Let’s face it, computers still suck. Proprietary software sucks doubly so. When I bought a new laptop for my girlfriend, it was literally unusable for several hours because Windows first had to go through its update/EULA/reboot/update/EULA/reboot cycle many, many times. Not to mention all the subtle coercion: Sign up for Norton AntiVirus, or viruses will eat your documents! Please also let Norton AntiVirus handle system security, it’s better than Windows Update! Get a Microsoft Passport account, or your Interweb will not work anymore! Activate your copy of Foo, or it will break down in 4 days! Give us money, or we will kill this kitten! The system tray flatulently pops up new disinformation bubbles every other minute.

I’m competent enough to muzzle Windows, but I find it hard to imagine how average PC users deal with this. Most likely, they will just click “OK” on everything just to make the harassment stop. But even during normal use, Windows trends to make constant irritating attempts to help the user, alternating its personality between used car salesman and pimply teenage shopping bag assistant. “Would you like me to clean your desktop for you, Sir? Oh, whoops, looks like I just removed all your icons! Sorry about that!” (Truthfully, of course, Windows doesn’t apologize. It seems utterly oblivious to its own incompetence.)

It’s clear to me that liberating users can only happen by liberating software. But don’t even get me started on installing Linux on laptops. The different chipsets and BIOSes make it a nightmare to get wireless, Ethernet, PCMCIA, suspend to disk, power management and other features to work properly without tweaking the kernel. To gain a foothold, free software must work out of the box. In other words, the PC maker must provide it to the end user, installed and ready to use.

Linux through the backdoor: an all-new PC

The home operating system market is controlled by the PC makers (OEMs). I don’t see any of the large OEMs promoting desktop Linux anytime soon. Even without secret deals which forbid doing so, it’s in a large PC maker’s short-term interest to uphold the Microsoft monopoly. That’s because Microsoft’s multi-tier pricing structure means that a small PC maker pays much more in terms of licensing, and is thus disadvantaged on the market. With all software being free, competition would focus more on the best selection and customization, giving an advantage to small, agile companies.

I have long thought that a small, innovative PC maker could be successful in pushing Linux to the masses. But it will take more than simply trying to clone Windows, as Linspire (formerly Lindows) does. And, if we are rethinking the PC, why not also rethink the underlying business model? Why do I have to keep buying new hardware every few years? Why do I have to worry about making backups? And how can GUIs be improved?

I hope that we will be able to come up with some answers to these questions. For now, I have taken some notes on the FriendlyPC page in the wiki. The key points are:

• The entire system is based on free software and comes with the best open source applications currently available. Omitting all unstable alpha software, you are still left with thousands of applications and games to choose from.
• You lease the PC instead of buying it, and get free hardware upgrades (some PC makers already do this, though primarily in the server market). Once you move towards subscriptions, you can bundle all kinds of interesting offers: Internet access, access to the NYT archives, online games ..
• Software updates and backups are fully automatic and silent. Backups to the Net might work well for broadband users.
• Instead of annoying you with bubbles, a FriendlyPC networks you with other users who can assist you in solving problems. A TimeCash-like currency could be used to reward help.
• The user interface does not require any knowledge about what the purpose of program “OpenOffice.org Impress” or “Microsoft Visio” is. Instead, it is entirely task- and file-oriented. (Some desktops already go into that direction.) The desktop manages all your files (including easy search), and an intelligent menu (I imagine a big, friendly button in the center, using a pie menu or similar clever UI) tells you what you can do: “Burn a DVD with (application)”, “Write a letter with (application)”.

One idea which I’m particularly fond is to give a customized ultra-low-budget version of this PC to unemployed and poor people for free as part of existing social security. These custom PCs would be optimized for education and come with a large amount of free educational resources, such as a static Wikipedia dump.

See the [[FriendlyPC|wiki page]] for more notes. Of course, neither of these ideas or the others on the wiki page is individually very original. But I believe that, with clever marketing, this “friendly PC” could quickly become a popular alternative to the nightmare that modern PC usage tends to be.