Ask Slashdot: Good, Useful Free Software For Gifts? 377
First time accepted submitter Jeng writes "I'm planning on sending flash drives to friends and family as stocking stuffers. Rather than just send a blank drive, I'm looking for what good useful free software that I can load on it — from system utilities and encryption software to fun little games." We've asked similar questions before, but software keeps getting better, and so do the prices on flash drives. So what would you give as a gift this holiday season?
It's a ridiculous idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bootable USB (Score:5, Insightful)
Bootable BSD or Linux on USB.
I'd suggest Ubuntu, with a "readme.txt" written for those who will plug it into their Windows box.
Give them a text list of apt-get commands and tell them all the software was pirated :P
other bits to consider besides software (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a big collection of free music/ebooks/movies/art, etc? Maybe consider putting together a digital slideshow of photos and movies of family and friends, too.
Re:Let's see: (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Bootable USB (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's see: (Score:0, Insightful)
Seriously lame gift.
Who would be running Linux and wouldn't have Python installed, or a browser of their choice? Who would want rubbish opensource games they could download?
What is wrong with you guys.
Sorta useful suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the idea's a lil bland, I mean ... yay you put some free apps they could go get anyway.
But.... its' a stocking stuffer, let's have a little fun, right? Why not run around a few sites like Fail blog or LOLCats and find a big heap of funny pictures, and plunk em on the drive? That way they'll plug the drive in and have some fun zipping through those and having a few laughs. You could even throw in a folder family photos and give them something unique.
But if you're dead set on giving away apps, I can tell you I'd dig it if somebody took a flash drive and put Portable versions of Chrome, Opera, Firefox, a good mail client, and... well surprise me! I say 'portable' because if I don't have to install them, I'd definitely poke around and try them out.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:5, Insightful)
"nerd ass faggot"
you have a family of cunts.
Re:Let's see: (Score:5, Insightful)
Roms don't have to be illegal, you just have a smaller number to choose from if you are looking for freeware roms.
But it is not like everyone does not already pirate roms, lets face it the consoles and the original games are no longer produced if you wanted to pay money for them you would only be paying some used games store owner not anyone involved in making the game in the first place anyways.
Now you can make a very good argument that the developers of the game deserve your money, but I have yet to hear one for the owner of the used store.
Re:other bits to consider besides software (Score:5, Insightful)
How about a big collection of free music/ebooks/movies/art, etc? Maybe consider putting together a digital slideshow of photos and movies of family and friends, too.
I think you're by far the most insightful in the discussion so far. I have to think that generally speaking, software that is useful (to the recipient) and free (available to the recipient already) is likely to be owned by the recipient. Sending people Firefox or Foxit Reader or 7Zip is pointless because either the don't have any clue how to or why to use it, or they already do. Yes, a generalization, but I suspect that loading up a bunch of software is just going to waste the recipient's time, forcing them to delete it all. On the other hand, MEDIA might be cool. And the time spent checking out Creative Commons (and other sources of) music and so on rewards the sender too. Everyone wins.
Re:Sorta useful suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
yay you put some free apps they could go get anyway.
Most of the trouble of getting good free software is finding it, so I'd say the value of the software part of the gift is mostly as a list of suggestions one can conveniently test out.
Re:Bootable USB (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, there's a great suggestion. Give them Ubuntu, so they can try out Unity, see what a piece of shit it is, and never look at Linux again.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why you give them on CDs or not at all.
And really, this is a pretty self serving gift so it's probably best not given at all.
Re:It's a ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. If the guy was giving away copies of MS Office or Windows 7 or (insert popular game here), these people wouldn't be calling it "religious", but since it's OSS somehow it's different.
Not flash drives or free software (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay, I know some other people have mentioned this - and been voted down for it - but this has to be said: both free software and flash drives are terrible ideas for stocking stuffers on general principles.
Look, there are two reasons for this. The first is that any worthwhile gift has to be about the person you're giving it to. It has to be something THEY will appreciate. And, ideally, it should be something they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. When it comes to holiday shopping, even the friends of mine who are techies I wouldn't give free software or a data stick to. The ones who are into free software likely already have what I'd give them, and the ones who aren't would probably prefer something more non-technical, or more difficult to come by. It doesn't matter if you think it's cool - it's what THEY think.
The second is that, well, the gift should be something out of the ordinary. A flash drive is a basic computer accessory, and free software is, well, FREE. If it was software you created, then it would be worthwhile, as it was something you made. But otherwise, it would be like giving somebody a box of tissues.
If you're looking for gift ideas, be creative and stay away from the free software. If you've got a wine lover, give them a bottle of ice wine; if you've got somebody who loves the cute stuff, an interesting plush toy or the like. And if you absolutely have to give somebody software, make it something you created yourself or something that they would have to go shopping and pay for to get otherwise.
But if you go with flash drives and free software, the only thing you'll end up coming across as is some boring, thoughtless, self-obsessed cheapskate. Believe me, you don't want that.
Re:It's a ridiculous idea (Score:5, Insightful)
> Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool.
Oh bullpoop. The guy is giving out USB sticks. Very handy things for almost anyone to get in their stocking. He just wants to prepopulate em with some helpful stuff.
Yep.
And...these views are compatible. You can think about what different people might want, and put that on their key.
Me, I would start by putting relevant family & friend photos/videos on everyone's USB stick. Even better, I'd make the effort to organize them into slideshow/video presentations, with a soundtrack and transitions. And configure them up to auto-play on the machines of the less-clueful recipients who have not disabled auto-play. :)
Mom will like that for sure. Then maybe Dad would appreciate some good apps/installers (Firefox, VLC, Abiword, etc)...and Bro would appreciate a collection of freeware/shareware/abandonware games (thinking Humble Bundle, other indies, MAME, etc)...and Sis would appreciate a few favorite DVDs, ripped and transcoded to copy straight to her iPad (gifting the DVDs as well, but doing the work for her).
Frankly it sounds like a great idea, if you think about what your family/friends would appreciate besides just another USB stick.
Re:Bootable USB (Score:5, Insightful)
You give family software that works on what they have and know. And you give them what makes sense for that person. Give the uncle that likes to make mediocre movies for youtube a copy of Lightworks for awesome video editing. Commercial software gone open source. Knocks the socks off of the windows home movie maker bullshit he currently uses.
Paint.net for picture editing to your aunt that likes to touch up family photos, maybe.
For the artsy teenager, Blender and Inkscape, if they're not already using them.
For kids, find a good, bright, well-polished game.
For gods sake, don't give anyone a browser or office suite. People hate software that takes over for something they already have. And stick to the well-finished, good looking stuff. The rest (*) just turns them off to the whole idea of anything "free", as if it's inferior.
* gimp style stuff, powerful but ugly as shit with a [perverse | handicap | offensive] name
Re:It's a ridiculous idea (Score:4, Insightful)
No, since it's free software with an ulterior motive. It's one thing to pay for the software and give it away, but giving away free software to promote an ideology is something different.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:5, Insightful)
Your problem is that this is a selfish, smug, self-serving, "gift." It's the nerd equivalent of giving your Baptist neighbors copies of the Quran for Christmas in the hopes that they'll find it to be a learning experience. It's not a gift so much as an attempt to propagate your own ideological beliefs onto others in the way requiring the least actual pedagogy on your part. It's like asking your teacher how to spell a word, and they crassly tell you to look it up in the dictionary. Only worse. Your family aren't even asking. You're just giving them the dictionary and expecting them to have fun looking up words.
Re:Not flash drives or free software (Score:3, Insightful)
1) It's the thought and effort that counts
2) It's a fucking stocking stuffer, not the "big gift from santa"
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:2, Insightful)
"nerd ass faggot"
you have a family of cunts.
You don't get to choose your family.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that the analogy was very apt. Your response to this is exactly the same as the religious zealots who get genuinely suprised when people don't react well to their helpful teachings. "But surely everyone wants to know they are loved by God!"
Like it or not, open source software is as much a philosophy as it is a collection of useful software. It certainly feels to the recipient like you are proselytising even if it seems to the giver as providing useful software. Then you have the big problem for ordinary people that giving away free software as presents is like coming in with plastic bags full of air.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:5, Insightful)
A few years ago, I gave my friends and family gifts like this. They each got a 256 MB USB stick with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org and some other open source software I thought they might find useful. Well, they didn't appreciate it at all.
Right after getting it, one of my nieces threw it back at me, calling it useless, and then she called me a "nerd ass faggot". I found out later that her brothers deleted everything on theirs without even bothering to try them.
My older relatives had no idea at all what they were. Some of them thought they were supposed to put them on their keychains, as decorations!
I'm not sure who, but some of my relatives didn't even bother to bring them home with them after they left the Christmas gathering. I found several of them lying on the floor after everyone had left for the night.
I hoped it would be a learning experience for them, but it was really a learning experience for me. Most people don't give a fuck about open source software. They just don't care. And they surely don't want to receive it as a gift.
the problem is you were trying to give a gift that you liked, not one they liked.
Any normal person would see this. We don't.
This is how far slashdot is disconnected from the real world.
Support (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bootable USB (Score:4, Insightful)
The inconvenient truth is that the FOSS movement doesn't develop good applications. There's an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by committee. And there seems to be something of that in software development. A good app with a good UI requires a visionary designer. And open source projects don't tend to have that, or don't give the authority to that one person to make the decisions.
There's perhaps an exception when there's a single developer who is also a good designer, who starts a project and progresses it singlehandedly to a viable level. But developers who are also good designers are as rare as hens teeth.
Note that the one exception, Inkscape, had such a singular person at it's beginnings (as "Gill") - Raph Levien.
Most FOSS proponents on Slashdot are leeches. They love OSS because it gives them software for nothing. Few of them have ever contributed anything. Far fewer still are those rare individuals that are actually capable of creating good software, and willing to do it for no salary. Maybe a handful out of the millions with Slashdot accounts.
Look at the holy war over Ubuntu - most value the old KDE UI - a Windows rip-off. The new Unity UI us an OSX copy and most users don't like it. After 20 years there's still no good original Linux UI. If the OS UI isn't even good, what chance the apps will be good?