How can Windows be easier to use than other Operating Systems? July 6, 2008
Conclusion
In my opinion, the most important thing you could learn from this article is that choosing to use Microsoft Windows and other well known proprietary programs saying that they are “easier to use, and people won’t have to follow training programs to know how to use them” is not a good argument at all. From what I saw, those who say such things are people who didn’t have the courage to try other sorts of programs, and live constantly fearing the unknown.
Microsoft Windows is not at all easy to use, compared to operating systems such as Ubuntu or Mac OS X. It is simply the operating system with the biggest market share, which doesn’t mean that it is the best one. Furthermore, its buggy behavior and the way users have to deal with it (with tons of tricks in the registry and reboots) make it very unpleasant to use. And yet, I didn’t talk much about Windows Vista, which looks more like a calamity than a real and usable operating system…
Some other people will say that paying for something gives some guarantees about quality, documentation and support. Well, I think this is a big mistake, since some open source programs such as Apache and MySQL clearly proved that free software can be far better than many other proprietary programs. And free software‘s value is progressively being recognized by some firms such as Sun, which recently acquired MySQL for a billion dollars… For those people, it is important to remember that big and successful companies have been built around free software, their business model being based on service and support: Red Hat, Canonical, etc.
As for me, I avoid Microsoft Windows as much as possible, and continue hoping that I will be able to use something else in my professional life, even if I am quite pessimistic about that… My preference for servers remains the stable version of Debian (currently, Etch), but, as some of my friends might say, I sold my soul to the devil embracing Apple’s fantastic world for desktop computing. But I’m also very comfortable with Ubuntu, which I also use quite often.
But the most important thing for me (and that’s what I am always trying to do) is to try and see, before talking…
Joel, great article, well thought out and solid case for looking at Windows alternatives
Joel, came across your site while doing some research on Lyx and LaTeX. It is great to see a fresh perspective on the eternal open source versus proprietary software debate.
I have not made the jump to Ubuntu yet on a machine, but it is definitely something I am looking forward to playing with in the future. For now I am using a Wintel machine, but downloading and using more and more open source software.
The goal is to make my transition as smooth as possible in the future.
A Bientot!
Bernie Malonson