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Too Much Free Software
An anonymous reader writes "The plethora of Free Software applications available today, none working perfectly, is a problem which stands in the way of major adoption of Linux on the desktop. In order to conquer the desktop, we have to stand united. Read the article on Freshmeat."
Like someone said at Digital Illusions: "when 90% of the work is done, 90% remains". Maybe he's not that good at calculus, but he has a point.
It's much more fun to start on a new project, or to add extra features, than to make those existing ones work perfectly.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even if you take into account Hofstadter's Law
Most of the article seemed to be space-filler but one good point I have to agree with is
Sourceforge should start removing projects with less than 1% activity for the last six months (every week, they could propose several projects to be removed, and allow a month for the activity to increase)
I'm sick of so many going-nowhere projects cluttering up the categories. Most were probably a spark of an idea that didn't go anywhere - and never will - because its originator has decided to concentrate their attention elsewhere.
It should be a case of good housekeeping on Sourceforge's behalf if nothing else.
- Welcome the coming of the New World Odour
What we DO need is for the ones that exist to be working properly and have all those useless developers (who are wasting time forking new projects and reinventing the wheel) adding their features to existing projects. It's not about fame and having your name as the author. It's about the world!
Contrary to many users' expectations, for most authors it's not primarily about the world. Free software is about having fun writing what you want to write.
It's kind of gross to come along and find all these end users demanding foo, blah, and blargh.
"We need more integrated software". "Free software authors need to combine GNOME and KDE so that my desktop is nicer". "Blah blah blah me me me". You want that, buy a non-free program. Then you're paying the developers, and can tell them what to do.
Free software is about developers, not users.
May we never see th
(At least that's what I call this.)
:) I can think of several offhand. And let's face it, a lot of people just want to "stick it to Microsoft."
...
The argument that there's "too much choice" (and people make this argument in a lot of domains, not just software) has a certain merit. Choice is difficult; every day we face a series of tradeoffs. In areas with fewer choices, it's sometimes simpler for that reason to actually select one over the others.
However, it seems that this argument also has an underlying assumption that there is a single, common goal which "we" could all achieve if we would only just let emacs and vi have a final, conclusive deathmatch, and if we could make every GUI user draw straws between KDE and GNOME (and WindowMaker and the various *boxes, too, but they'd get fewer straws) so all this unproductive wheel-reinvention strife would go away. If you think there is such a common goal, name it -- I bet good money that counterclaims would pop up to invalidate the claim
The point (in my opinion, and noting that a more important metapoint is that your opinion may be different) is that the best outcome of having a real marketplace of ideas is not the construction of the perfect widget, but rather the constant, distributed reconsideration of what and how to do things. That means churn, and lots of broken eggs.* Maybe in the end you decide you don't even need the widget, because you've found another way to sufficiently increase your happiness by other means that spending your time in widgetland is a bad investment.
If you think there too many choices in the world of software (leaving aside the question of how open the code is for a moment), there are lots of ways to *reduce* your choices without harming anyone else's ability to wade through them. Example one: here are lots of consultants who would love to trade your money, if you have some, for their time and expertise. You can specify what you want the resulting computer setup to do, and your consultant will attempt to create one in a way which a) makes him money yet b) is pleasing enough to you that you recommend him to your friends. Example two: in the free software world specifically, you can download and use any of several (sorry, choice again) of the stripped down distributions designed for efficiency, like Peanut Linux and ignore other things available. If it does *your* job, it does.
Remember, UNIX was (in part) created because Thompson and Ritchie wanted to play a game. So they did it. What if they'd been hampered by a committee with a lot of predetermined goals about "what the world really needs"? Could be that the world would now be perfect thanks to T&R's Famine Reduction Machine, but I think it's more likely that all the cool things their desire to play a game with has led to (including the OS I'm typing from right now) would most likely just not exist.
That said, there are a lot of dead projects on SourceForge which should probably be spidered and marked for death in as non-destructive a way as possible. Like sending out multiple notices to all listed project heads in an attempt to make sure that dead-seeming projects really *are* dead.
timothy
*Eggs are good scrambled, until you create the ommellette which best pleases you, or egg custard, or goldenrod eggs
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Film GIMP(now CinePaint) is NOTHING like Adobe Premiere. Adobe Premiere is a non-linear video editor, CinePaint is a high dynamic range picture editor, basically just the Gimp with 64-bit RGBA color capability. Cinelerra is a non-linear editor, but not quite on par with Premiere IMHO. Kino and kdenlive are promising projects I have yet to use to do that same thing.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Amen. The story totally ignores the way open source works.
If you want a bunch of people to work on one thing until completion, PAY THEM
Which can be to be on an Open Source project. However, the fact remains -- they need to be paid.
This wave of users coming in, demanding a clone of Windows, not really caring about functionality, choice, the ability to see source, and just saying "I want idiot-proof editor! I want idiot-proof file browser! I want idiot-proof web browser! I want GNOME and KDE combined because they sound the same to me and I don't understand their internal structure! All developers should drop everything else and work on that, because that's what I want! Me me me me me!" piss me off.
Most developers are working on their software because it's *fun* for them to write something the way *they* want to write something and try out their own ideas. Maybe learn something. Fulfilling the needs of a whiny end user who doesn't give a damn about anything but "cheap and Windows clone" is really far down on the list. If you submit some code to a project, you're *much* more likely to be listened to.
I mean, seriously. Open source is about developers. It's generally not about users. And this misunderstanding is producing a lot of discontent. "Why are people writing all these stupid command line programs when I want a GUI program!"
Here's the deal. If you want a feature and no one else is doing it, especially if it's been suggested over and over before already (merge GNOME/KDE, clone InstallShield), you're pretty much responsible for doing it yourself. If you can't write code, sorry. Open source developers are not a bunch of little "code fairies" that grant you your every wish. If you write *some* unrelated code for their project (or for other projects), developers are more likely to listen to requests. If your sole contribution to the OSS world is telling everyone on Slashdot that "Linux rules" or whatever, yes, you may get ignored.
Now, do developers sometimes go out of their way to fulfill random end user requests? Sure, especially if they don't take too much work to implement. It *is* a source of pride to be more popular than commercial alternatives. However, it comes down to the fact that users frequently don't seem to understand that they're going up to talented people who are already volunteering their time and (very skilled labor) for particular goals and then trying to tell them what to do.
As for "it's not about getting your name as the author in the credits", that's also false. Lots of people have had fun analyzing open source, because it's a weird social phenomon and in the news a lot. It's a gift-based culture, where you get fame in exchange for your work (in addition to other things). There's a *reason* volunteer OSS people don't like doing plumbing-type work on code. Recognition in exchange for code *is* important to most OSS developers.
Finally, while coding is important to get respect and influence in the OSS world, it's not the only path. Artists are quite scarce, and folks like the free WorldForge project desperately want you. If you're maintaining the website for a project, that's going to grant you some influence in that project and others. If you do translations, that's good too. Not many people translating to Swahili.
But if you just want to play Icewind Dale and don't want to pay anything for your software...well, the Open Source world probably isn't really a place that's going to be all that pleasant for you. Maybe, maybe one day. But not now. BSD and Linux simply don't fit you very well.
May we never see th
Tips for interacting with OSS developers:
* If a developer says he doesn't want to implement something, that's it. Arguing is pretty much certain to not convince him that he wants to implement it, and may tick him off towards you. If the developer isn't the maintainer (and hasn't said "my project will *not* contain this feature", just "I'm not going to write this"), you can try suggesting it to another or (far more likely to get code in) write it yourself.
* Be *nice* to developers. They're smart people that are making good stuff that they're letting you use for free. People that jump on a project mailing list and say "Your program sucks because it doesn't do foo and bar and I'm not going to use it because of that...so your only chance to get me to use it is to add these features" *are* going to be ignored. The author is *not* going to help these people. If an author adds a feature you asked for *thank him*, no matter how trivial it is. The work, had you *paid* to have it done, would have cost a bundle, and the thanks is only another few lines of typing. If you've been using a piece of software for years, and email the mailing list or a developer for the first time, start out with a brief thanks for the software, and compliment them on whatever it is that you really like about it. Volunteer OSS developers aren't getting money, so their only pay is appreciation and the enjoyment of coding. The only pay you have influence over is appreciation. Don't stiff them. In the same vein, do not personally attack open source developers -- "You're stupid because you don't support postgres as your back end". If anything, it just discourages them from making more software. Everyone loses in that case.
* If you have a question, first look at the FAQ, search google, and check the docs. Really. Definitely do not get angry if you just get flamed if you ask a FAQ on a mailing list. You may be able to get away with simply going to the vendor if you're paying money. Then some paid schmoe gets stuck on the support line listening to you. Open Source developers are generally interested in coding, not in doing support. Generally, support is not tons of fun. It also helps only a single person, whereas them writing even one line of code can benefit hundreds of thousands (or millions) of people -- generally not an efficient use of valuable developer time. Don't post to -devel mailing lists in the hope of getting developer attention and faster support. That *definitely* will get you ignored.
* Don't use ultimatums. It doesn't help you, and it pisses *everyone* off. With software you're paying for, you are a customer. You have clout. In most cases, a volunteer open source developer doesn't give a damn whether Joe Blow uses his program or not, especially if Joe Blow wants extensive support. Saying "Change this feature or I'll use MySQL instead of Postgres to the Postgres developers is not going to get you anywhere." Actually, ultimatums are a stupid tactic even in conjuction with paid developers -- look at Larry McVoy constantly getting shit on the Linux mailing list. Regardless of whether you like him or not or want BK to be used, the constant threats to stop using his software just piss him off. If you don't want to use some software, don't.
* If you can code at all, sending in a patch will get you lots of goodwill from developers.
* Never send in bug reports that say "foo crashes" or "foo crashes randomly". You'll get ignored. If you get a segfault, hand in a stack trace (run gdb and then type bt). "Foo crashes randomly" isn't going to help a programmer a whit. If he hasn't seen the symptoms, he's going to consider the possibility that you might have bad hardware or a broken setup. If he *has* seen the symptoms, it doesn't add anything new.
* Most mailing lists are English. This can be hard for non-English speakers, since they may not get the nuances, but be polite. If you're asking for something, use common courtesy. Say "please". Don't lots of exclamation points. Don't use all caps. Don't use "HELP ME!!!" as your subject line -- be descriptive. Indians posting to English mailing lists always seem to come off as quite rude to me, though I assume it's simply a lack of experience with English.
May we never see th
That can't be right. It's like judging programmers on lines of code per month all over again...
Cheers,
Ian
The purpose of Free Software is not to replace Microsoft Windows. Individuals and companies that are involved in Free Software may have that goal, even me, but not the developers of the niche software he criticizes. There is no point in his telling them not to work on another editor. They want to make editors, not MS Windows killers. They are motivated to do for free what they want to do, not what he wants them to do.
Our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. Free Software's strategic marketing paradigm is a massively parallel drunkard's walk filtered by a Darwinistic process. We make gains because we can bypass the failures of a more narrow strategic marketing directon, which would have us work on only one solution to any problem. The problem with one solution is that marketing has no crystal ball, strategic marketers are no more accurate in general than stock-pickers. Their chosen direction is rarely the best. It's better to let coders control their own multiple directions. One of them will get it right.
He also gets into the dreadfully common error of considering window managers to be GUI desktops.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.