What Linux needs

Learning about Linux has been as much an education about computers as it has been about human behavior. Take, for example, this somewhat elderly thread complaining about photo management.

Linux Needs a GOOD photo management app … Does anyone else agree that great photo management software for linux does not exist? Something along the lines of google picasa would be excellent. (Yeah I know it can be run under wine, but I really would rather run a native program).

It is slightly irritating (only slightly these days … I’ve been watching that thread pop up again and again for years now) that, because nothing fits in the “great” category for this one particular person, that such an animal doesn’t exist. Or rather, “Can we all agree that this animal doesn’t exist?”

Here‘s another one.

No REAL PIMs for Linux? … If the definition of a PIM is where all your notes, appointments, tasks and contacts are stored but more than that, linked then I have not found any PIM available in Linux. I have to use Windows XP under Virtual box and that is slow.

Perhaps it is my understanding of English, but I find that even more acid. Define your animal, and then insist the animal is impossible to find.

One more:

Is there a REAL replacement for MS Project? … I have been looking at several open source PM programs, but all of them have serious issues. … Does anyone know of any program that is a true replacement for MS Project? In other words, something that can calculate task logic and critical paths correctly?

Probably not as crass as some of the others, but still somehow arrogant. Here, there are animals that are similar to the one I describe, but they are not exact duplicates. Therefore, I seek the “true” animal.

I hope this doesn’t sound like a personal attack against any of these people, because really, what amazes me is the method of argument, not the person behind it. I have no formal training in logic or dialectics, and added to that I have a rather unusual grasp of English at times, but in each case the tendency toward generalization is interesting. Each one seems to be saying, “Because the options didn’t work for me, it doesn’t exist.” Because I didn’t find the grail, the grail is a myth.

I wonder what makes humans do that? Why are we all so sure that our case is the only case, and that our experience is replicated endlessly, six billion times over and over again, over the surface of our teeny blue planet? 😐

For me, the oddball part of all three of these threads is that in each case, the original poster knows exactly what they want, and asserts — more or less — that nothing short of a mirror image of that program will suffice. Let me be equally blunt, then: You should be using Windows.

In fact, I can answer all three questions in one fell swoop: If the only application that will fit the bill is mired in Windows, then you should be using Windows. If the game you need to play doesn’t behave as cleanly or run as quickly in Linux, then you should be using Windows. If the icon you want for the button you like on the application you prefer is only available in Windows … then stop telling us what Linux needs.

Because what Linux needs is people who want to use Linux. I said a long time ago that if Linux was Windows, nobody would need Linux. By corollary, if what you need is Windows, don’t tell me Linux has shortcomings. Linux doesn’t need application X, it needs someone who is so prepossessed with the idea of creating application X that they spearhead an independent movement to duplicate it, gather a few like-minded and talented peers, and as a group they roll up their sleeves and get to work making application X.

Aha. Now that is what Linux needs.

Or maybe I should just learn to avoid threads with words in all capital letters in the titles. 🙄

P.S.: Yes, I know, there is another level of irony at work here: Windows XP Classic makeover for IceWM, anyone? 😳