A question about Open Source products.

If you purchased a bit of hardware, lets say for instance, a video card or a hard drive.

Would you be less likely to purchase that hardware if it came with open source drivers that were on one hand technically better than the competitions product, yet on the other had were much harder to set up and use than the flashy commercial product?

Is ease of use everything?

So far, in my experience with Open Source software, I've noticed that the documentation is equal to or worse than the documentation for the proprietary products. If it's not 'plug-and-pray' and I can't make head or tail out of the documentation, I probably won't use it, no matter how good it is. If, on the other hand, the documentation clearly explains the setup from start to finish, I'll probably use the technically better product if and when I can.

However, for most users, ease-of-use *is* everything. They're not going to notice a slight improvement in efficiency (say, <=30% increase), but they *are* going to notice that Buddy's hardware plugs in and goes, and theirs requires them to (gasp!) do some work. Horrors! They're also not likely ever to want to debug the source code, either (and neither am I).

But whether a product is open source is totally unrelated to whether it is easy to use or not.

Palm, Intuit, Microsoft, or any other company could open the source code to all their products tomorrow and they'd be exactly the same products.

But, as open source goes, Nvidia's drivers are not hard to install and beat the crap out of Winbloat in terms of performance. Video card makers love to hype up their performance, which is what people look at. Why don't people use the same comparisons for operating systems? A lot of people would then be rightfully questioning Microsoft.

I'd go for the best performance; ease of setup is a bonus.

As for efficiency, how come I can play "Unreal Tournament 2003" in Linux at 1600x1200 resolution at a very acceptable speed, whereas under Windows XP using the identical hardware it won't even run smoothly at 1024x768 resolution? Efficiency does matter. Especially for games, which the ease-of-use folk also clamor for and then gripe about when they have to go purchase faster hardware, more RAM, get somebody else to install it, and so on.

And it is pure-dee-hard to NOT talk about America's obsession of "ease of use" over all else. "ease of use" and "anything to make a buck". Geez, Windows is appallingly simple to use, MacOS even easier. Yet plenty of users still have problems using them, right down to something basic as a little something called "data backup". I hate to be callous, but should they then be using it if they don't know what they're doing, especially when they openly speak against them?

A computer is not a lamp. There's more to it than one switch to operate. Much more. And it should be used to the best of its potential. Trying to namby-pamby it down only insults experts and, in the end, doesn't help those slaved to the "ease of use" philosophy.

That aside, I'm still forced to use Windows for the time being. I can't afford new hardware to do my video capture. But once that's done, it's back to Linux and for good.

The linux kernel is ever-changing. I rather wait for the regular distribution kernel or maybe building from distribution sources rather than using a kernel from http://www.kernel.org

...called Supreme Office Suite. It's not only easier to use than MS Word, it lacks all those cutesy "features" that get in the way of those of us who grew up with Royal typewriters and know how to compose things in our heads before setting them down on paper. It has those featues, but they're not cutesy, and they don't automatically intrude themselves into one's work.

Some open source progs still need work, like the basic OS. Others may be superior to what's out there under license, both in functions offered and in ease of use.