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

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pomp-and-circumstance dept.

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.

3 of 523 comments (clear)

  1. Simplistic? by Catskul · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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  2. Author seems confused. by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:Author seems confused. by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.