Off the Beat: Bruce Byfield's Blog

Whenever ideas run short, columnists and bloggers like to pontificate about why free and open source software isn't more successful. Inevitably, they trot out the same old explanations. Microsoft's monopoly, lack of vendor support, community unfriendliness and infighting, and inertia are some of the most popular ones.

Not having anything new to contribute (or any shortage of ideas to run about), I've avoided such discussions until now. Recently, though, my efforts to persuade people to use free software have suggested to me an explanation so simple that it is seldom mentioned -- people just don't understand the concept, or why it should interest them. The whole idea runs so counter to the average user's experience that the concept of free software is simply too much for them to accept.

When the personal computer was introduced thirty years ago, a set of assumptions about software quickly emerged. In the prevailing industry view, software is a commodity, and users are consumers.

Unlike most commodities, however, software is licensed, not bought, and offers users few rights as consumers. Users have little input into features, and, if they can't get the software to work, they usually have trouble getting refunds on the grounds that they might be illegally copying it. In fact, they are told (with dubious legality and after they have opened the box) that by opening the box they have waived their rights to copy, lend, or do most other things that they can do with other consumer items.

This summary may suggest that I have a keen grasp of the obvious. But the obvious is often overlooked simply because it is obvious, so sometimes it is worth repeating. In this case, repeating these standard assumptions emphasizes just how revolutionary free software is.

The truth is, free software overturns all the standard assumptions about the average user's relationship to software. Paradoxically, because free software is distributed with little more than the obligation to make source code available -- an obligation that average users care nothing about -- it restores the usual rights of ownership to users.

If they turn to free software, users can treat software the way they treat a book or a wide screen TV, unbothered by both activation and registration and threat of litigation. They are offered a range of choice that has not existed since the earliest days of the personal computer. If they get involved with a project, they have a chance that their suggestions for improvement are listened to. They can know if the software they are using collects information about them because they can either look for themselves or hire someone to do so.

In other words, the opportunity opens for them to stop being passive and to start being active, even socially-responsible consumers instead.

If you have half a milligram of idealism in you, this change is heady stuff. But if you are a user who has never installed an operating system and take the continued functioning of your computer mostly on faith, it is hard to believe. Probably, it sounds like hype. And to a small degree it is, since this overview ignores the fact that switching to free software requires leaving familiar applications and losing some initial productivity as you learn alternatives.

Yet, even when the caveats are added, the first reaction to such overwhelming change is likely to be disbelief. The first reaction is likely to be that the whole idea is too good to be true, the second that there must be a catch. Explain that there is no catch, and the average computer user is apt to accuse you of lying. After thirty years, they know what their relationship with computers should be. Anything new must be suspect by definition.

What's more, talking about other advantages only compounds the suspicion. Mention the free cost, and people's minds immediately turns to telemarketers who tell them that they have just won a free holiday -- or possibly to the assumption that they are being asked to use inferior alternatives. Mention the relative freedom from viruses and malware, and they will be even more disbelieving, because everyone knows that the price of using a computer is that you occasionally have to have everything reinstalled.

Matters aren't helped by the fact that the community as a whole does a poor job of explaining what is being offered. Neither "open source" nor "free software" suggests any reason for the average user to be interested. Nor do the four software freedoms, since their emphasis is on code, not on the advantages for average users.

But, even when the message is clearly delivered, the problem remains. In the end, free software advocates may feel like the title character in The Life of Brian, advising a crowd to act as individuals that, for all its enthusiasm, only wants an authority to tell them how to be individuals.

Probably, this deadlock can be overcome by gradually introducing the concepts to users, and letting them discover the advantages of free software for themselves. Attempts to reform or abolish software patents may also help to change the average person's assumptions, as well as the establishment of the right to re-sell the software you buy, which seems to have been established in the recent Vernor vs. Autodesk case. Yet, even so, you can never forget that , free software advocates and average users are operating in separate frames of reference, with very little overlap.

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