If Free Software developers don't owe desktop end-users anything, I can't for the life of me see why corporations or the public sector owes it to Free Software to install GPL'ed stuff on their machines.
Owing is a two-way street. I figure it's about time we started paving the other side.
The instant you people starting screaming "Free Software is perfectly ready for the desktop" and the instant you started demanding that the public sector replace their desktops with whatever you were making, you lost the right to say "don't blame me, I'm just a volunteer." When you force software on someone, you earn an obligation to make that software work for that person.
And by the way, don't bother responding to this post unless you have the balls to call yourself something other than "Anonymous Coward".
No. We need the Free Software people to take their heads out of their asses and actually make something resembling an honest attempt at making their software usable.
For something that will slash government and school software costs, it's astonishing how much resistance we face
First of all, Linux costs more than windows or mac. The true cost of software is the cost of stuff it prevents you from doing. Or perhaps a better way of putting it, the real value of a piece of software is the total value of the work you can do with it. Right now, someone will be able to get far more work done with a non-Free Software piece of software.
In regards to the resistance, you people have called end users stupid for 30 years. You have repeatedly told them to shut up and read the fine manual. And you have been utterly incredulous when they complain the software is to hard to use. And then you tell them to quit whining about that which they are getting for free. Gee, wonder why there's resistance?
Free Software people have never recognized the Freedom To Get Stuff Done With a Minimum of Fuss as a valid freedom, and no end user wants to be deprived of that freedom even more than they already have been by Microsoft.
I suggest taking all that advocacy that is directed towards the public sector and corporations and redirecting it squarely at the Free Software developers who have repeatedly shirked their duty to make usable products. It's time to turn your guns on your own developers, because those are the people who are holding you back.
I think too often the linux geeks equate "wanting basic, competant UI design where ideas are expressed in a consistant graphical manner and relatively free of weird command-line influences" with "wanting it to act like windows".
For example, a month or two ago I talked with a person who ran a windows-to-linux desktop migration business about the problem of KDE using the word "directory" instead of the word "folder".
As much as I tried to explain the need to match metaphor with terminology, as much as I tried to explain the need to avoid system-oriented jargon, this person still accused me of "wanting it to act like windows."
Really, one of the biggest problems with linux on the desktop is that it's full of traditionalist unix geeks who do not know the first thing about creating a usable and consistent graphical desktop, and then when non-geeks have trouble using it, the linux geeks try to pin the problems caused by their incompetance on the "Bill Gates Boogeyman".
Actually, I take back what I said about the consistency of Linux desktops; in the battle for the desktop, the linux geeks have been consistently been their own worst enemy.
Bruce, if you are truly an advocate for linux on the desktop and pushing it onto the machines of non-geeks, why, when you were Debian project leader, didn't you make a serious push for Debian to have a graphical installer? Why didn't you speak out against some of the elitist attitudes that kept this distribution the crowning example of linux's hostility and contempt for people without computer science degrees?
In my opinion, if the founding techies of linux who never really cared about making their software usable for Aunt Tillie all of a sudden scream that Linux Is Perfectly Ready For The Desktop and try to force it on the public sector, then they need to answer for their previous apathy and inaction.
The reason why Open Source user interfaces are so bad is because the entire Open Source movement is engineer-centric, and most engineers (especially Open Source ones) are incredibly clueless when it comes to understanding and being empathic with the non-technical users who are using their software.
For years people in the HCI field been screaming at open source engineers to design the UI before the code is written, because there are things that pop up in the UI design process that have lower-level ramifications that engineers don't usually consider when they go the code-first approach. If these issues aren't taken care of immediately and much code is written, the engineers will be loathe to change something just because it makes the software more usable, and the result is that you've got usability problems that take years to fix (if they ever are).
The response we typically get when we tell the engineers they need to come up with the user interaction before major code is written: "You obviously don't understand the Open Source method".
While I am all for OSS, I fail to see how giving engineers even more power will make the situation any better.
They don't have the capital to piss away to maintain market share.
Red Hat had the capital...but instead they just chose to spend $700 million of it on a compiler company and some questionable dot coms.
Setting aside a fraction of that $700 million to continue to provide an easy way for consumers to get their distribution from retail channels would have been the strategically correct thing to do. But then again, that would be acting like a desktop software company (as opposed to the server software company Red Hat has traditionally been).
An interesting story about resumes and innovation
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In a real company, they would be tossed out the door.
A while back, I came across this article that really put into perspective how successful the *real* companies are at making computer products. Look towards the end of the article for the really good part.
The jist of it is that Mitch Kapor, after Lotus became wildly successful and turned into a "real company", did an experiment and submitted the resumes of the first 40 people who started Lotus (including Kapor himself) to the hiring department (I assumed they changed the names but keeping the characteristics of the CV's). Not a single one of the people responsable for the original innovation that made all the money ever received any kind of response.
They don't have some mystical right to demand features/upgrades just beacuse the software is open.
If end users don't have a right to usable software that allows them to get stuff done efficiently, effectively, and with a minimum of fuss, then perhaps OSS really doesn't have a right to be on any public sector machine that sits outside a server closet.
If OSS will not earn the right to be in the public sector, then we should demand that all the lobbying done by OSS people to immediately stop.
When I used to be Dan on my powerbook five seconds ago, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't get my e-mail from work, I could only browse the net at 56k, and all my Brittney Spears mp3's would play back in Swedish.
Then I got Apple's fast user switching.
Now I'm named Barbara. I can browse the internet using bluetooth, I've got access to corporate VPN's Dan never did, I've got a Hello Kitty background on my desktop, and everyone in the chat room thinks I don't have a penis. This just rocks!
My name is Dan..er..Barbara Wickowski, and I'm an insurance salema..er..saleswoman.
As an owner of a 12" powerbook, I'd have to say the real culprit for the heat is the fact that the case (at least part of it) is made from the same metal that's used in great abundance in really nice cookware. Aluminum is a wonderful conductor of heat.
One of the things I like about the 12" powerbook is Apple's unintended Icy Hot (tm) effect: after an hour of intense typing, it kind of feels soothing to rest my wrists on the area below the keyboard that gets really warm.
I've used staroffice on the linux desktop. The fonts were rendered rather badly. It made the document difficult to read. I can perfectly understand why people were screaming about having to use StarOffice.
If a KDE or GNOME program running on linux has a dialog where there are radio buttons laid out in a confusing or ambiguous way using system-oriented jargon, and a counterpart Windows/MacOS program does not have this bad design, is the reason why people are afraid of using the linux *really* because "they are used to Windows/MacOS"?
Perhaps the problem is not that the target market for linux on the desktop is "used to windows" but that the current linux developer and user community are used to bad, inconsistent, and generally confusing design and are all to eager to yell "quit whining about what you get for free." And when no one wants to use their stuff, they try to pin the blame on Windows' desktop dominance.
I don't think the problem will get better until the traditionalist unix culture that has been so incredulous and apathetic about usability issues has been removed from all efforts to put linux on the desktop.
The problem isn't that some people don't want to learn; the problem is that some people haven't been taught a lesson.
If we wanted a reality distortion field, we'd go to GU4DEC. If you want see a bunch of people practicing BS that keeps microsoft's dominance afloat, you couldn't find a better place than GU4DEC.
The whole "we're getting there" crap gets really tiresome after seeing the same usability problems creep up again and again for year after year after year. But what should we expect from a bunch of command-line nerds who think that they can do desktop stuff.
Clearly, this is the type of thinking that keeps Microsoft in the top spot, keeps IE dominating the web in the face of superior free alternatives
Or perhaps the free alternatives are crap, and the desktop linux developers have way too many apologists running around artificially inflating the quality of those alternatives. And when the true quality of those apps is brought into question by a non-geek who has trouble doing something, those linux developers start screaming "quit whining about what you're getting for free". If I had to pick the number one thing that was really keeping microsoft dominant on the desktop, I would have to say it would have to be Free Software's obvious non-commitment to usability.
The freedom to get your work done easily and with a minimum of fuss is the most valuable and sacred freedom an end-user can have, and currently the "Free" software developer community does not recognize the existence of this freedom. The GPL is a programmer's idea of freedom, not an end user's. "Join us all and share the software. You'll be free -- once you read the fine manual".
What's the reason for such staunch pro-apple/pro-mac beliefs?
Apple put a GUI on their machines while the PC's forced people to use confusing command-line crap like DOS.
Apple was the first company to put trackballs in their laptops while other laptop makers forced users to clip a trackball onto the side of laptop every damn time they turned the thing on. Apple also created the first laptop that actually had a generous portion of real-estate behind the keyboard where a user could rest their hands. It was only later that the other vendors starting aping this feature.
Apple was the first computer maker to truly embrace the more usable usb and firewire back when other computer makers stayed in their happy, crappy comfort zones of serial and parallel connectors. If Apple didn't force the USB/Firewire migration issue with the perhipheral harware companies in 1997 with the iMac, it would have taken several more years for the "alternative vendors" to even begin that migration themselves.
Apple was the first company to truly make an easy, usable, and integrated alternative to illegally swapping mp3's on Kazaa. It will probably hit some snag and will be replaced by something better, but the point is that Apple had the wherewithall to do it.
The poing is that Apple has the balls to make the computing experience better for everyone while other vendors like Gateway, Dell, and Compaq choose to sit on their ass and do nothing. I agree that liking a company just because they make pretty cases is ridiculous; it is the attention and care paid to the user experience which truly builds loyaltly.
Yes, the code for Cocoa and Quartz is closed. It would be nice if it were open, but given the shennanigans that are GNOME, KDE, and the X-Windows system, the current batch of Free Software developers have shown that they could never be trusted with it. Leave them with the code for Cocoa for five minutes, and they'd immediately start to make things inconsistent and unusable.
Ideally, I'd like to see those mac values transplated into efforts to make open and viable alternatives to microsoft. If we could just find a way to remove the current batch of linux developers and replace them with competant mac developers, then an open desktop would truly be in business.
If a KDE or GNOME program running on linux has a dialog where there are radio buttons laid out in a confusing or ambiguous way using system-oriented jargon, and a counterpart Windows/MacOS program does not have this bad design, is the reason why people are afraid of using the linux *really* because "they are used to Windows/MacOS"?
Perhaps the problem is not that the target market for linux on the desktop is "used to windows" but that the current linux developer and user community are used to bad, inconsistent, and generally confusing design and are all to eager to yell "quit whining about what you get for free." And when no one wants to use their stuff, they try to pin the blame on Windows' desktop dominance.
I don't think the problem will get better until the traditionalist unix culture that has been so incredulous and apathetic about usability issues has been removed from all efforts to put linux on the desktop.
The problem isn't that some people don't want to learn; the problem is that some people haven't been taught a lesson.
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If Free Software developers don't owe desktop end-users anything, I can't for the life of me see why corporations or the public sector owes it to Free Software to install GPL'ed stuff on their machines.
Owing is a two-way street. I figure it's about time we started paving the other side.
The instant you people starting screaming "Free Software is perfectly ready for the desktop" and the instant you started demanding that the public sector replace their desktops with whatever you were making, you lost the right to say "don't blame me, I'm just a volunteer." When you force software on someone, you earn an obligation to make that software work for that person.
And by the way, don't bother responding to this post unless you have the balls to call yourself something other than "Anonymous Coward".
No. We need the Free Software people to take their heads out of their asses and actually make something resembling an honest attempt at making their software usable.
For something that will slash government and school software costs, it's astonishing how much resistance we face
First of all, Linux costs more than windows or mac. The true cost of software is the cost of stuff it prevents you from doing. Or perhaps a better way of putting it, the real value of a piece of software is the total value of the work you can do with it. Right now, someone will be able to get far more work done with a non-Free Software piece of software.
In regards to the resistance, you people have called end users stupid for 30 years. You have repeatedly told them to shut up and read the fine manual. And you have been utterly incredulous when they complain the software is to hard to use. And then you tell them to quit whining about that which they are getting for free. Gee, wonder why there's resistance?
Free Software people have never recognized the Freedom To Get Stuff Done With a Minimum of Fuss as a valid freedom, and no end user wants to be deprived of that freedom even more than they already have been by Microsoft.
I suggest taking all that advocacy that is directed towards the public sector and corporations and redirecting it squarely at the Free Software developers who have repeatedly shirked their duty to make usable products. It's time to turn your guns on your own developers, because those are the people who are holding you back.
I think too often the linux geeks equate "wanting basic, competant UI design where ideas are expressed in a consistant graphical manner and relatively free of weird command-line influences" with "wanting it to act like windows".
For example, a month or two ago I talked with a person who ran a windows-to-linux desktop migration business about the problem of KDE using the word "directory" instead of the word "folder".
As much as I tried to explain the need to match metaphor with terminology, as much as I tried to explain the need to avoid system-oriented jargon, this person still accused me of "wanting it to act like windows."
Really, one of the biggest problems with linux on the desktop is that it's full of traditionalist unix geeks who do not know the first thing about creating a usable and consistent graphical desktop, and then when non-geeks have trouble using it, the linux geeks try to pin the problems caused by their incompetance on the "Bill Gates Boogeyman".
Actually, I take back what I said about the consistency of Linux desktops; in the battle for the desktop, the linux geeks have been consistently been their own worst enemy.
Bruce, if you are truly an advocate for linux on the desktop and pushing it onto the machines of non-geeks, why, when you were Debian project leader, didn't you make a serious push for Debian to have a graphical installer? Why didn't you speak out against some of the elitist attitudes that kept this distribution the crowning example of linux's hostility and contempt for people without computer science degrees?
In my opinion, if the founding techies of linux who never really cared about making their software usable for Aunt Tillie all of a sudden scream that Linux Is Perfectly Ready For The Desktop and try to force it on the public sector, then they need to answer for their previous apathy and inaction.
The reason why Open Source user interfaces are so bad is because the entire Open Source movement is engineer-centric, and most engineers (especially Open Source ones) are incredibly clueless when it comes to understanding and being empathic with the non-technical users who are using their software.
For years people in the HCI field been screaming at open source engineers to design the UI before the code is written, because there are things that pop up in the UI design process that have lower-level ramifications that engineers don't usually consider when they go the code-first approach. If these issues aren't taken care of immediately and much code is written, the engineers will be loathe to change something just because it makes the software more usable, and the result is that you've got usability problems that take years to fix (if they ever are).
The response we typically get when we tell the engineers they need to come up with the user interaction before major code is written: "You obviously don't understand the Open Source method".
While I am all for OSS, I fail to see how giving engineers even more power will make the situation any better.
It won't be available once Congress extends the Sonny Bono Copyright Act to 800 years after the author's death.
I think we should embarrass open source developers into making their desktop software usable.
They don't have the capital to piss away to maintain market share.
Red Hat had the capital...but instead they just chose to spend $700 million of it on a compiler company and some questionable dot coms.
Setting aside a fraction of that $700 million to continue to provide an easy way for consumers to get their distribution from retail channels would have been the strategically correct thing to do. But then again, that would be acting like a desktop software company (as opposed to the server software company Red Hat has traditionally been).
In a real company, they would be tossed out the door.
A while back, I came across this article that really put into perspective how successful the *real* companies are at making computer products. Look towards the end of the article for the really good part.
The jist of it is that Mitch Kapor, after Lotus became wildly successful and turned into a "real company", did an experiment and submitted the resumes of the first 40 people who started Lotus (including Kapor himself) to the hiring department (I assumed they changed the names but keeping the characteristics of the CV's). Not a single one of the people responsable for the original innovation that made all the money ever received any kind of response.
then how does installing more microsoft software fall under improving homeland security?
We will further increase our ability to beat any terrorist at solitaire.
And it would explain why the monkey version of Hamlet has talking paperclips unexpectedly popping up in scenes for no good reason.
They don't have some mystical right to demand features/upgrades just beacuse the software is open.
If end users don't have a right to usable software that allows them to get stuff done efficiently, effectively, and with a minimum of fuss, then perhaps OSS really doesn't have a right to be on any public sector machine that sits outside a server closet.
If OSS will not earn the right to be in the public sector, then we should demand that all the lobbying done by OSS people to immediately stop.
(Cue cheesy balalaika music)
When I used to be Dan on my powerbook five seconds ago, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't get my e-mail from work, I could only browse the net at 56k, and all my Brittney Spears mp3's would play back in Swedish.
Then I got Apple's fast user switching.
Now I'm named Barbara. I can browse the internet using bluetooth, I've got access to corporate VPN's Dan never did, I've got a Hello Kitty background on my desktop, and everyone in the chat room thinks I don't have a penis. This just rocks!
My name is Dan..er..Barbara Wickowski, and I'm an insurance salema..er..saleswoman.
Why the fuck would someone want to tear apart an umpteen thousand dollar toy and, in the process, make it even more useless?
Because it puts us one step further towards the dream of robots that drink alcohol and steal things.
As an owner of a 12" powerbook, I'd have to say the real culprit for the heat is the fact that the case (at least part of it) is made from the same metal that's used in great abundance in really nice cookware. Aluminum is a wonderful conductor of heat.
One of the things I like about the 12" powerbook is Apple's unintended Icy Hot (tm) effect: after an hour of intense typing, it kind of feels soothing to rest my wrists on the area below the keyboard that gets really warm.
.NET proves without a doubt that it is possible for an entire industry to fake an orgasm.
I can't wait till it has speech recognition. I'd love to say "Go Go Gadget Commute-map!" in heavy traffic.
I've used staroffice on the linux desktop. The fonts were rendered rather badly. It made the document difficult to read. I can perfectly understand why people were screaming about having to use StarOffice.
If a KDE or GNOME program running on linux has a dialog where there are radio buttons laid out in a confusing or ambiguous way using system-oriented jargon, and a counterpart Windows/MacOS program does not have this bad design, is the reason why people are afraid of using the linux *really* because "they are used to Windows/MacOS"?
Perhaps the problem is not that the target market for linux on the desktop is "used to windows" but that the current linux developer and user community are used to bad, inconsistent, and generally confusing design and are all to eager to yell "quit whining about what you get for free." And when no one wants to use their stuff, they try to pin the blame on Windows' desktop dominance.
I don't think the problem will get better until the traditionalist unix culture that has been so incredulous and apathetic about usability issues has been removed from all efforts to put linux on the desktop.
The problem isn't that some people don't want to learn; the problem is that some people haven't been taught a lesson.
If you hold your laptop up to a mirror and read the article, you'll get a really cool story about a micrsoft watch that stops and runs TOPS.
But there's just no style
Initially, yes. But the cursed iMummy you can buy to go with it is really slick.
Gecko may be dead as to KHTML as you say, but one could not have guessed this when Mozilla started.
Actually, after reading this in jwz's blog, I'd have to say it was pretty damn easy to guess what would happen to Mozilla when it first started out.
My digital watch is actually quite simple. It only shows hexegrams, judgements of king wen, and any time past 6:31 PM is a Suffusion Of Yellow.
If we wanted a reality distortion field, we'd go to GU4DEC. If you want see a bunch of people practicing BS that keeps microsoft's dominance afloat, you couldn't find a better place than GU4DEC.
The whole "we're getting there" crap gets really tiresome after seeing the same usability problems creep up again and again for year after year after year. But what should we expect from a bunch of command-line nerds who think that they can do desktop stuff.
Clearly, this is the type of thinking that keeps Microsoft in the top spot, keeps IE dominating the web in the face of superior free alternatives
Or perhaps the free alternatives are crap, and the desktop linux developers have way too many apologists running around artificially inflating the quality of those alternatives. And when the true quality of those apps is brought into question by a non-geek who has trouble doing something, those linux developers start screaming "quit whining about what you're getting for free". If I had to pick the number one thing that was really keeping microsoft dominant on the desktop, I would have to say it would have to be Free Software's obvious non-commitment to usability.
The freedom to get your work done easily and with a minimum of fuss is the most valuable and sacred freedom an end-user can have, and currently the "Free" software developer community does not recognize the existence of this freedom. The GPL is a programmer's idea of freedom, not an end user's. "Join us all and share the software. You'll be free -- once you read the fine manual".
What's the reason for such staunch pro-apple/pro-mac beliefs?
Apple put a GUI on their machines while the PC's forced people to use confusing command-line crap like DOS.
Apple was the first company to put trackballs in their laptops while other laptop makers forced users to clip a trackball onto the side of laptop every damn time they turned the thing on. Apple also created the first laptop that actually had a generous portion of real-estate behind the keyboard where a user could rest their hands. It was only later that the other vendors starting aping this feature.
Apple was the first computer maker to truly embrace the more usable usb and firewire back when other computer makers stayed in their happy, crappy comfort zones of serial and parallel connectors. If Apple didn't force the USB/Firewire migration issue with the perhipheral harware companies in 1997 with the iMac, it would have taken several more years for the "alternative vendors" to even begin that migration themselves.
Apple was the first company to truly make an easy, usable, and integrated alternative to illegally swapping mp3's on Kazaa. It will probably hit some snag and will be replaced by something better, but the point is that Apple had the wherewithall to do it.
The poing is that Apple has the balls to make the computing experience better for everyone while other vendors like Gateway, Dell, and Compaq choose to sit on their ass and do nothing. I agree that liking a company just because they make pretty cases is ridiculous; it is the attention and care paid to the user experience which truly builds loyaltly.
Yes, the code for Cocoa and Quartz is closed. It would be nice if it were open, but given the shennanigans that are GNOME, KDE, and the X-Windows system, the current batch of Free Software developers have shown that they could never be trusted with it. Leave them with the code for Cocoa for five minutes, and they'd immediately start to make things inconsistent and unusable.
Ideally, I'd like to see those mac values transplated into efforts to make open and viable alternatives to microsoft. If we could just find a way to remove the current batch of linux developers and replace them with competant mac developers, then an open desktop would truly be in business.
But the KFC kernel is proprietary and closed: it's made with a secret blend of eleven herbs and spices.
If a KDE or GNOME program running on linux has a dialog where there are radio buttons laid out in a confusing or ambiguous way using system-oriented jargon, and a counterpart Windows/MacOS program does not have this bad design, is the reason why people are afraid of using the linux *really* because "they are used to Windows/MacOS"?
Perhaps the problem is not that the target market for linux on the desktop is "used to windows" but that the current linux developer and user community are used to bad, inconsistent, and generally confusing design and are all to eager to yell "quit whining about what you get for free." And when no one wants to use their stuff, they try to pin the blame on Windows' desktop dominance.
I don't think the problem will get better until the traditionalist unix culture that has been so incredulous and apathetic about usability issues has been removed from all efforts to put linux on the desktop.
The problem isn't that some people don't want to learn; the problem is that some people haven't been taught a lesson.