Now experimenting with Linux (ZorinOS and Mint)... and finding myself the past weeks always reverting back to ZorinOS... probably because of familiarity having worked on Windows laptops most of my life.
So the accessibility for windows users seems to be true, albeit I needed quite a bit of forum and internet support to get the sound working... a novice user without any kind of IT experience would have certainly been gone.
What I find odd tough is that the "pro" option is to buy ZorinOS for a fee, for (limited) installation support, some FOSS software packages and extra designs...
Accessibility is also community support and technical support... not only on install, but as you keep going and explore and try and learn to do extra things as well.
I just wonder whether there would be appetite for a small subscription to premium support option... which would mean that regardless what happens, someone has your back all the time, even beyond forum support. That would bring in some earnings on a going basis as well rather than the donation thing only.
These days you could even argue that Linux Mint is more accessible simply because of its larger userbase and community support... a point that is very much being referred to online.
Anyways... maybe just my business mind speaking I guess. I was just wondering.
Mint has a good sized team though, plenty to handle OS development, website management, and support.
Zorin is a team of just 2 people, that is far too much load on them to completely copy Mint. There will be a sacrifice somewhere, overall, I think they do a pretty good job though. My only real complaint, is lack of communication.
This is why most companies have a PR team, but when your whole development is only 2 people, there is no room for PR.
In conclusion, when you compare larger Linux OS teams from other distributions, which in some ways, the OS leaves much to be desired in the form of quality and usefulness, Zorin OS remains on top for previous Windows users. I don't appreciate straight basic Gnome designs, I like what Zorin did with it.
PS: All I request from Zorin team, is to default to X11 desktop manager over Wayland. We've seen more then enough evidence, that Wayland is not the way to go.
Yep I saw that and I plan to do that actually for my daily OS. Somehow though these donations as only model do not give me the impression Zorin is sustainable as a distro and the team rewarded for the work they do. Then again I could be wrong... Whatever we think about Microsoft or Apple, they pay the bills for many thousands of devs too...
This is no different than people who firmly believe that the more expensive the wine bottle is, the better it tastes. Which has been proven many times as being nothing more than human perception in action.
Case in point, as you said so yourself, you keep reverting back to Zorin OS, despite Linux Mint being significantly better funded, more popular in the overall Linux desktop communities, more development effort, etc.
In the long run, I suspect that the Zorin's do plan on having some sort of a subscription for smaller businesses. Products like the much awaited Zorin Grid would open the door for many that are interested in that kind of ongoing support.
But you are not wrong, open source software development is an ungrateful industry to work in — and yet, the world fully depends on open source software without realizing it.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this... is there any reason why they shouldn't pay their employees? They sure should pay up those who they steal ideas from:
Some more food for thought:
To their credit, Microsoft is today one of the largest contributors to the Linux kernel. But one good deed doesn't redeem them from being freeloaders of open source software for decades while tainting a false narrative about it.
Just imagine if all the way back in 2001 Microsoft had admitted that open source software is good and necessary. Many people (and most importantly, businesses) would've invested in it and we'd have all those precious drivers that cause so many problems with graphics cards, sound interfaces, etc.
But of course, that would've meant they would have yet another competitor in the market. So, they play the "oopsie doopsie" card while pretending they are doing all of this out of the goodness of their multi-trillion dollar heart.
Honestly, thinking through this further, it isalso possible that the best earnings model for ZorinOS is in the small business space or education (like what they are trying to do with Zorin Grid I presume). These institutions will pay good money to have a stable, efficient, effective and secure IT system in place which would bring overall cost down from the stranglehold of microsoft.
That in turn will likely get more of those employees to convert to Linux personally as well...
Disadvantage of Linux is that so much of company/enterprise software is written specifically with the assumption of a Windows desktop, it might be a challenge just because of that... On the other hand, with many interfaces working through browsers the last few years, it may mean that there is a door unlocked too...
