Then do you expect me to create 16 different packages for 16 different Linux distributions, as opposed to a single installer that works anywhere? Where am I suppose to get that man power from?
Yes, there's the LSB. But suppose that you're a Debian user. Will you accept it if I only provide LSB RPMs?
I've been using Linux for about 8 years now. I've been involved in the Linux developer community in those 8 years. I want to see Linux succeed on the desktop, not only because I like it, but also because for personal gain: I want to be able to use more hardware, hardware which are currently not supported on Linux.
I know the "year of Linux" thing is a running joke. My point is that I'm saddened that it has become a joke and nobody takes it seriously. It shouldn't be a joke. It shouldn't be something that people make fun of. It should be reality. Until this is reality, there is a whole range of hardware that I can't use because they're not supported on Linux.
As a developer, I tried whatever I can to stimulate desktop adoption. I did that by writing usable software with good usability, software intended to solve problems that stand in the way of desktop adoption. My point is that although such developers and software exists, the community doesn't actively embrace them, and even try to oppose them, as if desktop adoption is not a worthy goal.
You are correct. But the thing is this. If an independent software vendor is to create a desktop software package for Linux, then he has the following choices when it comes to distribution: 1. Create a package for Debian. Create another one for Ubuntu if the Debian one doesn't work on Ubuntu. Create another package for RedHat-based distributions. Create another one for SuSE. Create another one for Mandriva. Create another one for Slackware. Create another one for Gentoo. Etcetera. -OR- 2. Create an installer which works on all of those distributions. -OR- 3. Create a package for only a single Linux distribution, and screw all the others.
(1) takes a massive amount of man power, man power that may not be affordable or available. (3) will piss off a lot of users. (2) is therefore a logical and practical choice.
Given that (2) is chosen, the installer must have a place to install its files to. Not only application binaries, but also libraries, menu items, file associations, etc. Now we have arrived at the following issue: in what place should these files be put? There are multiple locations where they may be put. There are standards, documented on Freedesktop.org (a community where Linux desktop environment developers gather to agree on standards), which dictate where things should as menu items and file associations may be put.
According to standards, a third party software installer should install its files to places inside the folder/usr/local. However, this poses a problem: things like menu items and file associations installed to/usr/local don't work properly on many distributions. They just don't show up. According to the standards, they *should* show up, but Linux distributions don't care and don't make it work, despite going against such standards. The reason why your menus work is probably because you're only using distribution-packaged software at this moment. But suppose that Adobe one day releases Photoshop for Linux and you're a photographer and absolutely needs Photoshop, or that Blizzard one day releases World of Warcraft for Linux and you're a huge WoW fan, and both companies chose to provide an installer instead of 16 different packages for 16 different Linux distributions, then their installers are likely to install files into/usr/local.
Indeed,/usr/local is not something that the end user must be concerned with. The problem is, at the moment, they *have* to be concerned with it (even though they shouldn't), because/usr/local support on many Linux distributions is broken (even though it should work). If the hypothetical Photoshop installer installs into/usr/local, then you are going to wonder why the Photoshop menu items don't show up. The answer is because you might be using a Linux distribution on which/usr/local support is broken. It shouldn't be broken, it should just work so that you, the user, don't have to think about it. But right now, you *have* to think about it because it doesn't work as it should.
And distributions are unwilling to fix this. My point was that people are either unaware of these problems, don't care, or don't want to fix it. It is this that I want to highlight. It is going to hurt Linux desktop adoption if third party installers don't work well because parts of the distribution are broken.
At this point, you might be saying, "yeah but that's only true for closed source software". I hope you accept the axiom that a healthy balance between open source and closed source software - preferably one where open source has the largest market share - is important for Linux desktop adoption. For some things, there just are no good open source alternatives. Photoshop is the most frequently heard complaint. Or, in my case, I want to have wireless mobile Internet, but my phone company (who sells wireless Internet subscriptions) don't provide Linux drivers for the USB modem that I need for wireless mobile Inter
"The post started badly as many Linux users don't care if it becomes an important player or not, or what the market share is. It works for *us* and that's what we care about."
The problem is, not being an important player has negative consequences. For example, a telephone company in my country sells wireless Internet subscriptions for laptops. I want to use this. But they only provide drivers for OS X and Windows, and a Google search revealed no (not *any*) drivers for Linux. I like Linux. I want to use Linux. I don't want to reboot to Windows just to use wireless Internet. The fact that Linux is not an important player on the desktop market is hurting me.
But that's not the problem. The problem is that GNOME and KDE on many distributions *aren't* LSB/FreeDesktop.org compliant./usr/local is in the default menu item search path, according to the FreeDesktop.org menu item standard. Apparently distributions are violating that, and don't care that they are in violation of the standard. ~/.local/share/applications is in a similar predicament, there are distros out there that don't support it properly.
The point of my post isn't to ask whether there are other technological solutions. It's to highlight a political problem, the problem of community members not recognizing that there is a desktop adoption problem, or the unwillingness to solve it.
Are you asking why third party applications shouldn't be installed to/usr?
Well, write an installer that installs to/usr. Announce it on various Linux forums. People will burn you alive for installing to/usr. They will claim that your installer might overwrite system files and cripple the system, and will try to actively oppose you by telling others not to use your installer.
If that wasn't your question, then I didn't understand it, and I ask you to explain your question in more detail if that's the case.
"How is this modded troll?" That's what I want to know too. I sincerely want Linux to succeed on the desktop. All of my claims are based on verifiable facts. If you need proof that people make fun of Linux with "THIS is the year of Linux on the desktop", then just browse a few Linux Slashdot articles. If you need proof that distributions and Linux community members are opposing, then just browse the relevant mailing lists.
But will it become an important player on the desktop? I'm using Linux on my laptop every day, and I think it's great. But sadly, desktop Linux has a very small market share these days. In fact desktop Linux is something that people make fun of. Every time something positive about Linux adoption is posted, people respond with "Last year desktop Linux failed, but THIS year is the year of Linux on the desktop... really!!111"
People on Slashdot, OSNews and many other places are always criticizing Linux for not being desktop friendly. But sadly, it seems that the Linux community isn't exactly helping. There are developers who are clearly interested in making Linux a viable desktop platform, for both users and developers. For example, the Autopackage project has tried for quite some time now to convince distributions to support/usr/local. Yes you read that right: to support/usr/local, a very basic prefix that everybody expects to work, but practice doesn't! The problems with/usr/local includes: - Menu item files installed to/usr/local are not recognized by GNOME and KDE by default. A lot of distributions refuse to add/usr/local to the default search path for menu items. - File associations: ditto. - A bunch of other problems that I don't remember from the top of my head, most of them related to not being included in the default search path.
Working menu items and file associations are among the basic things required for desktop adoption, are they not? Not having them in the default search path prevents third party software installation to work properly. I'm sure nobody wants to install third party applications to/usr just to make menu items work, right?
What do you mean, "even Linux server"? How about "even every single computer in the world"?
Whoemever told you that Linux, Windows, OS X, OpenBSD or whatever is 100% invulnerable to authorized accesses is either ignorant or lying. Nothing is perfect, and there is no reason why Linux advocates should deny that fact. Saying "haha, look, Linux IS insecure after all!!!!1111" is not any more useful than "haha, look, you're a human being and you made a mistake after all!".
As for viruses, this compromise has got nothing to do with viruses. Your statement is still blank and meaningless.
1. I found it pretty easy. Most Boost libraries are header-only so you only need to put the relevant header files in your project, adjust your header search path, and you're done. 2. Your example hasn't got much to do with C++, and everything to do with static vs dynamic typed languages. The C++ version will be about the same size as the Java and C# versions. 3. Uhm sorry, "real garbage collector" and "Python"? You do know that Python uses reference counting, right? Just like shared_ptr and weak_ptr. shared_ptr is really nice; I've been using shared_ptr for a while now and most of the time I don't even have to think about memory management. 4. No comments. 5. This is the only point that I disagree with the parent. Python and Ruby tend to be more portable. I've seen my share of cross-platform C++ compilation errors, some which are easier to fix than others.
Still, if you're writing system software (e.g. a web server, daemon control software, filesystem indexer, etc) or large desktop software (Photoshop, Microsoft Word, KDE), then it would be madness to choose Ruby/Python over C++.
"which is why I believe the banner companies should do the screening/filtering, not that flash should have the functionality removed."
Unfortunately banner companies don't seem to realize that people don't like obtrusive ads like this. For example, Flash ads with sound or ads that redirect the browser are *extremely* annoying and is likely to scare away visitors. But banner companies still provide them. I once asked a banner company to not show such ads on my site. It not only took them a long time to do so, they didn't understand the reason why I wouldn't want that kind of ads to show up.
The thing is, there are legitimate reasons why Flash, or any other web app, may access the clipboard. For example, web-based rich text editor. A user asked me why the 'copy' button wouldn't work, and I told him that it's because his browser doesn't allow it and that there's no way to get around this problem. It got him confused for a while. I almost considered writing the clipboard copying code in Flash just so I can access the clipboard.
Of course I wouldn't trust it for government secrets. But if you don't trust the VPS seller, then how can you trust that BIOS/CPU/RAM/network card manufacturer didn't insert malware into the hardware? At some point you have to trust *something*.
I've looked into this in the past. There is nothing better than Duplicity.
I eventually gave up and started backing up my data to servers that I do trust. You should too. You can rent a VPS for only $20 per month. It's just easier and *know* that you're the only one who has root access (assuming that you keep updating your system, of course).
I don't think Linux will ever be able to install perfectly on every system. There are too many obscure and weird hardware combinations out there, and I think making it work 100% for every single combination is beyond human ability. Not even Windows's installer works perfectly on all hardware combinations. And the only reason why OS X can do it is because Apple controls the hardware and can limit the number of configurations.
Take for example GCC and the GNU C library (glibc). They come with a full set of headers and libraries and a set of tools. Would you call GCC an "(name of the first C compiler) emulator" and glibc an "(name of the first C standard library) emulator"?
Would you call Linux a Unix emulator? Or NetBSD a FreeBSD emulator?
"Who said you were helping anybody else but yourself?"
I do help others. However, that doesn't mean others have the right to demand me to help them if there's nothing to give back in return. Doing so is, at best, rude. If I help them then it's because I did it out of free will, because I want to, not because they have the inherent right to be helped.
"You appear to demand respect."
If they don't use my software then I expect no respect from them. If they do use my software, and I helped them, for free, then why is it so unreasonable to expect a tiny bit of respect?
"Did you ever stop to think that maybe you are the one being helped by the criticism? Not being criticised by anybody is a sure sign that nobody cares about what you are doing. Criticism is actually a sign that somebody cares."
Yes. However, there's a clear difference between helpful and constructive criticism and destructive flaming. The latter doesn't help, it only serves to discourage a person. It is exactly this kind of mentality that I'm battling: too many people on Slashdot think that all their complaints help, but it reality they don't:
Imagine that you're a developer and you've just read the 8579832589th rant on why your software sucks, but none of those rants say *why* it sucks, just that it must suck because you're an open source developer, then what are you going to do? - You still have no clue why your software is considered to be bad, and when you ask the people who wrote those "criticisms" they either ignore you or send you more hate mail. - You've received no information on how to improve your software, but you've read plenty of paragraphs of text that try to convince the world why you're a spawn of satan and why you should be shot for creating such a horrible user interface (again, with no specifics as to why it's horrible). - You try hard to please the crowd, even though you receive no monetary compensation. But no matter what you do, no matter what you try, it's never good enough: people will keep complaining and complaining. You've read the Apple User Interface Guidelines, you've read the GNOME Human User Interface Guidelines, you've designed your user interface according to the suggestions in those guidelines. And people say that you're an fscking moron for having designed your user interface the way it is, even though it's following the guidelines. - And somehow, when you one day get fed up of all those anonymous, faceless people who "criticize" you, it's all your fault for being "elitist" or "a jerk" (as they call you).
If you're that developer, then is that all your fault? Or maybe should the people open their eyes and see that they should provide more helpful criticisms, instead of criticisms that are full of rants, hates, anecdotal evidence and no specifics? Maybe they should stop demanding and start respectfully asking?
Why must I be the one to move aside? Is it so unreasonable to want just a little bit of respect for helping others? Why should the very people who are being helped be the ones to realize that they should show at least some respect instead of flaming away blindly?
Slashdot Mirror
Then do you expect me to create 16 different packages for 16 different Linux distributions, as opposed to a single installer that works anywhere? Where am I suppose to get that man power from?
Yes, there's the LSB. But suppose that you're a Debian user. Will you accept it if I only provide LSB RPMs?
Create an LSB RPM? Do you seriously see Debian/Ubuntu users installing RPMs, even LSB ones?
Try it. Make an LSB RPM, post it on Debian/Ubuntu forums, and watch yourself getting flamed left and right.
I've been using Linux for about 8 years now. I've been involved in the Linux developer community in those 8 years. I want to see Linux succeed on the desktop, not only because I like it, but also because for personal gain: I want to be able to use more hardware, hardware which are currently not supported on Linux.
I know the "year of Linux" thing is a running joke. My point is that I'm saddened that it has become a joke and nobody takes it seriously. It shouldn't be a joke. It shouldn't be something that people make fun of. It should be reality. Until this is reality, there is a whole range of hardware that I can't use because they're not supported on Linux.
As a developer, I tried whatever I can to stimulate desktop adoption. I did that by writing usable software with good usability, software intended to solve problems that stand in the way of desktop adoption. My point is that although such developers and software exists, the community doesn't actively embrace them, and even try to oppose them, as if desktop adoption is not a worthy goal.
You are correct. But the thing is this. If an independent software vendor is to create a desktop software package for Linux, then he has the following choices when it comes to distribution:
1. Create a package for Debian. Create another one for Ubuntu if the Debian one doesn't work on Ubuntu. Create another package for RedHat-based distributions. Create another one for SuSE. Create another one for Mandriva. Create another one for Slackware. Create another one for Gentoo. Etcetera.
-OR-
2. Create an installer which works on all of those distributions.
-OR-
3. Create a package for only a single Linux distribution, and screw all the others.
(1) takes a massive amount of man power, man power that may not be affordable or available. (3) will piss off a lot of users. (2) is therefore a logical and practical choice.
Given that (2) is chosen, the installer must have a place to install its files to. Not only application binaries, but also libraries, menu items, file associations, etc. Now we have arrived at the following issue: in what place should these files be put? There are multiple locations where they may be put. There are standards, documented on Freedesktop.org (a community where Linux desktop environment developers gather to agree on standards), which dictate where things should as menu items and file associations may be put.
According to standards, a third party software installer should install its files to places inside the folder /usr/local. However, this poses a problem: things like menu items and file associations installed to /usr/local don't work properly on many distributions. They just don't show up. According to the standards, they *should* show up, but Linux distributions don't care and don't make it work, despite going against such standards. The reason why your menus work is probably because you're only using distribution-packaged software at this moment. But suppose that Adobe one day releases Photoshop for Linux and you're a photographer and absolutely needs Photoshop, or that Blizzard one day releases World of Warcraft for Linux and you're a huge WoW fan, and both companies chose to provide an installer instead of 16 different packages for 16 different Linux distributions, then their installers are likely to install files into /usr/local.
Indeed, /usr/local is not something that the end user must be concerned with. The problem is, at the moment, they *have* to be concerned with it (even though they shouldn't), because /usr/local support on many Linux distributions is broken (even though it should work). If the hypothetical Photoshop installer installs into /usr/local, then you are going to wonder why the Photoshop menu items don't show up. The answer is because you might be using a Linux distribution on which /usr/local support is broken. It shouldn't be broken, it should just work so that you, the user, don't have to think about it. But right now, you *have* to think about it because it doesn't work as it should.
And distributions are unwilling to fix this. My point was that people are either unaware of these problems, don't care, or don't want to fix it. It is this that I want to highlight. It is going to hurt Linux desktop adoption if third party installers don't work well because parts of the distribution are broken.
At this point, you might be saying, "yeah but that's only true for closed source software". I hope you accept the axiom that a healthy balance between open source and closed source software - preferably one where open source has the largest market share - is important for Linux desktop adoption. For some things, there just are no good open source alternatives. Photoshop is the most frequently heard complaint. Or, in my case, I want to have wireless mobile Internet, but my phone company (who sells wireless Internet subscriptions) don't provide Linux drivers for the USB modem that I need for wireless mobile Inter
"The post started badly as many Linux users don't care if it becomes an important player or not, or what the market share is. It works for *us* and that's what we care about."
The problem is, not being an important player has negative consequences. For example, a telephone company in my country sells wireless Internet subscriptions for laptops. I want to use this. But they only provide drivers for OS X and Windows, and a Google search revealed no (not *any*) drivers for Linux. I like Linux. I want to use Linux. I don't want to reboot to Windows just to use wireless Internet. The fact that Linux is not an important player on the desktop market is hurting me.
Sigh, 7 replies later and I'm still getting this kind of one-liner replies. Maybe you people don't care about Linux on the desktop after all?
But that's not the problem. The problem is that GNOME and KDE on many distributions *aren't* LSB/FreeDesktop.org compliant. /usr/local is in the default menu item search path, according to the FreeDesktop.org menu item standard. Apparently distributions are violating that, and don't care that they are in violation of the standard. ~/.local/share/applications is in a similar predicament, there are distros out there that don't support it properly.
The point of my post isn't to ask whether there are other technological solutions. It's to highlight a political problem, the problem of community members not recognizing that there is a desktop adoption problem, or the unwillingness to solve it.
Are you asking why third party applications shouldn't be installed to /usr?
Well, write an installer that installs to /usr. Announce it on various Linux forums. People will burn you alive for installing to /usr. They will claim that your installer might overwrite system files and cripple the system, and will try to actively oppose you by telling others not to use your installer.
If that wasn't your question, then I didn't understand it, and I ask you to explain your question in more detail if that's the case.
"How is this modded troll?"
That's what I want to know too. I sincerely want Linux to succeed on the desktop. All of my claims are based on verifiable facts. If you need proof that people make fun of Linux with "THIS is the year of Linux on the desktop", then just browse a few Linux Slashdot articles. If you need proof that distributions and Linux community members are opposing, then just browse the relevant mailing lists.
Hm something went wrong with TinyURL. Here's the correct URL: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.autopackage.devel/6831
But will it become an important player on the desktop? I'm using Linux on my laptop every day, and I think it's great. But sadly, desktop Linux has a very small market share these days. In fact desktop Linux is something that people make fun of. Every time something positive about Linux adoption is posted, people respond with "Last year desktop Linux failed, but THIS year is the year of Linux on the desktop... really!!111"
People on Slashdot, OSNews and many other places are always criticizing Linux for not being desktop friendly. But sadly, it seems that the Linux community isn't exactly helping. There are developers who are clearly interested in making Linux a viable desktop platform, for both users and developers. For example, the Autopackage project has tried for quite some time now to convince distributions to support /usr/local. Yes you read that right: to support /usr/local, a very basic prefix that everybody expects to work, but practice doesn't! The problems with /usr/local includes: /usr/local are not recognized by GNOME and KDE by default. A lot of distributions refuse to add /usr/local to the default search path for menu items.
- Menu item files installed to
- File associations: ditto.
- A bunch of other problems that I don't remember from the top of my head, most of them related to not being included in the default search path.
Working menu items and file associations are among the basic things required for desktop adoption, are they not? Not having them in the default search path prevents third party software installation to work properly. I'm sure nobody wants to install third party applications to /usr just to make menu items work, right?
Autopackage has been trying to convince distributions to do just pme simple thing - adding /usr/local to the default search path. Distributors and a lot of people from the Linux community either don't know, don't care, or are actively opposing this effort.
What are we, developers who care about Linux on the desktop, to do?
What do you mean, "even Linux server"? How about "even every single computer in the world"?
Whoemever told you that Linux, Windows, OS X, OpenBSD or whatever is 100% invulnerable to authorized accesses is either ignorant or lying. Nothing is perfect, and there is no reason why Linux advocates should deny that fact. Saying "haha, look, Linux IS insecure after all!!!!1111" is not any more useful than "haha, look, you're a human being and you made a mistake after all!".
As for viruses, this compromise has got nothing to do with viruses. Your statement is still blank and meaningless.
Now you're just being unfair.
1. I found it pretty easy. Most Boost libraries are header-only so you only need to put the relevant header files in your project, adjust your header search path, and you're done.
2. Your example hasn't got much to do with C++, and everything to do with static vs dynamic typed languages. The C++ version will be about the same size as the Java and C# versions.
3. Uhm sorry, "real garbage collector" and "Python"? You do know that Python uses reference counting, right? Just like shared_ptr and weak_ptr. shared_ptr is really nice; I've been using shared_ptr for a while now and most of the time I don't even have to think about memory management.
4. No comments.
5. This is the only point that I disagree with the parent. Python and Ruby tend to be more portable. I've seen my share of cross-platform C++ compilation errors, some which are easier to fix than others.
Still, if you're writing system software (e.g. a web server, daemon control software, filesystem indexer, etc) or large desktop software (Photoshop, Microsoft Word, KDE), then it would be madness to choose Ruby/Python over C++.
"which is why I believe the banner companies should do the screening/filtering, not that flash should have the functionality removed."
Unfortunately banner companies don't seem to realize that people don't like obtrusive ads like this. For example, Flash ads with sound or ads that redirect the browser are *extremely* annoying and is likely to scare away visitors. But banner companies still provide them. I once asked a banner company to not show such ads on my site. It not only took them a long time to do so, they didn't understand the reason why I wouldn't want that kind of ads to show up.
The thing is, there are legitimate reasons why Flash, or any other web app, may access the clipboard. For example, web-based rich text editor. A user asked me why the 'copy' button wouldn't work, and I told him that it's because his browser doesn't allow it and that there's no way to get around this problem. It got him confused for a while. I almost considered writing the clipboard copying code in Flash just so I can access the clipboard.
Of course I wouldn't trust it for government secrets. But if you don't trust the VPS seller, then how can you trust that BIOS/CPU/RAM/network card manufacturer didn't insert malware into the hardware? At some point you have to trust *something*.
I've looked into this in the past. There is nothing better than Duplicity.
I eventually gave up and started backing up my data to servers that I do trust. You should too. You can rent a VPS for only $20 per month. It's just easier and *know* that you're the only one who has root access (assuming that you keep updating your system, of course).
I don't think Linux will ever be able to install perfectly on every system. There are too many obscure and weird hardware combinations out there, and I think making it work 100% for every single combination is beyond human ability. Not even Windows's installer works perfectly on all hardware combinations. And the only reason why OS X can do it is because Apple controls the hardware and can limit the number of configurations.
If you reason like that, then going to the toilet will cost you more money in the long run.
It doesn't matter how small a number is, if you add up enough of them then it will become a large number.
"standardized Corporate proprietary license"? Doesn't every proprietary software package have a different license?
Take for example GCC and the GNU C library (glibc). They come with a full set of headers and libraries and a set of tools. Would you call GCC an "(name of the first C compiler) emulator" and glibc an "(name of the first C standard library) emulator"?
Would you call Linux a Unix emulator? Or NetBSD a FreeBSD emulator?
The right word is implementation.
Firefox is an implementation of a web browser, not an "NSA Mosaic emulator" or "Internet Exporer emulator".
Wah, wah, OMG OMG the fireworks are fake. Cry me a river.
"Who said you were helping anybody else but yourself?"
I do help others. However, that doesn't mean others have the right to demand me to help them if there's nothing to give back in return. Doing so is, at best, rude.
If I help them then it's because I did it out of free will, because I want to, not because they have the inherent right to be helped.
"You appear to demand respect."
If they don't use my software then I expect no respect from them. If they do use my software, and I helped them, for free, then why is it so unreasonable to expect a tiny bit of respect?
"Did you ever stop to think that maybe you are the one being helped by the criticism? Not being criticised by anybody is a sure sign that nobody cares about what you are doing. Criticism is actually a sign that somebody cares."
Yes. However, there's a clear difference between helpful and constructive criticism and destructive flaming. The latter doesn't help, it only serves to discourage a person. It is exactly this kind of mentality that I'm battling: too many people on Slashdot think that all their complaints help, but it reality they don't:
Imagine that you're a developer and you've just read the 8579832589th rant on why your software sucks, but none of those rants say *why* it sucks, just that it must suck because you're an open source developer, then what are you going to do?
- You still have no clue why your software is considered to be bad, and when you ask the people who wrote those "criticisms" they either ignore you or send you more hate mail.
- You've received no information on how to improve your software, but you've read plenty of paragraphs of text that try to convince the world why you're a spawn of satan and why you should be shot for creating such a horrible user interface (again, with no specifics as to why it's horrible).
- You try hard to please the crowd, even though you receive no monetary compensation. But no matter what you do, no matter what you try, it's never good enough: people will keep complaining and complaining. You've read the Apple User Interface Guidelines, you've read the GNOME Human User Interface Guidelines, you've designed your user interface according to the suggestions in those guidelines. And people say that you're an fscking moron for having designed your user interface the way it is, even though it's following the guidelines.
- And somehow, when you one day get fed up of all those anonymous, faceless people who "criticize" you, it's all your fault for being "elitist" or "a jerk" (as they call you).
If you're that developer, then is that all your fault? Or maybe should the people open their eyes and see that they should provide more helpful criticisms, instead of criticisms that are full of rants, hates, anecdotal evidence and no specifics? Maybe they should stop demanding and start respectfully asking?
Why must I be the one to move aside? Is it so unreasonable to want just a little bit of respect for helping others? Why should the very people who are being helped be the ones to realize that they should show at least some respect instead of flaming away blindly?