -what's the best way to market this Linux within its fragmentation-.
I also disagree the Linux community is mostly toxic. It is & can be the same as most tech but non-linux communities.
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I disagree with some of your arguments because the people advocating for Linux marketing are experiencing something that they want to share with the world. They want to encourage spread use of what many of us perceived as a better desktop OS in many ways, worth the adoption. The challenge is not -why or how to market Linux as fragmented as it is- but -what's the best way to market this Linux within its fragmentation-.
I also disagree the Linux community is mostly toxic. It is & can be the same as most tech but non-linux communities.
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Kent
I agree generally, but one could say open source and free software as a movement could be better marketed, promoted, fought for. Not just because it might grant even more energy and resources to the wonderful dweeb creators of software, but because this movement could be a mighty sword in the fight against soulless corporations and mindless far left fanatics, two factions that seem to have largely melded into one now. I think more widespread use of FOSS and Linux = less power to Soros and Zuckerberg.
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I agree generally, but one could say open source and free software as a movement could be better marketed, promoted, fought for. Not just because it might grant even more energy and resources to the wonderful dweeb creators of software, but because this movement could be a mighty sword in the fight against soulless corporations and mindless far left fanatics, two factions that seem to have largely melded into one now. I think more widespread use of FOSS and Linux = less power to Soros and Zuckerberg.
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Master
Success in marketing requires there is a need to be filled. And for the majority there is no need. People are happy in their Windows world. If there was a real -problem- to be solved the process would be easy. But people talk about the dissatisfaction with Windows, but it is not a priority problem. So you cannot follow the marketing path. Find a problem that needs to be solved, agitate the problem and offer a solution. And it is not a -shinny- object like an iPhone. It is a personal experience.
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Success in marketing requires there is a need to be filled. And for the majority there is no need. People are happy in their Windows world. If there was a real -problem- to be solved the process would be easy. But people talk about the dissatisfaction with Windows, but it is not a priority problem. So you cannot follow the marketing path. Find a problem that needs to be solved, agitate the problem and offer a solution. And it is not a -shinny- object like an iPhone. It is a personal experience.
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Fuseteam
_Before the video_
Linux is bad at marketing
_after the video_
Nobody's marketing Desktop Linux
Jokes aside the more I delve into -the community- the more I agree with the idea that it's not fragmentation it's choice
That said if we had one installer that capable of setting up any of the 500 active desktop Linux distros........that'd go a long way. It's not trivial and the biggest question is as always: who will do it?
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_Before the video_
Linux is bad at marketing
_after the video_
Nobody's marketing Desktop Linux
Jokes aside the more I delve into -the community- the more I agree with the idea that it's not fragmentation it's choice
That said if we had one installer that capable of setting up any of the 500 active desktop Linux distros........that'd go a long way. It's not trivial and the biggest question is as always: who will do it?
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Michel
I kind of disagree with you on that one. Linux can be marketed and be on more desktops then ever before. Look at how Android managed to dethrone blackberry OS to name one, and it is Linux based. Look at how Google Chromebooks are ganing traction, it is Linux based. So Linux can become popular and over take windows, it is just that like you said some people in the community are comfortable with Linux being where it is.
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I kind of disagree with you on that one. Linux can be marketed and be on more desktops then ever before. Look at how Android managed to dethrone blackberry OS to name one, and it is Linux based. Look at how Google Chromebooks are ganing traction, it is Linux based. So Linux can become popular and over take windows, it is just that like you said some people in the community are comfortable with Linux being where it is.
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lilrs95
Sure, it's not exactly a great idea to expect the entirety of all Linux users to unite overnight with something that tries to be all things to all people. I'd sooner convert to OSX. That said, I think it's up to someone in the Linux community to step up to the plate and show people that if they want something that -just works- then there's something out there for them in the Linux family of operating systems.
reply
Sure, it's not exactly a great idea to expect the entirety of all Linux users to unite overnight with something that tries to be all things to all people. I'd sooner convert to OSX. That said, I think it's up to someone in the Linux community to step up to the plate and show people that if they want something that -just works- then there's something out there for them in the Linux family of operating systems.
reply
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