[Desktop_architects] Desktop Meeting in Japan, Jun. 1

[Bryce Harrington]

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 11:18:59AM -0600, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> IMHO what more people downloading Sylpheed shows that there are orders of 
> magnitude more desktop windows users than desktop linux users and that 

The metrics I've collected for Inkscape downloads bear this out,
although it's difficult to account for users that are getting Inkscape
through their distro instead.

Unfortunately, like you mention, it's sort of a catch 22 - if we make
Inkscape on Windows less functional than Inkscape on Linux, as a way to
encourage people to switch, that isn't compelling enough; we just get
more bug reports.  ;-)  And not providing Inkscape on Windows isn't an
option; we didn't have that to begin with, and people just started
throwing patches at us until it did work, so of course we couldn't
reject them....  ;-)
 
> as someone who is quite focussed on building an OSS platform (aka "i have a 
> bias in my viewpoint"), i have looked for evidence of this phenomenon. people 
> using open source applications on windows do not seem to be very aware of 
> that aspect of the software and do not seem very motivated to move to 
> additional open source components. in fact i've found in conversing with 
> users of firefox that the opposite is often true: by finding a specific tool 
> that solves the problems associated with web browsing for them they cease 
> looking for holistic options; their computer interaction becomes bearable 
> enough that it falls below the threshold where they feel the need to look for 
> alternatives.
> 
> if we want to see increased adoption via the windows route, we need to change 
> something in what we are doing because we aren't succeeding beyond getting 
> more people to use specific, individual applications. my personal viewpoint 

Agreed.  I've thought about this a lot but it's a tough thing to sort
out.

Certainly, the strategy of migrating people to open source apps before
switching to Linux works - we've heard many anecdotes from individuals
and companies that took this approach.  Yet just having the same apps on
both platforms isn't compelling to get them to switch.

We frequently hear that "Linux won't take off until it has $app".  Where
$app varies from user to user.  In some cases, where the user is an open
source fanatic to begin with, simply having that app CAN be enough to
enable them to switch.

But for general users, like mentioned above, having the apps (or their
equivalent) on Linux is necessary but not sufficient.  Honestly, most
users don't care, or even fear change at the OS level.  So some
additional motivation is required.

Of course, another side of me would argue, "Do we even care about this
class of user?"  They are not the sort that would be contributing to
Linux or open source, so the value of having them is strictly that we've
reduced the competition by one.

In Inkscape I frequently make the case that our customer and audience is
*not* the ordinary user.  Unlike commercial software, where an ordinary
user equals some dollar value, with open source that user is just a free
rider.  Rather, value comes from the users who participate in and
contribute to open source.  Thus I emphasize that Inkscape's target
audience and customers are anyone who contribute back - translators,
coders, documenters, bug reporters, testers, etc.  Increasing the count
of those people is the measure of success; if we get stronger there,
then we'll have all the free rider type users we can shake a stick at.  ;-)

Bryce