Long windy email which took me a while to type and then probably dosnt make much sense:
Brief Summary: I dont believe Open Source software has to be userfriendly. I feel **VERY** strongly that the programmer has the right to be "free" in their programming and make non-user friendly interfaces IF THEY SO WISH, and that the dicussion over "they SHOULD" make userfriendly or "people should" is at basically wrong, because they are getting a free ride out of the software that the programmer probbably has a lot more better stuff to be doing. This is not a(nother) personal attack at Ben, but just the statement that his argument "I dont have time to learn something to do something like that because I have "more important" stuff to do" (where more important is whatever his or her REAL job, school work, etc) I am reversing to use against him. "Programmers dont have time to cope with the "whims" of those people who make a preference to do non-really harsh techinal stuff, becasue we have something "more important" to do" (where more important is whatever new toy we've just bought is). Did I stress that I feel VERY strongly about this.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And for the full bloated boring bit:
I should first admit here and now that I winge when a config file is ... wierd or difficult to understand, and I also admit that I ask for help in it.... Knowing when to ask for help is always a brilliant trait in my opinion.
Im going to assume here that I was in the IRC discussion. I think I was, I think I stormed out of it to Cambridge. Hell, I had to go...
I think the discussion went along the lines of:
ben: "theres no gui, this is too hard because i dont understand it/dont have time to understand it/dont want to understand it" (note this is not a dig at ben, all three options are perfectly acceptable. I dont understand the XWidget functions.... i dont want to understand them, so dont want to waste time learning them) us: "There isnt a function because no-ones written one... everyone who has needed one just learnt how to do it, and then couldnt bearsed to write a gui, becasue they could do it and didnt need a gui after that" ben: "but thats wrong" us: "no, its not, because we know how to do it"... and so on
The fact that I had written another (command line) script which did this function, and tied it into a webpage was irrelavant, no one had "released" and "packaged" one for "simple" and "easy" installer.
So perhaps we where being pigheaded. But that dosnt stop us being wrong. The title of this discussion is "Linux for everyone". But I disagree. Thats not what people mean in this discussion at all. The arguement is really about what do the people who are actually programming have to do, and what the people are gettng the free ride want them to do. Becasue we're not talking about Linux here. We where talking about Fluxbox. Flux box isnt linux. You dont need linux to run fluxbox. So perhaps im just nitpicking the title of the topic, but I dont think so, I think im nitpicking at OpenSource programmers and advogatoists in general.
I support Open Source as is the solution to a lot of my problems. Im happy and proud to release the majority of my source code into the public domain, I really do like the idea of open specifications and industry wide standards that are kept to and maintained. But I dont like the idea that people can turn around and tell me that im doing something "wrong". If I want to pass data between two computers in a completly propietry way, then I should be allowed to, open source or not. What has that got to do with GUI? well its just another thing being "difficult" or should i really say "unknown".
Thats freedom isnt it? Sure, you might say I have to have freedom to do things with connection and making it easy for people to connect, but perhaps I dont want to make life easier for you programmers. Perhaps my methods provide abetter service in terms of processor speed, or memory allocation or whatever argument I'm using. Im allowed to, its my program after all.
And perhaps at this time, I cant expect people to conform to my propietry standards. But then again, perhaps I can, I can point to several case examples where a client turns round to us and says we'll offer you this data in an electronic fomat in this formatt "blat" and we have to parse it. Its either that or type it all in by hand (which is what we do before we set up the electronic link).
We dont get any choice, we just get down and do it. - but we're techis. And thats what we're paid to do.
Perhaps Open Source is just too policial. Perhaps you're stuck between a bunch of idealistics who would kill people who defie the GPL license and a bunch of programmers who just couldnt care less as long as you can use the code to solve your problem. At the end of the day. If my boss comes in and says "I need to do ... **THIS** then I will automatically look at how its done now, and how it works. If my program I write for him infringes a patent established four years ago, how would I know? Would I care? no. Nobody else would know about it, I wouldnt ever get into trouble unless I started distributing the code."
You people who are sitting there saying "its hard to use, and therefore people wont use it, Do I care? No. I am not one of those people, I do not benifit by them using my code. if they WISH to use my code and they dont know how, then they cancontact me and I might help them, or they could pay a local person to install it for them and configure it.
You dont do your own car servicing do you (ignore that comment those people in here that do (iDunno for starters))? And you guys are probably the techincal elite.
Why expect non-techincal people who dont [want] to understand to be able to do it. Even if you give them a "gui". Its not my problem, i dont have to solve it.
And thats what OS is all about isnt it. You solve your problems and release the fixes so other people dont have them. You dont go hunting out problems to solve. (this is only in a specific bug sense - all of us do go "hm i wonder if i can....", but we dont go "oh lets just see what the latest bug report for EVERY package is and then fix it").
Open Source does **NOT** have to be for everyone. Anyone suggesting that it should, completly, without reservation, dosnt have any idea of the scale of the system and should run back to the saftey of their management course.
Sure, write your gui if you want. But noone should ever start going round saying "you have to write a gui otherwise im not going to use it" because we'll just say "... ouch im hurting inside, ... no really"
Remember, we're effectivly getting a free ride - **NOBODY** will stop you making a GUI for anything. **ALL** of us will support you. **MOST** of us would help you. We'll be happy to help solve the little naggliy bugs like "why dosnt this bit of regex work" and soon. HEll, if you start, you'll probably be the momentum to get a couple of us to finish it off for you, which is what you really want.
I for one, will not be changing the way I program to be more userfriendly. I dont write user friendly programs. I dont really write programs which have users to interface into. Installing them are long ardious tasks. 99.9% of the population or more will not benifit from it. But for a user, any user, who dosnt *WANT* and i emphasise want here because if you did want to understand you wouldnt *MIND* can start an arugment that its not userfriendly. Sure, the guy who wrote it could ask for comments, or ask for ideas for improvements, but for people to comelong and say "no, thats pants becuase it is difficult" is (in my opinion) selfrighteous and pigheaded.