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Interview With Andreas Pour of KDE
friedmud writes "I just read a great interview over at OPEN for Business. It is with KDE contributor Andreas Pour. He goes over many topics - not only including KDE. My favorite part: 'they are basically saying, if you stop obeying us, we will stop you from viewing the documents you and your friends created. Who are they to say where and when I read my documents? Now I need a monopolist's permission to view my own creations? The audacity is mind-boggling, and that the Justice Department is permitting it is simply astounding.' - Wow"
And the point is, humans have been allowed to patent standardized tools.
"Now I need a monopolist's permission to view my own creations? The audacity is mind-boggling, and that the Justice Department is permitting it is simply astounding."
This is something like patenting keys and locks. Obviously, if Microsoft ever tried to say something like: "No, you can't view your documents", I think the justice department would immediately step in and cry foul, much as if the person who invented the key demanded that all people who owned and used keys for operating locks pay him a surcharge or discontinue their use.
"But I can't get into my house!", people would cry. They'd use the key anyway, and popular demand would win; much the same in the Microsoft case. The point is: someone allowed Microsoft to patent a key and license it, and now they're trying to figure out ways around this.
Hm.
No, read the interview. They have people like YOU to blame as well:
Yours is the most common [place horrible here] that I see on all developer lists. "If you don't solve my problem, I'll use the competing product." Like that's a meaningful threat coming from someone who doesn't pay or contribute...-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Sorry but I have a few problems here.
"Well instead of discussing the usability problems of KDE and the huge installation issues"
What huge installation issues? I've always just followed the direction for my distro and not have any problems. I seem to recall looking at how many packages I had to download to upgrade Gnome not long ago and thinking how happy I was that KDE required like 1/5 as many packages. Every reviewer out their that I have seen has said that one of the few things that makes the transition from Windows to Linux a bit easier is the user friendliness of KDE.
"They have only themselves to blame for there lack of success."
Again what is the basis for this statement? The fact that KDE is the most widely used Linux gui that pretty much every distro has standardized on it? Sounds like sour grapes to me.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
"Well instead of discussing the usability problems of KDE and the huge installation issues, he prefer to just go ahead and blame Microsoft. "
It's a pity, really. Few people here realize that MS's products demonstrate evolved wonderfully evolved usability. Yeah yeah, I know about the stability complaints and all. I'm not talking about productivity, I'm talking about usability. There's lots of things that both Windows and Office do right.
I'll give you an example of what I mean: If you take Internet Explorer, highlight a section of a web page, then paste it into Front Page, all of the HTML remains in tact. So if you're copying and pasting formatted text, you're not losing the formatting in the process. That's a good example of usability because it goes a little farther to give the user what they probably want.
Now, let me be clear about something: I did not say that MS made the right choice there. I'm not saying anything other than Windows/Office demonstrate that usability has been considered. (Note: Do not confuse the word term "considered" with "better than KDE", "best", "perfect", "good", etc...") After using KDE for a bit, it felt clunky... like I had to fight with it. As a matter of fact, I had trouble copying and pasting from a web page. I've heard a few people complain about that. I don't know if it's a problem anymore, nor do I care. It is only an example, please don't take it as KDE bashing. It could use a little more design work.
However, it is possible to be really obnoxious with usability, and MS has demonstrated that a number of times. That copy/paste example I used with IE/FP has serious drawbacks to it. They didn't think it all the way through. I copied/pasted some HTML I found on a website once into the HTML of the page I was working on. (as opposed to pasting it into the WYSIWYG interface...) Unfortunately, it wasn't smart enough to realize that I just wanted the plain-text translation of it, so it pasted the HTML that made the code look all pretty in the page, not the HTML itself I wanted to bring over. I had to paste it into Notepad, then re-copy it. It's 'usability' seriously got in my way. Unfortunately, that happens all too often because I wasnt using FrontPage the way MS assumed I would.
Here lies the problem with MS's forms of usability: They work great, only if you're doing exactly what MS thought you might want to do. This forces you to understand exactly how MS products are working internally, and that is not acceptable. I would love to see KDE take a few cues from MS on usability, but I do NOT want it to take too many of them. You can reach a point where you take a hit on productivity, MS has reached that point a number of times.
"Derp de derp."
To manage the overload, developers to some extent are forced to retreat from direct user interaction, such as on the user mailing lists. You can characterize this pessimistically as paying less attention to users, or more realistically as an appropriate adjustment to changed circumstances.
... but dear God people ... if you're a KDE developer, and you have half the people yelling "Make it more like Windows" and the other half yelling "Make it less like Windows", you'd get pissed off to. It's like this in all OSS projects. Who else cheers for Branden when he flames some jerk off that wants XFree4.2 in Debian "just because"?
... "Is it me, or are these people getting stupider?"
I'm glad they retreat. I think there's more to this than simple overload - I think alot of OSS devs are probably sick of backseat drivers trying to dictate features and direction of something they're doing for free anyway. The more OSS project mailing lists and forums I read, the more I am glad that developers choose to ignore more and more user requests. Everyone is quick to point out how "developers don't know what users need" and how "difficult" certain OSS developers are when dealing with users.
I for one am glad when developers choose to ignore some users and just go away and code. If you're ever bored, go check out the INVALID or WONTFIX bugs in Mozilla, for example. I swear, the next moron that wants mozilla to render ALT tags as popups, or ask for colored scrollbars should get drawn and quartered. We're screaming for standards and these guys think its their right to dictate what Mozilla should be doing.
We, as users, should take a step back and trust the developers for a bit. There are certain things in KDE that I feel are totally wrong, and there are certain things in there that I'm glad someone figured out for me. There's nothing wrong with giving constructive criticism
Mayor Quimby said it best when the citizens wanted a Bear patrol but wouldn't accept higher taxes
There once was a channel called #FreeBSD on Efnet. A powerful FreeBSD Core developer, Mike Smith, used to reside there. One day an annoying troll entered the channel and pissed off Mike Smith and left. Mike Smith took it in stride and blocked his subnet from ever accessing FreeBSD's CVS repository again. It was quite hilarious (a true story, I would provide the logs if I could remember the date). The moral of the story, don't piss off developers.. they have more power than you think.
Viewed in this light, FS / OS desktops present a perfect match for Government investment. Free desktops provide a boundless, publically-available resource which results not only in large financial savings to its citizens, but also protects and enhances citizen privacy, freedom and choice. Moreover, because Government investment in free software development can be made locally, such support stimulates the nation's or locality's technology sector. In the longer-term view, such investment eventually operates to sizably reduce the outflow of hard currency to other countries, something especially critical for developing nations but also a factor no Government cannot seriously consider. What responsible Government would prefer its citizens pay a large international tax to a foreign corporation over creating high-tech jobs in its local economy?
Folks, this meme has been in the Free Software community from the earliest days of the FSF. Just read some of RMS's early essays and you'll see the same ideas. It's bunk. They just want us to exchange a private monopoly for a government monopoly. Private monopolies can be defeated when customers become so disatisfied that they choose alternatives. Private monopolies can be defunded because when customers stop buying they lose money. Public monopolies are much harder to defeat because they just confiscate money in the form of taxes. Almost all products produced by governments are inferior. This long-winded interview is just loaded with Leftist scare tactics. MSFT is not capable of preventing you from viewing your own creations unless you are stupid enough to let them. Don't let the government take care of you--do it yourself. You'll be much better off in the long run.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
GUI manager developers seem to get even more religious.I am not particularly interested in a merger between GNOME and KDE but I do want their developers trying to use the best of the opposition to improve their products. Remember, one of the intentions of the open source movement is promote knowledge sharing not monopolies of the way of doing something.
This gentleman refers to them by their stock ticker symbol, MSFT. The "use Open Source" solution is a threat to the great Ponzi scheme. Personally, I have worked in developing countries and can say sure, we give them a World Bank loan for a hundred copies of XP, but where are they going to money for their licence renewals/update fees?
Government led OS initiatives do not mean a Government monopoly. The Govt is a useful first-mover and because of open-source, anyone can compete for the provision of support services, even local companies in developing countries.