Nothing that can’t be achieved with FOSS software. I meant it more in a public setting, where taxpayer’s money is going into licenses and more powerful hardware when it isn’t needed at all. People I know in universities already mostly use FOSS anyway, at least here in Portugal and in sciences, dunno what people in the humanities use.
The issue with business is that there’s a lack of general education and MS is too ingrained in people. Plus they advertise more.
If this is how the exchange went, then I think anyone listening would agree that she is the one who is advice resistant. And I’m not doubting that she is. I’m just saying that if you care about this friendship, don’t focus so much on why she is wrong about whatever topic, focus on what you can do to improve the relationship. After all, we can’t force other people to take advice, no matter how right it may be; we can only control how we treat other people. If you do your best to be kind and understanding, and she doesn’t reciprocate, then you’ve done all you can.
Hello @priort
i am not saying this to defend or berate any one OS they all have their issues.
Unfortunately, you have a point here 
Just out of curiosity, I read pretty much every week, usually on Saturdays, the posts by Nate, one of the coordinators of the KDE Linux desktop:
At their bottoms, there is the list of KDE bugs fixed and the ones still unresolved, some of them quite serious.
I would be extremely surprised to read about a software (proprietary or open source), no matter which one, claimed to work without any bugs.
Just take a look at GIMP, for instance:
Please, do not take this as a criticism since I am a GIMP user myself
Like it or not the MS OS brand is Windows and that is something that people can easily wrap their heads around. For a new person you can say to them go try Linux and so they go on the journey of discovery ands find an almost endless sea of OS options that are all under the “Linux” umbrella… its as simple as divide and conquer. All those options are a real strength for those that are naturally inquisitive and have the necessary aptitude to decypher everything but for branding and marketing I think for the masses its not as easily adopted. Perhaps over time it will shift as all things do.
Yes, I completely agree. While there are some commercial options available, they don’t come even close to what MS can offer unfortunately. It would need to start with education while people are in school. Not specifically on Linux in my opinion, but on computing in general, and a general overview of Windows and Linux. Mac while still relevant, shouldn’t be taught due to its prohibitive entry point when it comes to price and hardware lockdown.
I agree. I mostly use MS because of my corporate account and resources. I tinker with some linux vm’s and dual boot. At this point its mostly for a self learning experience… I know that even with Windows if I go to another PC where someone has the desktop setup not as I do I am for a few moments lost . I think that sort of effect hits people confronted with Linux and all the various iterations and often they wont push beyond. And I used the word branding earlier. How do you brand Linux… right now I am not sure I could answer. Others might be able to. Branding is so important for any product or service. Our university competes with others around the world for students and funding. Recently they embarked on a branding exercise to come up with logo’s fonts etc etc to portray the McMaster look. As part of this branding we also had messaging. This was derived from an approach of looking at the current curriculum and understanding that changes needed to be made. We could not continue to try and be all things to all people so the university evaluated what things we were good at and know for and it shifted resources and messaging to promote those things in our messaging and branding. 4 basic pillars were identified and all initiatives were focused on these as the basic operational foundation for all research and teaching initiative… in a sense an effort to get leaner and meaner
IME in IT, the big thing is interoperability, collaboration and third party vendor tie-in. That’s what keeps MS ahead in numbers, if not quality. That, and their obvious massive market dominance.
I am not able to keep up with the pace and volume of conversation. At this juncture, I would say that these “allergies” have to do with distrust.
For Anna’s peers, I believe it comes from the escalating disagreements. Why would anyone take advice in a strained relationship? One generally is more receptive to those who are amicable. For example, this forum: hence why Anna is comfortable expressing her feelings here.
For software and all that software preferences entail, it is distrust of the unfamiliar and also of the familiar. Let me explain.
For the “non-Linux” folks, FLOSS is strange new world. FLOSS proponents are strange folk. But this is true only if one decides to remain a stranger. To bridge the gap, our community and theirs should not be strangers to one another. As a few people said above, an us-versus-them mentality makes us foreign to one another.
On the other hand, familiarity breeds contempt. The pro-FLOSS camp has contempt for non-FLOSS software and community because it knows how much corporate culture and capitalism can suck the life out of things and wreck havoc rather than build society. While warranted, this cynical view makes it impossible to collaborate with the other and prevents credit to be given to where credit is due.
In sum, in a world where polarization is increasing, it would be a tragedy to mark more dividing lines. One must examine themselves to see whether they are a collaborator, in the good sense, in building positive relationships and communities where everyone can thrive.
One example a few highlighted in this forum is the introduction of FLOSS to schools. While not for everyone, the more tools one has available the more accessible and trustworthy technology and our world becomes. Same with this forum, it allows us to connect and learn new things and ways of thinking.
It is all @betazoid Anna’s fault.
Starting a new post titled “I am allergic to NON linux people” is a REAL click bait on an open source forum like this…
Just joking, of course
Yo, you aren’t helping! 
I would find it hard to value that kind of friendship.
This is very true. I own a construction company and my estimating take off software only runs on windows. 99% of the construction business runs on windows. I have several old laptops and desktops running linux but my day to day driver is a windows 10 laptop that is about 8 years old and still going strong. I use darktable and gimp exclusively .
However I know many folks that use only Mac products and think anything else is just substandard. Whatever.
I am not sure I could trust any open source software to duplicate what I get from MS Excel. It would take too long to trust it, to make sure I was getting the right figures out of it.
To each their own.
Sometime ago I made a video entitled Don’t use Linux in response to a social media encounters I had with some technology influencers who had been pressured into using Linux by their audience. Basically it resulted in a bunch of “Linux sucks” videos from LTT, EposVox and the like. Suggesting someone use Linux or some free solution, particularly if they’re technically inclined, is a bad idea and counterproductive IMO. They’ll just end up angry at you, telling all their buddies the thing you said to use sucked and so on.
Time is an investment and much like changing careers in your 40s and 50s is darn near impossible unless you have a massive savings to live off of while you start over the deeper you are into technology, photography and videography the more investment you have in your tools. It’s counterintuitive to a degree, you’d think more technologically inclined people would be easier to move to other solutions but I’ve found it to be quite the opposite. Habits are ingrained deep and hard to fight. Hence why I think mass Linux adoption has been most successful with things like Chromebooks that are aimed at someone who doesn’t understand Internet != Chrome.
To be fair they may have a point. When was the last time you saw a pro in the wild not in IT or programming (honestly even those are rare these days) using a Linux desktop? It’s almost like when they say it’s a hobby and server OS they’re on to something. This kind of work is very much “put up or shut up” and until the cover of Vogue or Nat Geo or some feature film was edited in darktable and Kdenlive on Fedora it’s all academic anyway.
Edit: I’ve also learned to disengage just because I’m known for being a “knowledgable” person and get asked my opinion on things only to be told I’m out of touch or get argued with. Latest example was with headphones with return to the office. They built us a new cubical farm for post COVID and wanted everyone to have headphones for obvious reasons. Being into audio stuff I got asked what was good, gave my usual detailed response and immediately got looked at like I was a space alien. Turns out normies just like AirPod Pros and they just wanted to know if those were OK to buy. They didn’t want to hear by wired headphones have better sound quality, differences in BT codecs and so on. Most people are just looking at you as an expert to validate the choices they already made. So I’ve got a few canned “normie friendly” responses to those inevitable questions these days.
You are right, that post did sound quite arrogant, but I think actually I am the opposite of arrogant.
In 2020 here in the UK, simple-minded reliance on Excel caused a problem in recording and reporting Covid cases, delaying contact tracing until the problem was noticed and corrected. See Excel: Why using Microsoft's tool caused Covid-19 results to be lost - BBC News . Perhaps a FLOSS software wouldn’t have had that particular problem, but there is always the human element: someone thinks some software can do something it can’t do. Someone didn’t build checks into the overall system: “We reported X cases and Y cases and Z cases, so has the recipient received X+Y+Z cases?”
In my professional and personal experience, that is where the biggest problems lie: not in particular software, but in overall systems design.
I agree in general but one point “paid” (not necessarily proprietary) software has is the ability to force – for lack of a better term – the less-than-fun things to get done.
Hypothetical example: What if you have a bug in a piece of FOSS turbine electrical generator control software in a power plant? And what if no one volunteers to take it on?
As stated before I’m a FOSS fan and all, but in the real world sometimes a nose must be held to a grindstone. The mere possibility (however theoretical) that “everyone” could walk away is a huge FOSS fear inherent with corporate bean counter types.
Of course all this is far more IT / corporate oriented than relevant to home users, but it’s still a factor.
The thing is FLOSS can follow a paid or corporate model as well. It is a matter of balancing priorities and not distrusting established and practical methods that work. Corporate tends to be front heavy whereas grassroots-FLOSS is nimbler. Can we not balance the two?
This is why I wrote:
Personally, my dislike of corporate methods comes from their lack of creativity and preference to feed the engine without knowing where it is going.
The issue with bean counter types is that they wholesale destroy past work and existing employees when it comes time to seek efficiencies. It is the reason my city and country are in such tatters technologically. There is nothing left to rip out and no one to rip off anymore.
In all things, there are two or three sides to a coin.
Oh, I’m not a fan of insular, inward looking bean counters (or any other types) but the unfortunate fact is, they’re there and solidly entrenched. 
I could be very wrong and wrong with engineering could mean a building collapse, but for me I see replacing Microsoft office with a FOSS alternative as one of the easiest switches. My University supplies Microsoft Office 360 and if they didn’t I would use open office. The only reason I have installed Microsoft Office is that it allows me to make phone calls from my computer nationally and internationally. I just like that convenience.
I imagine some of the CAD products are restricted in OS. It is a shame that commercial program developers can not be across more platforms instead of just windows and or mac. This is very true for gamers.
During my studies I did all my work including my thesis with OpenOffice at the university’s computer center. We had different computer centers, distributed throughout the campus, which were available to us students for our work.
The rooms with Linux computers were always half empty and if you needed a computer, you immediately got a place. Since I couldn’t afford my own computer at the beginning, I wrote my texts there and did all my research. When I got one, I could connect to the university server from home and continue my work at home. We also had our own storage space on the server and I didn’t even have to copy my data back and forth via floppy disk as was usual at the time.
This was very convenient because when I was at the university I could use the Linux computers there in the pauses between lectures and then continue the work at home on my own computer.
By the way, my username s7habo comes from this time. I got it from the computer center as my access name:
Summer semester 1997 Hajdukovic Boris
And because this open access and functionality of the University Computer Center made my studying much easier, I decided to keep the username. 