The Real Issue with Free and Open Source Software

Chat about Zorin
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Hey everyone,

When we discuss the challenges facing free and open source software (FOSS), the typical conversation tends to focus on technical details. You’ll hear things like, “It lacks X, Y, or Z,” or “They should really be using better programming languages or frameworks.”

But honestly, I think those are just surface-level symptoms.

The Core Question

The real question we should be asking is: Why should the average home user care about FOSS?

Is it all about security and privacy? Sure, that can be part of it, but it’s not always a top concern. With advancements in sandboxes, containerization, firewalls, and virtual machines, we might soon hit a point where running untrusted code becomes completely safe.

Take Game Boy cartridges as an example. The average user probably doesn’t care about free and open source alternatives for their Game Boy games since there's little risk to their privacy. So, security and privacy alone aren’t enough to draw people into the open-source world.

The Source Code Dilemma

What about being able to view and modify the source code? That’s another big draw. But here’s the kicker: most people simply don’t have the time, interest, or expertise to dive into the code and figure it all out.

Why does this matter? It means that the average user has pretty much zero incentive to care about open-source software at all.

What Happens When People Don’t Care

If people don’t care, then proprietary software loses its disadvantages, giving vendors the freedom to do whatever they want with users.

Imagine this scenario:

Person A: "Hey, the car you're looking to buy isn’t great! You can’t even change the tires without going to the dealership because of DRM!"

Person B: "Why should I care? I’ve always gone to the dealership for tire changes anyway."

Unfortunately, Person B has a point. If they’ve never had to replace their own tires, they have no vested interest in a car that lets them do that. You could have similar conversations about not being able to open or repair devices without going to the OEM.

Linux as a Sole Solution?

I really do love Linux, but let’s face it— even if it captured 100% of the market share, if people don’t care about their freedom, there are still countless ways to sidestep this. Companies could sell PCs with locked BIOS or create dependencies on proprietary services, similar to how Android is tied to Google Play Services.

We’d be back where we started, with it becoming a hassle to find truly free devices as the norm.

Cultivating Interest in Open Source

Now, I’m not saying we should gatekeep. Everyone should have the chance to use Linux! But if we genuinely want a long-lasting free software movement, we need to spark an interest in open-source technologies among everyday users.

How do we do that? We need to boost computer literacy! Getting average users comfortable with writing scripts and peeking at source code should become standard practice. Just like we don’t have to repair every device we own, we don’t need to scrutinize every line of code, but users should engage with their freedoms to avoid losing them.

Sure, it’s a challenging task and we’ve got a long way to go, but I genuinely believe it's possible.

What do you all think? Let's talk about this.

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Thank you @green52, this is a very interesting post.

I got into tinkering and tweaking in Windows because MS made me so angry that I couldn't use my laptop how and when I wanted to.

Then, I got the "Black Screen of Death" on my old HP laptop. It took me a very long time but one day I decided to see if I could fix it. Yes, I could! Thanks to a bunch of YouTubers with all of that knowledge, I got it back up and running Windows 10, but I was still really angry at Microsoft, so I started tinkering and tweaking.

Then I got the "BLUE Screen of Death" on my main work laptop - while I was working! As I'd already resurrected one dead laptop, I could fix another... right? Asus made it incredibly difficult, but those same YouTubers came through again and FINALLY, I was able to get it up and running.

One thing I noticed was that a lot of them were also Linux users... I'd heard about Linux many years ago from my ex and it sounded really complicated and scary, but I'd already made bootable USBs to fix my Windows machines, how hard could it be?

I'll never be up there with the great technicians on YouTube, this forum and the Mint forum (I run both Os's) but I'm willing to learn. I have confidence in open source software because I know that around the world there are hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts, geeks, devs and others who do check this stuff, that there are very many eyes on each new release, and forums and blogs, and Git where those views and opinions are voiced, and people collaborate.

The forced push to Windows 11 is different from what MS has done before. The fact that they're also pushing AI on to their users and mining them for the data they need to improve it has changed. A lot of people don't like that, they don't like the lack of privacy either. There will always be sheeple who are too dumb to care; that is a fact.

I hope that Zorin Education can be developed enough so that schools and colleges can use it. I'll certainly be introducing my older students to Zorin...
I have also written 3 articles on Linkedin about Zorin & Linux... getting the news out there is important. People are more aware of MS global grip after the Crowdstrike debacle, and that's a good thing. I don't think a lot of people realised just how globally everything is connected, and how one error can cause such chaos, even deaths.

Education and awareness are the keys to helping people onto the path to technical freedom. Keep talking!

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Having been here on this forum for a while, I can tell you that the majority of users enter in with a "I just want it fixed for m, I don't care about the details attitude" and after a while develop a "I want to do more with this, I am enjoying learning and empowering" attitude.

Many people either assume or wish to exploit the concept that the users are inept or apathetic. Many people join the forum and post that "most users are lazy" or "need I.T. support."
Yet, Most users in actuality are smart, capable but led to believe that they are not and that they must be beholden to someone else.

Many users start a thread here asking for a solution, but saying they do not want to use the terminal and that they want the process to be easy. many say that they are new to GnuLinux or that they are not good with Code.
I learned that if you hold back and encourage them, instead of fighting you, they show willingness to Launch The Terminal. If you help them instead of Handing Them the Answer, they are Not Dumb, Not Lazy, Not apathetic.

For individuals, it is not challenging. At all.
But across the populace, then it is a challenge. Because Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc exploit the notion that people believe in their own inability and offering Ease and Comfort Zone bubbling is marketable.

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The problem is you have players with big money (Microsoft and Intel) they call the shots when it comes to hardware manufacturers. In terms of freedoms, this is down to complacency of users of that other OS. How many of us (self included) have ever bothered to read the licence agreement that is pages long before you install that other OS? If current users bothered to read the licence dependencies of Windows 11 they would think again. But let's be honest here, the average oxymoron just wants a computer for whatever reason they bought it for. They are not 'aware' of what is going on in the long-game. And as long as the world is full of oxymorons that isn't going to change any time soon. As my dad often said when commenting on other drivers on the road "Ignorance is bliss!"

I am reminded of the Pentium to MMX debacle that happened way back in the late '90s. Here in the UK, many consumer organisations, and even a TV programme devoted to consumer rights, ridiculed grey computer suppliers for not informing customers that the Pentium Processor was to be replaced by MMX and to hold off purchasing what would soon be out-of-date kit. Only one magazine told the truth about what had happened, PC Plus, sadly no more. Intel had threatened the manufacturers of grey machines that if they let it be made widely known about the impending release of MMX processors they would no longer provide them with Processors for their builds. Personally people should refer to http://techrights.org if they want to learn about how computer freedoms are at risk.

Look here for starters:

http://techrights.org/n/2024/08/21/Who_Will_Hold_Microsoft_and_Microsofters_Accountable_For_This_V.shtml

Just to add, there is a difference between Free and Open Source Software. Richard Stallman, creator of the OS that Linux controls, GNU, has never quite got to terms with Open Source Software which is not the same as Free Software, as in Freedom, not as in Free beer.

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First, you want results. Then, you want control.

Because ever since computers were created there's been a steady and predictable trend to rely on computers to manage just about every aspect of our every day life. FOSS just so happens to be the best way to learn and retain some control, but it really is about caring about something that has a massive impact on our lives.

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I would argue FOSS isn't the best way to learn. sic the links to the Stallman videos. Its about ethics, and not placing onuses onto users who don't realise what they are getting into. Stallman gave an example and said that Free Software is a good idea if implemented across the globe, but could not agree for its use by Amazon that does not treat its employees fairly.

https://www.fsf.org/

Open Source is not the way forward, it is half-baked, sic. you end up with sour dough bread which is not what Free Software sets out to do.

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I thought about the idea of introducing Linux to schools, but my opinion about it is mixed. The potential advantages are obvious, but what about the potential downsides?

You don't want to end up with a situation where students only experience the "bad things" about Linux, and none of the good things about it.

If Linux is known as "that OS that causes problems", with nothing positive to say about it, that's not good. It's not necessarily the fault of Linux itself, but let's be real some public schools in some countries can be quite incompetent when it comes to managing computers.
They always manage to find ways to make them slow for example. You could give them supercomputers and it still wouldn't change anything.

More importantly, school computers tend to be very locked down and remotely monitored. It's hard to have positive experiences with the new operating system in such circumstances.

How can you say this with a straight face: "Hey kids, you should like Linux, it is about freedom to do anything you want to your computer, but this computer is not yours, so you won't have the freedom to do what you want. Too bad. But hey, you should still like Linux."

Forcing kids to use Linux when they don't want to is an easy way to build resentment. Kids like to do the opposite of what we force them to do.

Imo, it should mostly be on an opt-in basis for those who want it. If a kid wants Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, ReactOS, Haiku, etc. They should be free to choose their distro or OS and learn about it. They shouldn't get bad grades, because of this choice.

Don't want kids to say "Linux is the one OS that made me fail at school and gave me bad grades".

Letting them some time and space to experiment without being too closely monitored, and some reasonable amount of freedom (e.g not using the computer to do blatantly immoral things like intentionally trying to harm others on internet) would be more productive.

The problem is that it's possible that many would choose the path of least resistance that they already know, which is Windows and we may be back to square one...

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I see these as completely separate issues. Free and/or open source software do not guarantee nor imply good behavior by those who use it.

I wonder what Stallman himself might think about the direction that big projects such as Redis or Terraform have recently taken.
They've updated their licenses to be more restricted to certain business use cases, while being permissive for individuals, small organizations and students. That means that people can study and modify the program to create their own forks if they so wish to. A pragmatic approach between business and fair use.

Open source may not be the best way to allow people to learn about computers (I disagree with this statement), but you cannot not have open source.

Bold assumption, that kids these days know what Windows even is. This is probably the best time to start teaching them about computers with a different operating system without them even knowing about it. The only reason this won't happen is because their teachers — parents included — have been conditioned to use Windows and/or MacOS before.

However, I don't really see a problem with this at all. Sure, I would love people to use Linux instead of Windows. But when it comes to teaching kids, you teach the tools and the applications it has.

For example, you can teach each operating system where each works best: Windows or MacOS on the desktop, and Linux on the server. Personally, I would most definitely teach kids what goes on behind the scenes. Part of the job of the teacher is to create enough interests such that students want to know more about the subject.

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They don't know what "Windows" is. But they definitely know about "this OS with the bar at the bottom and four squares on the start menu where I can play League Of Legends or Roblox on my mom's computer".

They should teach about the role that Linux plays on the desktop as a workstation, mainly when it comes to penetration testing, cybersecurity, reverse-engineering, and programming. These are areas where the Linux desktop tends to excel at, skipping them would be a shame.

On the "hobby side", we have people jailbreaking Nintendo Switches, and installing Linux on them to play the games they want which is quite cool in my opinion.

Learning about what projects like the Steam Deck with SteamOS are.

Bootable Linux Recovery USBs are another neat trick.

But still, the fact remains: promoting the Linux desktop as a daily driver to kids is not an easy proposition if they don't care about the ethical aspect of it. There are a lot of potential downsides (many of them are not even the fault of Linux), and few upsides outside of specific industries like programming or cybersecurity that most people don't currently partake in anyway.

You need some motivation to use Linux, or otherwise you have no reason to not wipe it and install Windows at the first obstacle. I am a bit harsh, but I have to be honest.

It's easy to forget that the PC desktop world runs on a lot of Windows and Mac exclusive proprietary software.

If you want a job, in a lot of places showing mastery of proprietary tools is required. They are skeptical about the fact that you could be productive with an "obscure" open source alternative they might not even know of.

Secondly, using open source alternatives might make collaboration difficult if not impossible, because FOSS alternatives often can't read obfuscated proprietary file formats, or if they do, they cannot do so reliably. It doesn't help that these proprietary file formats and tools are the most used industry standard.

Don't forget that the current purpose of schools is to train kids to enter the workforce. If the majority of (well-paying) computer jobs happen on Windows/Mac, that's not good and it will be reflected on the curriculum.

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The problem isn't with teachers per se, it is the malformed ethos that "This is the OS of the workplace [filled with no free thinkers]".
The school where the service I worked for was based had a big push to become an MS "Gold Partner". On a tangent to this, here in the UK, the previous government made a big push for Secondary (High) schools to come out of Local Authority governance and become an Academy. After its first year as an Academy it was £800,000 in the red, and after it's second year, a further £1 M. I passed on articles to the Head Teacher about Libre Education Software but never got a response. Even Windows loses itcs functionality, or rather its applications when run on a restrictive network. It was our turn to host the regional meeting of Vision Support Technicians. A Teacher of Vision Impairment from another school was going to instruct us on how to use Styles in Office (Word), so that when we received work requests to modify a Word Document for a student with low vision we could simply apply a designated style that would reformat the document instantly. It didn't work! I've also read articles many years ago online about schools in "the land of the free ..." facing potential fines and worse if they even attempted to run GNU/Linux in schools. While I was at work I was able to connect a notebook that was not on the network by installing Zorin on it, and could setup printing to the service's Kyocera MFD, and the Canon mono printer in the service's Classroom. I could also connect it to the School Network without IT intervention and setup the firewall.

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The problem is the desire to always want "the best". If they want the office suite with the most features and that is their only concern, then they should indeed choose the Microsoft Office suite, and it would be the end of the discussion.

Should it be the only concern, tho? That's what I am seriously trying to challenge.

Will high schoolers really do super advanced formatting, and use most of the features of the Microsoft Office suite? Extremely doubtful. Yet, it is still chosen as the Office suite in many places, despite its big disadvantages: not every student paid for the Office suite at home, incompatibilities with other suites, and it is bloated. Requiring students to :pirate_flag: is not normal.

As much as I dislike Google, Microsoft is making them look like angels. At least Google Docs is truly cross-platform and works on Linux.

At this point, it has nothing to do with "the number of features", as Google Docs has been adopted by many schools in the US without problems and it has less features than local open source suites like LibreOffice.

There is definitely something shady going on other than technical merits.

This isn't only true for Office suites, it is true for everything else. As much as I hate Apple for its anti-repair and anti-consumer behavior, I can't help but notice that the whole "you can't game on Macs" thing set a dangerously bad precedent. People were pretty much saying that if a platform isn't the best for something (here, gaming), it deserves to be put entirely in the trash without considering anything else.

In reality, it was never true, you always could game on Macs, plenty of indie games, browser games, and some competitive games have always been ported to the platform. There could sometimes be problems with mod support or third party tools (e.g Livesplit), but it were far from being a platform "where you could only play minesweeper". Its true weakness was solo graphically demanding AAA games.

The same thing is happening for Linux. People need to realize that they don't always need the tools with the most features. They sometimes do, but in my experience, it happens far less frequently than they think.

The only thing that seems to suppress this "need" is heavy marketing. If Apple tells them that their ARM Macbook M1 incompatibilities at the software level isn't a problem anymore, then they will blindly believe so. If Apple tells them that Microsoft providing a heavily crippled version of Excel for Mac isn't a problem, then it isn't. If Apple tells them that the iPad is sufficient at a software level to go through college, then it suddenly becomes true.

The truth of the matter is that most people don't make rational choices, and don't know the features of programs they use and their competitors. They just use what they think is popular and do the same as everyone else. Once they spent a lot of time learning a complex program, it becomes very hard to switch to alternatives. For them it's as alien as switching from coding in java to C.

Kinda frustrating to see FOSS adoption slowed down due to non technical merits, but it is what it is.

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You titled this thread "The Real Issue with FOSS" but I'm not sure I agree that what you are saying is an issue at all. Where is this issue, precisely?

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It should be just free software, and also free of proprietary Java Script. I still have my trusty Amiga 1500. I was extremely annoyed that critics of the Amiga claimed it was just a gaming machine. For a time I was the Branch Health & Safety Officer of a local goverment Trade Union. I used the Amiga Desktop Publishing Program PageSetter 2 which gave brilliant results, even if it did take 20 minutes to print to the Canon BJ-200 to print one page. At the time I had not upgraded. It had 1 Mb of RAM, no hard drive and two Amiga Floppy Drives running Workbench 2.0. Amiga Floppy drives were superior to PC ones as they held more than 1.44 Mb of storage.

In terms of Office Suites, LibreOffice offers true freedom, however, the issue of Office Suites got damaged when MS agreed at first to come to the table on standardisation of the .odt format, but as usual, MS pulled the plug and so the issue still remains that LibreOffice is not compatible with MSOffice. Because of this during lockdown, my Office Suite of choice was (and still is) SoftMaker Office 20xx Professional. In TextMaker you can delete a table, in MS Word you can only cut a table which means it is hanging around in the clipboard. When extracting a table from Okular and pasting into TextMaker the content of the cells would not be in the default font that was given when the document was created. It would change to Bssic Roman. This was easily rectified by highlighting all the cells and pressing Ctrl+ Space, and voila, the font matched the rest of the document. SoftMaker's Ribbon is also more logical than the one MS uses and you can also change from Ribbon to the traditional menu layout, what I would term as a Word 2003 layout which was the last iteration of Word to use this layout.

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It's not the software itself, it's the fact that no average user cares about FOSS (blunt hyperbole).

If too few people care about it even in their own mind, it's not a surprise that it's not the default. At some point we have to be honest, if people don't even want to have the possibility to look at the source code, is it really a surprise that they cannot?

Because after all, that's where free software starts: some people have to want free software in the first place.

This preliminary step doesn't seem to be accomplished among the general populace.

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I can see the point of including an appreciation of different Operating Systems as well as different programming languages etc as part of a Computer Science course at school or college. That could include Linux, both in terms of servers and desktops.
The trouble is, students then go out into the world of employment where MS and Apple dominate workplace desktops, so MS and Apple skills and experience at school pass on into the workplace. OS dominance is locked-in on the education to work conveyor belt.
"Big Tech" now seems too Big and powerful to keep in check, by consumer bodies or governments, even after global IT disasters and consumer privacy outcrys.

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I can see a few problems with this thread, one being "divided by a common language". We're talking from points of view coming from different cultures, and making assumptions based on our experiences. Some of the words used make me feel a bit uncomfortable, but it's not just the language, it's the point of view from which it's based.

I worked in education in the UK, in a senior (high) school for 14 years, and we used both Windows and Mac; very few mac's due to the cost, but MS was also extorting money for licenses and that was becoming unsustainable.

Eduction should not be about forcing anyone, instead teaching, guiding and demonstrating what is available and useful for the future.

Now I have been working in a private language academy, teaching English with the end goal of the students gaining globally recognised certificates, namely: Cambridge English. One of my very first students here, in 2012, is now a friend and an IT technician. Linux is becoming more and more relevant in her job and we talk a lot about VMs and different distros, as well as "fixing" or neutering Windows processes...

A lot of my kids go off to university with not a lot of cash and old laptops. If me sharing about Linux can help them be more productive, then that's another goal I can help them achieve.

With my Advanced and Proficiency groups we also discuss everything from cobalt mining, big tech, ethics, and all kinds of topics I can't list here. Open Source is absolutely relevant for them too, so of them may well go on to become developers themselves one day!

I think that my old school in the UK would have been very interested in Zorin Education... it would not mean they'd stop using MS or Mac, but there is more to computer literacy than those, and Linux is a big part of that - it doesn't have to be exclusive!

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It’s really unfortunate that education can evolve into a stressful challenge in many regions, filled with excessive assignments, tests, and a constant focus on grades.

Personally, I don’t subscribe to the notion that the sole purpose of school is to prepare students for the workforce, although I recognize that this idea holds true in certain contexts.

In numerous countries, attending school is mandatory, often dictated by laws or parental expectations. While I understand the rationale behind this requirement, it can easily foster feelings of resentment among children. Rather than adding to their frustrations, we should strive to make the journey to school — both literally and metaphorically — more enjoyable.

Interestingly, many high school students do find joy in learning, which proves that an engaging educational environment is absolutely attainable. A supportive teacher and a well-designed curriculum can make a significant difference.

Regarding technology education, I believe that Linux should be included in the curriculum. If schools teach Windows, then why not also introduce Linux? However, we must approach this implementation with care; if it's not done thoughtfully, it could unintentionally create negative perceptions of Linux.

There are schools where students are compelled to install Linux on their machines to learn programming, but often, many revert back to Windows with feelings of indifference or frustration afterward. This happens because no one took the time to explain the real advantages of using desktop Linux.

This awareness motivates me to be patient, empathetic, and understanding of how everyone interacts with technology. Each individual has unique needs and varying levels of comprehension. My goal isn’t to wage a war against proprietary software; rather, I aim to advocate for and support the open-source movement.

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As much as I'd love to see more people using open source software, and I certainly encourage and even promote it, I fundamentally disagree with the notion of "using X because it's better". This decision needs to be made based on the merits of the technology on its own, not based on political or ideological views.

I've used Linux daily on my own personal machine for about 7~8 years now, and the only reason that continues to be true is because I find Linux superior to Windows for my particular use case. But someone focusing mostly on multi-media might disagree with this, since the ecosystem is much more mature on Windows and MacOS.

Believe me, I completely agree with this. I've said so myself:

And that might be fine for the casual user, but an educational institution needs to set a strong foundation for students to continue to grow afterwards. Using the wrong tools to lay that foundation is doing them a disservice.

Note that I'm not necessarily talking about preparing students for the workforce. To give an example of this: Godot is one very popular open source game engine. But it's not the industry standard. And yet, the concepts are very much interchangeable with other industry standard engines. And since it's not uncommon for studios to come up with their own internal engines from time to time, it may actually play in to the strengths of the student to learn general concepts rather than specific tooling.
Plus, Godot is actually so popular that a student can continue learning on their own well past their graduation, because of the amount of material online, and plenty of people to reach out to.

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If someone wanted to work on PC/console games with realistic or very detailed 3D graphics, there is pretty much no other option than go with Unreal Engine or an in-house engine. Knowing how to leverage the proprietary DirectX is also a must.

For 2d games, Godot is fine, however.

If someone wanted to work on video editing for very high budget movies (think Hollywood kind of stuff), they need to know how to use Avid Media Composer, there is pretty much no alternative and it doesn't run on Linux.

Even when the Linux desktop is doing the task more than adequately, it doesn't mean that the person will appreciate using it, especially when Windows also does the task fine. They may dislike the desktop environments, they may dislike having to install Linux on a laptop that doesn't officially support Linux, they may dislike having to dual boot during their breaks to play this "one game that doesn't run well on Linux for some reason", and so on.

No matter the workflow, there are almost always reasons to prefer using Windows as a daily driver, none of them are wrong, I don't blame the user.

You are touching on an unfortunate problem of most school systems in the world: they are often very generalized, and don't always seem to meet the needs of the individual. There are only so many teachers after all, and they don't have unlimited time or energy. Like every human, they also don't know every topic in detail, it's hard to teach something that you don't even know.

Spending a lot of time teaching someone Linux, when they have no interest in it, doesn't seem productive. People should mostly be taught what they are interested in. Spending years to teach someone how to administer RHEL servers when they clearly prefer to administrate FreeBSD infrastructure doesn't seem to be the best.

But overall, I agree with all your points, but I still try to emphasize with people on the other side of the fence.
There are still some legitimate reasons to not want open source or Linux to be taught at schools, and I try to not immediately dismiss their concerns (as long as they are not people directly getting paid to have this "opinion" :wink:).

The most important thing is to let people be happy, and improve their awareness of the world, really.

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This category is labelled Chat about Zorin.
I don't see much about Zorin being mentioned in this thread.
Feel free @green52 to reply with or without a wall of text if you wish.