El Sat, Jul 22, 2006 at 01:29:09AM +1000, Ben Finney deia:
Fortunately, there's an immediate, understandable benefit that comes to every user of free software whether they modify it or not: not that *they personally* can modify the software, but that *anyone* is allowed to.
Yes, the other day I thought of an example while having a nightmare imagining what if I had to install Windows on my laptop and mantain it (must be something bad I ate).
The audience may not be develeopers, but they may, to some extend mantain their own system, better or worse, larger or smaller, with more or less success. With propietary software it is really difficult (well, I don't really know, I don't do that, but I suspect it is). You have different programs and you have to track how to configure each one and where to check for updates or fixes, it's a lot of uncoordinated work. If you use debian, then you simply pick your branch, and regularly update your software at once. If you need to change configuration, you trust it's somewhere in /etc, if you want to know what's installed, etc. you have easy interfaces. And this is not just for one program, but for thousands. Of course this is thanks to the generous efforts of many debian developers, but it is also because they work on free software, that they can adapt to the debian policy, they can bring to harmony with each other and they can integrate. You enjoy a coherent system not because the original programs are magically coherent, but because anyone is free to adapt them to create a coherent distribution. THe original authors made a good program, but that is only so good. They made it free too, and it was great, because it enabled the distribution authors to integrate it for the user's comfort.
One thing that usually impresses is the ease of updating a debian system (not only debian, it's an example), or installing some complex piece of software in one command line or one click. You could show that and compare it to how difficult it would be with different propietary pieces of software. Or you could even compare with how relatively more difficult it would be to build it from pristine sources (or install from pristine binaries) if you could not use the work of the distribution authors.
I'm not sure it is really easy to explain, but I think it is one of the most obvious benefits for users who don't think of modifiying software but find free software easier because of its freedom and the work of others in it. Explain the step between freedom and the resulting ease for users may be more or less easy.
Note: debian is just an example, there are many more distributions and the whole point of having distributions is that they are very convenient for users, compare with just unintegrated freeware or shareware compilations.