On Sunday 03 Aug 2003 11:57 am, James Edward John Taylor wrote:
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.
You have the right to your beliefs just as everyone else does. of course you will not be surprised that other people have different beliefs and feel very strongly about them too.
I do not think there is any real argument in this topic. I think it is necessary to differentiate between the creators and the users of linux. Most questions on groups like this end up being answered by other linux users and they naturaly suggest what they would do. That is not to say there are not alternatives, only that the replies depend on the users who happen to respond.
The situation for the creators is different. They either have a desire only to satisfy their own needs and those of others like them or they are more broadly evangelistic and want Linux to be usable by *everyone*. Either way, they have some sort of target *market* in mind for their efforts.
As I think I said in another post, these target markets seem to be reflected in the offerings of the various distros, ranging from geeky command line thru to no intervention full on GUI.
As many have said before, Linux is about choice and freedom: the freedom to choose the distro and the tools that suit you.
Ian