OS Advocates - they never change

I don't mean to offend Linux users, but I think some of them are so interested in winning an advocacy debate than actually providing a solution.

That is, in my experience many Linux users are very quick to point to some poorly implemented half-solution that they don't use just so that they can say things like "See, you can already do this with Linux".

It's not just Linux users, OS/2 advocates (myself included) were the same way.  Technology demos or things that don't do the job seamlessly are not real world solutions.  For instance, some BeOS advocate can't just say "Well BeOS had this advanced file system that could do most of what you wanted.." Well true, it did some of this. But not most of what I'm talking about. 

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about. In my article on 5 features OSes need I talked about operating systems needing distributed computing, distributed file systems, universal accounts, along with a component based design. And in response, I got Linux users who argued Linux has "had these features for 10 years". Sorry, bullshit. I've played the OS advocacy game too and some half-assed, cryptic, partial solution is not a feature. 

There's a reason why Windows and MacOS are the dominant desktop OSes. And it's not because Windows users are "sheep" or that Mac users have all drank the kool-aid. It is because they are better at being desktop operating systems. 

And everytime I've debated with a Linux user about some missing feature it's the same as arguing with any other OS advocate - if they lack the feature or the feature is poorly implemented then either you didn't need the feature in the first place, that their OS isn't for "stupid people", or they'll change the conversation.

Example: The problem with using Linux is that many pages I need have ActiveX controls.

Response: You don't need ActiveX controls, they'll just virus/spyware disasters waiting to happen. Those pages should just use JAVA.

Well, that's nice except that that doesn't really solve the person's problem, does it?  Sometimes a feature is available -- almost -- but costs $10,000.  That's not a practical solution for users is it?  Or instead of costing $10,000 it requires an immense level of technical skill to get it up and running.  I remember several years ago trying to get VNC Server running on my Linux box. I got it working but it was unnecessarily complicated.

This week, we released Multiplicity. A program that lets you control multiple local (as in computers in the same room as you with monitors still connected to them) with a single keyboard and mouse that's on the primary computer. The idea being that you can use them together as a single computing platform.

It didn't take long for Linux or open source zealots to come in and start talking about Synergy. "It's frreeee!" they'd snear.  Sure, its clipboard support is bare bones, its connection is flakey, it is a huge pain to setup and use (forget using it on a DHCP based network), and it lacks tons of usability featurs.  But if you want to be able to use a couple of computers together you can do it. I'd invite anyone to try both programs if they really have any doubt that Multiplicity isn't light years ahead.  It's like the guy who says MS Outlook is pointless because there's some free, open source text based email client.

In short, a half-solution is not a solution at all.

For instance, getting back to the article I had written, A distributed file system could keep copies of my documents on many machines. Disk space is cheap. Let me access my stuff from anywhere and don't make me sweat too much about the physical location of the files. As long as they're secure (encrypted) what do I care? I shouldn't have to manually back up files in this day and age. I shouldn't have to go hunting through directories or LAN drives looking for a file.

6 months from now if I want to update the MS Word version of this article, I shouldn't have to run around to my various machines wondering which machine has it and which drive / directory I put it on. I should be able to logon to a machine, any machine, it would go to a global user account manager and I would be able to open up a "documents" folder that I made and all my documents should be there. A filtering system should be part of the folder view where I could type a couple keywords (this component created by a third party possibly and plugged in) and my article would come up.  The article might be located on the other side of the world. Who cares? I then open it up, edit it, and save it and it's saved back to a machine I have priviledged access to.

When some user says "Just use NFS" or whatever I just shake my head. Linux isn't mainstream precisely because so many of its advocates (and developers) never really finish their software. There are notable exceptions but by and large, Linux developers just put enough in there so that they can say "Aha, I did it!"

So it doesn't matter if there's some cryptic, hard to set up program that can kind of do distributed computing that you can download and spend hours to set up. It's not an OS feature.  A distributed computing feature in the OS would basically be silent. It just works.  Same for all these feature suggestions I made. For it to matter it has to be a) included with the OS and b) Be seamless and c) provide the full solution, not just some half-solution that's enough to make OS advocates declare victory on some message board..