In reality, no operating system or hardware device "just works"
Written by Jem Matzan
Sep 06, 2007 at 09:28 AM
A few days ago I wrote about how reality trumps idealism in software licensing, the point being that there is a wide gap between what free software supporters wish the software world were like, and what the software world actually is. There is a similar disconnect between a program or machine's actual utility and the image projected by its producers, marketers, and supporters. Nothing -- but nothing -- in the information technology realm is perfectly intuitive for everyone, nor does it always work correctly or lack a certain percentage of production flaws. But for fans of specific (usually underdog) technologies, there is an obsession with the image that the object of their affection "just works."
Maybe the real issue is the blind ignorance that comes packaged with the slightly unhealthy sentiment of love. How many parents have you known who think that their astonishingly average son is the smartest kid in the world, or their plain-looking daughter is a beautiful princess? How frequently have you heard people gush about how their 6-month old baby is performing at a 10-month old level, with all the fervor of someone who wholeheartedly believes that such trivia is impressive and interesting to anyone who does not share the child's genes? Somewhere inside, these people know that they're hawking absurdities, and masking worries about the obvious with hope for change.
I think the same is true beyond parents and children. It's certainly true in sports and politics, where it's widely believed that if you yell loud enough and argue strongly enough, that the facts and probabilities will be irrevocably swayed and reality will be changed. It never is, but that hasn't ever stopped anyone from insisting that "Our team's gonna win!" when the odds or the facts suggest otherwise. Sadly, aficionados wrongly assume that if their sports team or political party loses, it is because they and their fellow fans did not wish hard enough.
In the technology world we have Apple fans who silently ignore the reality of myriad hardware defects and unethical business practices, Apple's refusal to replace known defective products, and the recent incident where Apple iPhone customers got screwed out of $200, not to mention Apple's life-long habit of abandoning platforms with no advance warning. Apple is arguably worse than Microsoft in many (if not all) ways, but something about its overpriced, unreliable fashion accessories appeals to a solid 3% of the computing market. And that 3% are cut from the same mold as the gushing parents, screaming fans, and arguing politicos.
The same applies to many (if not most) Linux and BSD fans -- blind advocacy frequently overcomes the reality of the software. Too frequently that means distorting or ignoring the facts in order to puff up the object of the fans' affection. The point of all of this blustering is partly just raw emotional expression, but a larger portion of it is evangelism. When you're a real fan, you want to be among other fans, and you want as many of them as possible. Each conflict your team engages becomes a war between idealistically opposite factions, a struggle between good and evil, and David vs. Goliath revisited -- all in one.
With computers, fans like to claim that something "just works," meaning no manual-reading or configuration is necessary, and you'll never have a reasonable problem with the product. That is never true, though. Everything needs maintenance, and all things degrade over time. Apple computers have all of the same problems that other computers do, and the operating system is no less bug- and problem-prone than most others. A MacBook Pro with OS X does not make you more creative than a cheap eMachines with Windows ME. Your Linux desktop computer will crash and need to be restarted sometimes. You will run into frequent permissions problems on a desktop Linux system, and you won't always know that they're permissions problems. Windows doesn't work all that well with all Windows games. OpenBSD performs poorly under a lot of circumstances. FreeBSD is labor-intensive to maintain over a long period of time. There is no technology utopia; anyone who says differently is just showing you more pictures of their "beautiful" ugly kids.
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