cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/30719639 in !ask_experienced_devs@programming.dev
I’m thinking of ways to help people move from established software to more open, flexible forms that don’t lock them to another organization.
I don’t think I’m saying anything new here, but if the free software is superior, then it’s easier to make the argument to try it out. If it just has similar functionality, then there’s little incentive to move over. A good example is GIMP being presented as an alternative to Photoshop. It’s not. Not even close. And I hate Adobe and refuse to pay for their crap. Even price isn’t enough. If your job/business depends on a piece of software that cost a lot of moolah Vs. an unknown free application, the free software loses. So you need a superior application plus an easy way to migrate all your data.
A good example is GIMP being presented as an alternative to Photoshop. It’s not. Not even close.
Krita on the other hand…
As someone who does not do any sort of professional photo editing, I find GIMP and Photoshop to be equally confusing as hell. The only photo editor I’ve used with any degree of success is paint dot net, which obviously doesn’t have the same firepower as the bigger options.
for folks who won’t move off windows. portable apps. install it to a folder in the hard drive and when they update machines show them how you just copy it to the new machine. Only downside is it might lessen the incentive to just get off of windows. I would sorta like something like that with an emulator and an ability to run software on any architecture.
Not really tools, but the most effective way really is to do it for them. Most people who don’t really care whether an app they use is open source or not won’t care about what you say either, no matter how much you try to explain. My wife didn’t really care about using linux, but when I actually installed it on a spare laptop and let her use it, she adapted just fine. I installed Firefox Focus on her phone and now she uses it for quick browsing. Same with Signal for my family. I asked my brother to install it on our parents’ phones and now they use it for all family group chats.
I think people tend to go for open source when it is a free alternative. Especially when it’s still quality. Blender is a good example of this.
Many people struggle with usability. It’s easy to set things up to get them started, and then you can showcase their use-case. Of course, they need to understand limitations (together with advantages, which you will showcase for sure). The issue is that you might end up providing long term support for them, and you can get tired of it. That’s why is good to do this kind of things in community, I have participated in a hacklab and we wrote zines too. This also helped homogenize what we shared and supported, because everyone has their own taste and FLOSS is all about flavors (which is great, but also brings complications)
Oh, one more thing I deem relevant. I have seen many people break this rule: don’t recommend software you never used. Go for stable apps that have been long established on whatever their use-case is. The bleeding edge (and hype) can be lethal to newcomers!
Discussion between fellow “expert” hackers about why the latest new distro bundling x, y, and z apps is so cool is one thing and should be differentiated from promoting the adoption of, say, Debian or MX Linux.
