I don't dispute the article's basic assertion that much free software lacks UI's that are easy for novices to use. Rather, I have a tangent rant about the state of usability theory in general. I'm professionally involved in the development of user interfaces, and so I've spent some time with usability experts. I've heard their ideas about what makes an application easy to use, and I've come to a conclusion: if all interfaces were designed they way these usability experts think they should be, my productivity using my computer would suffer dramatically. These "easy" interfaces are terribly inefficient compared to my favorite interfaces, most of which use the keyboard as the primary input device, being either command-line or text-mode tools. The mouse is extremely limited in what one can express with it, while the keyboard is superbly versatile and infinitely expressive. For somebody that knows how to use a keyboard, and is willing to invest a little bit of time into tackling a steeper learning curve, the rewards are significant.
Usability experts talk about limiting the amount of information and the number of options and functions which are presented to the user at any time. This is completely contrary to what I like in my interfaces. I don't get lost if you present me with a large amount of information and a complete set of functions, so please give it to me! It allows me to work with the computer as quickly as I possibly can, without being limited by an interface designed for the lowest common denominator.
That is not to say that point-and-click interfaces, wizards, and other such interface idioms should go away. (Dancing paperclips should definitely go away.) Most people need that sort of interface, presumably because they don't think it's worth investing the effort to learn a better mode of interaction. They might be right, for themselves, but that line of reasoning doesn't apply to me and others like me. Any application that constrains me to keep my hand on the mouse is not an application that I'll be using very often.
My point, which perhaps I haven't made very well, is that good user interface design needs to consider the nature, preferences, and abilities of the end-user. There is no such thing as universal usability; the best way for me to interact with an application is probably not the best way for everybody else to interact with it.
What does this have to do with the article? Not much, I'm sorry to say. The article's complaints are valid, assuming you're interested in making free software a viable choice for the masses. The masses need disgustingly simple and limited interfaces, or else they just get lost. But please, please don't take away my keyboard interfaces in the interest of serving the lowest common demoninator.
Your points are all quite correct when applied to general-purpose computing systems, such as the average PC. Those that don't have a knack for technical things will only ever use these powerful devices in very limited ways. They learn to use a word processor, web browser, and email program at the minimum level required to do what they think they need to do. There's so much more they could to if they knew how the thing worked and knew how to program, but they'll never see that.
Obviously, if somebody like this wants to do something beyond the basics, such as run or develop a real web site, they're out of their league. They either have to invest the time to learn how the thing really works, hire somebody else to do it, or forget about it. And honestly, if they don't have an aptitude for the technical, they're out of luck unless they put a lot of work into it.
However, in the coming years, we will see more and more special-purpose computing systems popping up. People are already using them without even knowing it. Yes, this is an absolutely terrible buzzword, but this is what I'm talking about: computing appliances. The refrigerator that has a computer in it that lets you manage your grocery shopping list, and eventually it'll even order your groceries for you over the Internet. You shouldn't need any special training to use a system like that, and yet it's a computer. I could go on about other such applications, but this thread is already off-topic.
My point is just that there are applications for computers that do not and should not require technical aptitude or training, and such devices are going to proliferate in the coming years.
But this doesn't really contradict your core assertion, which is essentially that people shouldn't expect to do complex things with computers without proper training. Eventually, we'll have much more intelligent computers, which can receive a task description in plain English, figure out what the user is really asking for (and because the user will never state the problem precisely, this will always involve a little Q and A), figure out how to do it, and then do it. This is a very sophisticated intelligence I'm talking about here; it's essentially the process followed by human software development efforts: gather requirements, develop a specification, design and implement the program, and then execute the program. Therefore, we need a computer that can think like a human in all the ways used for software development (that's a lot of ways) and has all the revelant knowledge (which is a lot of knowledge, including "common sense"). That's not going to be here anytime soon, so we all still have a little job security.;-)
There are a number of problems with this, but I'll just tackle the major fault: the involvment of the government. Governments are completely incompetant at this sort of thing. When was the last time the U.S. government made a good decision regarding technology? Do you really want them regulating software?
I could go on and on about the evils of government regulation, but I won't. Suffice it to say that it's appropriate in only a few very limited circumstances, and this is definitely not one of them. What is needed here, if anything, is a consumer organization, or perhaps several of them, to give software companies and products a seal of approval. No government intervention, no official bodies. Each consumer groups sets its own criteria. Each individual decides whether or not to put any faith into any particular consumer group's seal of approval. No, it's not perfect. It relies on the vigilance of the consumer. But it would be at least as effective as government regulation, and with fewer problems.
And to be honest, I don't think anything is necessary here. I don't buy computer products, software or hardware, until I've done a little research on them. I don't buy a game on impulse because it has a flashy, cool-looking box. I buy only after reading reviews and talking to others that have played the game. This way, I never end up with crappy software. The people that do are the ones that just walk into the store and pick up the coolest-looking box. Honestly, I don't care if they get screwed, because it's their own fault. As the old saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. There's no way to prevent suckers from getting suckered, so don't make life hard on the rest of us by trying.
I'd like to see you cost-effectively backup a 5 TB database to disk. Oh, and don't forget that you have to be able to restore the system to its state on any day during the past month and at the beginning of any month in the past five years. And as others have mentioned, you want to make two copies and keep one off-site in case of disaster.
Yes, for systems under 100 GB which don't need to keep historical data, backing up to disk is feasible, and in many circumstances is better than tape. However, that doesn't mean that tape has "been superceded" entirely.
I did not say anything about "reject[ing] 95% of the people around him/her as uninteresting and not worthy of their [sic] attention". I said that some people may feel that "computers are more fun, interesting, and challenging than 95% of people". This only makes people relatively uninteresting, and says nothing of whether or not they are worthy of attention.
I also must question your assertion that a person who feels this way is "by definition" socially inept. What, exactly, is the definition that you're using? I define "socially inept" as "incompetant at interacting with other people in common situations." My point is that one can be quite competant at social interaction but simply have no desire to engage in such interaction as often as most people do. This may qualify as antisocial (in a certain sense of the word), but not socially inept. And it is certainly not an adequate or even accurate definition of either term.
There seems to be this assumption that "hackers" [sic] are loners because they lack social skills. For some geeks, this is true; they are, in fact, socially inept. But some people spend more time with their computers than with other people not because they can't figure people out, but because they figured people out long ago and have decided that computers are more fun, interesting, and challenging than 95% of people. Of course, then there are the 5% of people (and I'm being generous) that are worth talking to, but these rarely include psych grad students that have set out to confirm their own stereotypes about some class of people they don't understand.
Of course, the article really seems to be focusing on crackers rather than hackers, and I can believe that most or at least many malicious computer attacks are committed by somebody who feels like a social outcast and who wants revenge on some segment of the society whom he feels has wronged him. And given that this guy seems to have only interviewed people convicted of committing computer crimes, perhaps that's the only sort of "cyberpunk" he's encountered in his study.
If you're interested in helping Linux apps get better retail distribution (and therefore more mainstream availability and awareness), it's better to wait and buy it retail rather than order direct from the publisher. Retail sales are a primary source of data for the industry, so if a game doesn't get retail sales, it won't get noticed, even if the publisher sold a million copies.
So, as much as I hate to say it, go patronize the local crappy "We love Windoze" shrink-wrap shop. If they don't have the Linux version on the shelves, ask for it. (And grin & bear it when they say something nasty about Linux.) I've been through this routine before; I was once an OS/2 junkie.
I don't see why the Linux version should be free when they charge for the AIX, NT, and other versions. Whatever the pricing scheme is, it should be the same for all platforms. Otherwise, IBM is implicitly making a statement that Linux isn't used for serious business, at least not when compared to the "real" OS's. Of course, I won't complain about having a robust RDBMS available for free on Linux or any platform, but I don't want Linux to get the image that it's not a commercially viable platform for which to develop.
That being said, I think that making the software free and charging for support might be a good idea. I mean, large corporate customers will pay for support no matter what. IBM would lose the revenue from a lot of small companies that would try to get by without support, but I don't think that would account for a significant portion of their revenue anyway.
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I don't dispute the article's basic assertion that much free software lacks UI's that are easy for novices to use. Rather, I have a tangent rant about the state of usability theory in general. I'm professionally involved in the development of user interfaces, and so I've spent some time with usability experts. I've heard their ideas about what makes an application easy to use, and I've come to a conclusion: if all interfaces were designed they way these usability experts think they should be, my productivity using my computer would suffer dramatically. These "easy" interfaces are terribly inefficient compared to my favorite interfaces, most of which use the keyboard as the primary input device, being either command-line or text-mode tools. The mouse is extremely limited in what one can express with it, while the keyboard is superbly versatile and infinitely expressive. For somebody that knows how to use a keyboard, and is willing to invest a little bit of time into tackling a steeper learning curve, the rewards are significant.
Usability experts talk about limiting the amount of information and the number of options and functions which are presented to the user at any time. This is completely contrary to what I like in my interfaces. I don't get lost if you present me with a large amount of information and a complete set of functions, so please give it to me! It allows me to work with the computer as quickly as I possibly can, without being limited by an interface designed for the lowest common denominator.
That is not to say that point-and-click interfaces, wizards, and other such interface idioms should go away. (Dancing paperclips should definitely go away.) Most people need that sort of interface, presumably because they don't think it's worth investing the effort to learn a better mode of interaction. They might be right, for themselves, but that line of reasoning doesn't apply to me and others like me. Any application that constrains me to keep my hand on the mouse is not an application that I'll be using very often.
My point, which perhaps I haven't made very well, is that good user interface design needs to consider the nature, preferences, and abilities of the end-user. There is no such thing as universal usability; the best way for me to interact with an application is probably not the best way for everybody else to interact with it.
What does this have to do with the article? Not much, I'm sorry to say. The article's complaints are valid, assuming you're interested in making free software a viable choice for the masses. The masses need disgustingly simple and limited interfaces, or else they just get lost. But please, please don't take away my keyboard interfaces in the interest of serving the lowest common demoninator.
Obviously, if somebody like this wants to do something beyond the basics, such as run or develop a real web site, they're out of their league. They either have to invest the time to learn how the thing really works, hire somebody else to do it, or forget about it. And honestly, if they don't have an aptitude for the technical, they're out of luck unless they put a lot of work into it.
However, in the coming years, we will see more and more special-purpose computing systems popping up. People are already using them without even knowing it. Yes, this is an absolutely terrible buzzword, but this is what I'm talking about: computing appliances. The refrigerator that has a computer in it that lets you manage your grocery shopping list, and eventually it'll even order your groceries for you over the Internet. You shouldn't need any special training to use a system like that, and yet it's a computer. I could go on about other such applications, but this thread is already off-topic.
My point is just that there are applications for computers that do not and should not require technical aptitude or training, and such devices are going to proliferate in the coming years.
But this doesn't really contradict your core assertion, which is essentially that people shouldn't expect to do complex things with computers without proper training. Eventually, we'll have much more intelligent computers, which can receive a task description in plain English, figure out what the user is really asking for (and because the user will never state the problem precisely, this will always involve a little Q and A), figure out how to do it, and then do it. This is a very sophisticated intelligence I'm talking about here; it's essentially the process followed by human software development efforts: gather requirements, develop a specification, design and implement the program, and then execute the program. Therefore, we need a computer that can think like a human in all the ways used for software development (that's a lot of ways) and has all the revelant knowledge (which is a lot of knowledge, including "common sense"). That's not going to be here anytime soon, so we all still have a little job security. ;-)
I could go on and on about the evils of government regulation, but I won't. Suffice it to say that it's appropriate in only a few very limited circumstances, and this is definitely not one of them. What is needed here, if anything, is a consumer organization, or perhaps several of them, to give software companies and products a seal of approval. No government intervention, no official bodies. Each consumer groups sets its own criteria. Each individual decides whether or not to put any faith into any particular consumer group's seal of approval. No, it's not perfect. It relies on the vigilance of the consumer. But it would be at least as effective as government regulation, and with fewer problems.
And to be honest, I don't think anything is necessary here. I don't buy computer products, software or hardware, until I've done a little research on them. I don't buy a game on impulse because it has a flashy, cool-looking box. I buy only after reading reviews and talking to others that have played the game. This way, I never end up with crappy software. The people that do are the ones that just walk into the store and pick up the coolest-looking box. Honestly, I don't care if they get screwed, because it's their own fault. As the old saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. There's no way to prevent suckers from getting suckered, so don't make life hard on the rest of us by trying.
Yes, for systems under 100 GB which don't need to keep historical data, backing up to disk is feasible, and in many circumstances is better than tape. However, that doesn't mean that tape has "been superceded" entirely.
I also must question your assertion that a person who feels this way is "by definition" socially inept. What, exactly, is the definition that you're using? I define "socially inept" as "incompetant at interacting with other people in common situations." My point is that one can be quite competant at social interaction but simply have no desire to engage in such interaction as often as most people do. This may qualify as antisocial (in a certain sense of the word), but not socially inept. And it is certainly not an adequate or even accurate definition of either term.
Of course, the article really seems to be focusing on crackers rather than hackers, and I can believe that most or at least many malicious computer attacks are committed by somebody who feels like a social outcast and who wants revenge on some segment of the society whom he feels has wronged him. And given that this guy seems to have only interviewed people convicted of committing computer crimes, perhaps that's the only sort of "cyberpunk" he's encountered in his study.
So, as much as I hate to say it, go patronize the local crappy "We love Windoze" shrink-wrap shop. If they don't have the Linux version on the shelves, ask for it. (And grin & bear it when they say something nasty about Linux.) I've been through this routine before; I was once an OS/2 junkie.
That being said, I think that making the software free and charging for support might be a good idea. I mean, large corporate customers will pay for support no matter what. IBM would lose the revenue from a lot of small companies that would try to get by without support, but I don't think that would account for a significant portion of their revenue anyway.