FOSS Is Not Free if It's Not Free From Complexity

A reader writes:"This article argues that freedom from complexity is an essential part of the first FOSS freedom - the freedom to run a program. Freedom to run means nothing if the exercise of such right excludes people who do not possess high technical knowledge or advanced skills sets. Without the guarantee of "ease of use", the freedom to run FOSS for most users is a hollow promise. " (My own bias ensues here): I think that there are some valuable points in here; what good is a good if it cannot be used, but OTOH this argument seems simplistic.

Comments

Simplistic?

[Catskul]

The argument is not simplistic, it just has freedom from complexity! : )

Author seems confused.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

1) The author talks about 'complexity', but all software is complex, the number of people who understand the countless abstraction layers that exist in a typical piece of modern software can be counted on one hand (a closed fist). I suspect by complexity, the author means usability

2) Usability is not specifically an F/OSS problem - it is a software problem. There's a lot of crap software out there, that the vast majority of people never see (because it costs money). However, many people do see free / oss as it's (generally) availalbe free of charge.

I do take the authors point that for a user to effectively maintain their freedom, free software must be usable.

Re:Author seems confused.

[PepeGSay]

If GPL'd software isn't complex then how will you make money off it? I mean you can hardly charge for the software (yes legally you can, but we all know what you can really get is peanuts) and everyone recommends charging for services that surround the software.

Complexity, difficulty of use, difficulty of modification, and difficulty of extension are promoted (thought not consciously) by the GPL and other licensing methods because people have determined that support, training, continued access to modifictions, and fee based extensions are how you make money off them.

Re:Author seems confused.

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

My thoughts exactly. Then again, the author uses Openoffice as an example of a simple application -- his definition of simple being similar to Microsoft Office. The logic is ... undeniable.

Re:Author seems confused.

[marcello_dl]

That might be the case for some projects, like JBoss. In the majority of cases anyway I am sure that FOSS projects suffer from lack of documentation or QA because they are the less creative aspects of the project.
And imho even underdocumented stuff is easier to live with than commercial software designed to perpetuate one vendor's marketshare. (shuddering recalling the good old commercial/invasive shareware installation and usage days).

I do not see how creating difficult to use software can make you competitive in the long run. Competition just "gets inspired" by your project, copies some code, adds documentation and eats you alive.

Re:Author seems confused.

[ajs]

This comes up fairly often, but it's always the same song. No one looks at the curve, they just cherry-pick the current items that are usability hurdles. Windows, MacOS, Linux, BSD, etc. They're all "hard to use". The key thing is how quickly their target users can come up to speed and surmount those usability hurdles. The OSS tactic has always been to nail the tech stuff first (because that's our target audience) and let folks like Sun (with their massive contribution to / creation of the Gnome usability effort), Ubuntu, Lindows, Mantiva, etc. work on the usability by mere mortals.

This has resulted in a system which has solid technical underpinnings, and yet has become more and more usable over time.

Today's Linux systems, for example, are far easier to install and use than they were just a few years ago, and that curve continues to improve for the end-user.

Re:Author seems confused.

[mothlos]

1) Complexity of use is definitely complexity here. Like good programmers, a lot of the people working on FOSS are trying to build in flexibility. This means a boatload of options, most of which are cryptic techno-speak for interoperability. Instead of tucking all of the options out of the way of people who won't understand them, much FOSS even requires that you deal with these settings before the software will even work. The author is using complexity from a user perspective, which is a more specific gripe than just complaining about usability, which is broader.

2) I agree that it is a problem with software in general, but FOSS is particularly bad in this regard. Paid software companies that want to have a popular product will hire people who might not be coding experts, but understand usability for their target audience to come in and help create the result. They also end up hiring people who can translate between these folks and the devs so they don't kill each other. One outstanding criticism of FOSS is that most projects exclude those without a coding skillset even if they can bring other skillsets to the table that would improve the project. This means that people who have insights regarding usability often get excluded from influencing development.

I do want to point out that a vast majority of FOSS is just fine because the target audience is very technology savvy folks. The problem here is when FOSS evangalists run around asking why people are still installing Windows when this great other OS is available for free. Even if FOSS were to bridge that last usability gap to the non-technical user, there are other obstacles which bar the way, but this last gap is a requirement for use by the general public.

Isn't this the "Unix Philosophy" anyway?

[metternich]

Do one thing and do it well? Modular archetecture rather than giant monolithic design is why *nix has been successful.

Not again...

[jawtheshark]

While there have been some progress in making the installation and use of FOSS OSes like Ubuntu easier and simpler, they still do not have the "click-click-click" ease of installation of popular proprietary OSes like Windows XP or Mac OS X. In addition, even after one successfully installs a FOSS OS on a computer, a user will typically have to deal with issues like lack of drivers, incompatibility with third party devices or difficulty in installing new programs or software packages

Has this guy ever installed Windows XP on a new bare computer? I don't think so... The first thing I have to do is to go and hunt for the diverse drivers for nearly every device that it has. Graphics, sound, wireless,....
Linux often supports everything out of the box, and what is not supported is, ehm... simply not supported because the specs of the devices are not available and thus the developpers that want to develop the drivers have to resort to reverse-engineering.

Sure, application installation is "harder" in a Linux environment, because it doesn't follow the "double-click-on-that-icon-and-press-next-next-nex t-finish" or even worse "insert-cd-and-automatically-run-a-program-that-mi ght-damage-your-computer" (see Sony Rootkit on Audio CD's...)

If we want it that easy, we have only one way to go, and that is the Apple way: drag an application in the "Application" folder and that is all you got to do for installation. The Windows way is actually not what you want...

ObPython

[Rob T Firefly]

Cut to a sign saying 'How to do it'. Music. Pull out to reveal a 'Blue Peter' type set. Sitting casually on the edge of a dais are three presenters in sweaters - Noel, Jackie and Alan - plus a large bloodhound.
Alan: Hello.
Noel: Hello.
Alan: Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynaecologist. And this week on 'How to do it' we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.
Jackie: Hello, Alan.
Alan: Hello, Jackie.
Jackie: Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again.
Alan: Thanks, Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well here we are. You blow there and you move your fingers up and down here.
Noel: Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we'll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So, until next week, cheerio.
Alan: Bye.
Jackie: Bye.

XP does not require a driver hunt.

[Shivetya]

I have installed a few machines recently and not once did I have to hunt down drivers to have a functional machine.

Now there are cases where there are newer drivers that I could go get should I need them but they are not required.

The big difference between installing Linux versus XP?

If I need drivers they most likely exist for XP.

OMG NO DIGG

[linvir]

A blog entry about Linux being too hard to use? What the hell is this? It's not even well written. At a glance it just looks like a mass of the word FOSS over and over.

When the FOSS community finally releases a FOSS OS that is as easy to install and use as any proprietary OS, users will have no trouble moving to this FOSS OS since the programs they know and love will run on it.

This doesn't even make any sense. How the fuck does the second part follow from the first part?

Users who use and run FOSS programs on Windows do not have to concern themselves with driver issues and other technical mumbo-jumbo.

This is complete bullshit. I can't count the number of times I've had to have people do weird shit like boot a LiveCD just to run lspci, because Windows doesn't support any of their hardware, and can't even retrieve the vendor information hardcoded into it so as they can find their own drivers.

A normal user wants everything to work out-of-the-box. This is especially true in developing countries where a computer costs more than a month's salary.

More bullshit. If you don't have the money, you'll either put the work into learning how to use it as you would with a car, or you'll pirate a copy of Windows, and put the exact same amount of work into learning.

No more blog entries please.

And anyway, there is already a "FOSS OS that is as easy to install and use as any proprietary OS", it's called OpenSUSE. It's the easiest thing I've ever used in my life, though it was bloaty and I eventually got sick of it and came back to Slackware.

sigh...

[kgcurrie]

Math is too hard! Until the mathematicians make it more usable, it will never gain acceptance in the Real World(TM).

Here's my summary of TFA:

"Somebody needs to do everything for me, including all of my thinking."

Move alone everyone. There is nothing to see here.

Re:MOD STORY INSIGHTFUL

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Would you know where to do it in Adobe Photoshop? If you answered: "Yeah, you simply write a file importer plugin" then you'd also know where to do it in the GIMP code.

I always like the whole Photoshop vs GIMP discussion. People take a lot of courses learning Photoshop. Then when you start a discussion that GIMP is a great tool they always complain that it's design isn't intuitive and that Photoshop is "better". Yet they spend hours learning how to use Photoshop. If they spend the same time learning GIMP there wouldn't be a problem.

Re:On the mark

[marcosdumay]

Where is "that easy to use" or "works out of the box" that eveybody says Windows has? I've never been able to see it, and don't know a user that is able to install Windows (not a lot of people) and not able to install an easy Linux distro.

"Works out of the box" is even the worse possible description of Windows, since it is useless out of the box.

Re:Agree on principle.

[WhiteWolf666]

Use SuSE.

Seriously. The SuSE RPM database is excellent, and with online repositories you don't need to carry around CDs.

For example, Snes9x is part of SuSE: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpackages/profe ssional/snes9x.html

Need to get roms?

You can install the easy-to-install Limewire RPM from Limewire's site (installing me "click on the 'download' link", and then press the "Install in YaST" link on the embedded RPM browser that shows up in your web browser. Limewire's icon will show up under the "Internet" category in your KDE menu.

How is this not far easier than on Windows?

All you have to do is go to YaST, search for "SNES", and install it. No hunting out which-is-the-right file, no worrying about stuff you can't install;

It's all managed by RPM, via GUI, and all the packages you could ever want are avaliable. The worst thing you'll ever have to do is learn to add an additional RPM source, and there are step-by-step screenshot guides that show you how to do that. These guides are generally easier to use than the step-by-step guides which show you how to install a wireless router, or a printer (on Windows; printing on SUSE is dead easy).

It's not a problem with FOSS; ease of use is up to the distro makers. I don't expect Gentoo or Slackware to be easy for noobs; that's not why they are there. Use Mandrake or SuSE (especially SuSE). I've converted my relatives to SuSE, and they don't mind a bit.

Freedom isn't free

[The Monster]

People have unrealistic ideas about what 'free' means. It's the speech/beer thing. While sometimes things can be free in both senses, there is often a tradeoff between the two. My Chevy is 'free/open source' in the sense that I can get my oil changed at Jiffy Lube instead of Mr. Goodwrench. Or I can buy some oil, a filter, and the appropriate tools (maybe even a Haynes manual) at O'Reilly Auto Parts, and do it myself.

My Linux boxes are free in the sense that I can hire anyone I want to help me with them, or I can get a book from O'Reilly Media, and do it myself.

Freedom doesn't mean that no effort/expense is required. It only means that the effort won't be artificially impeded.