[clug] retail software

[Jason Stokes]

Hi David,

I can only speak for myself; I'm probably in the demographic you're trying to reach.  I installed Linux because some recent interests I have developed (Voting systems, cryptography, interactive fiction/adventure games) have revived my interest in programming, and I can't afford professional tools like Visual Studio (the express version I have discovered is surprisingly powerful, but still crippleware in many ways.)  I am trying Linux because it has lots of development tools, a big open source community, and nothing is crippled in any way. 

 Even so, I still use Windows for most purposes.  These are the software packages I use the most:

Microsoft Office (home and work)
Microsoft Publisher
Audacity 
Mozilla Firefox
Microsoft Outlook
Ulead VideoStudio
Lots of games

In my experience the consumer/retail market for Linux seems pretty limited.  Everyone else seems to be either a compsci person, or an IT professional who uses it for backend/server stuff.  The core users are geeks for whom the open source stuff is more than adequate; "ease of use" isn't a priority, because they are used to investing the time to master the software in any case, and will forgive its warts.


To sell, it probably has to be something for which there is no real open source equivalent, in which case I'll probably just use it on Windows in any case. 

----- Original Message ----
From: David Cottrill <cottrill.david at gmail.com>
To: CLUG <linux at lists.samba.org>
Sent: Wednesday, 5 November, 2008 9:04:39 AM
Subject: [clug] retail software

I work for a retail software company that is rapidly porting all its
Windows/Mac programs to Linux.
The programs cover pretty much the entire spectrum of applications - from
Asterisk to Audacity to VLC.

What I've been wondering is: how many of you would be willing to install
such things. As a rule the software is far easier to use than the standard
open source alternative and with only a few (significant) exceptions it
works better.

David
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