I am recommitting to small but plenty blog posts.  Over the past weeks, I have had several presentations where i spoke about the barriers to Open Source Adoption (both perceived & real).  Some of my favorite blogs that I read also have touched on this topic recently.

So here is my take on 5 barriers to main stream adoption of Open Source.

Accessing The Software In developing countries where Open Source could have the biggest impact, downloading the ISO of the Linux operating system is prohibitive due to restricted bandwidth access. Also, not many people know how to properly burn a bootable ISO disc with an application such as InfraRecorder.  A perfect solution for this conundrum would be the widespread distribution of a CD burning unit such as the Freedom Toaster.

Rampant Pirating of Windows considering that you can obtain a burned CD of a MS Windows product for a cost as low as $1.50 per disc, makes it seems like free software.  For years MS turned a blind eye to pirating with a theory that people would be become addicted to the OS and then when it comes time to pay up, they cannot break away.  So take away the Free, and Open Source does not mean anything to the average user.  As long as it works, and perhaps is translated into their native language, how it got that way does not matter to them.

People Factor  Fear of the unknown can hold back people from making a change, provided that they even know that an alternative exists.  So many times I have heard people say that they did not know a computer could run without Windows.   Awareness of other operating systems is very low and it is important that advocates for open source take advantage of events such as 'Software Freedom Day' to present the alternatives.  

Geek Factor  Because Linux has a reputation for being a 'geek' interface, it is not even considered mainstream.  While the adoption is much higher in Europe, most of the world is still 90% MS orientated despite all the headaches and data loss that comes with it.  Even I felt somewhat out of place at a recent Linux gathering, as I am not a hard core coder.  Yet I stated that you can develop forever and a day, but what is the purpose of making an OS if no one will use it.  We also need people to be out changing the perception of Linux, showing that it is a viable solution with wonderful features. 

Practice What You Preach   If you trying to convince the masses to adopt Linux then use it yourself, all the time. Nothing makes me cringe more than hearing the startup sound of Windows in a room full of supposed Linux advocates.  Matter of fact, I mentioned today that when I presented at the Red Hat conference in Chicago last fall, they were using a Window's machine for the audio-visual.  I know that this was most likely the convention center's choice, but with Dell and HP in the room demonstrating their hardware, one would think that they might have enabled a system for this purpose. Also, you should have more than FireFox running on your machine to truly be using Open Source.

On a final note, I met a gentleman who presented on the topic of "Sexism in FOSS" today, and it was interesting to hear his perspective on it.  He was enlightened and sincere, despite receiving hate mail for expressing his opinion in his blog post.  This might be another barrier to adoption.. do you think??