Five Fundamental Problems with Open Source? 814
meriksen asks: "I found a very interesting paper which I am sure will stir up a hornets nest.
Despite the growing success of the Open Source movement, most of the general public continues to feel that Open Source software is inaccessible to them. This paper discusses five fundamental problems with the current Open Source software development trend, explores why these issues are holding the movement back, and offers solutions that might help overcome these problems." What do you think of the issues given in this paper, and how do you think the Open Source community should address these issues?
"The lack of focus on user interface design causes users to prefer proprietary software's more intuitive interface. Open Source software tends to lack the complete and accessible documentation that retains users. Developers focus on features in their software, rather than ensuring that they have a solid core. Open Source programmers also tend to program with themselves as an intended audience, rather than the general public. Lastly, there is a widely known stubbornness by Open Source programmers in refusing to learn from what lessons proprietary software has to offer. If Open Source software wishes to become widely used and embraced by the general public, all five of these issues will have to be overcome."
Motivation. (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is to provide motivation to write for someone else. There are a lot of companies out there making a lot of money off open-source, selling hardware or services. If they want open-source programmers to write code differently, they need to provide some motivation for that change. One possibility would be an annual award program which could include - for example - a "best documentation" category. The combination of a cash prize (it needn't be large) plus the bragging rights for having won could provide the necessary nudge to improving open-source code.
This is true (Score:5, Insightful)
er ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Installers (Score:5, Insightful)
well.. (Score:4, Insightful)
All of these criticisms (Score:5, Insightful)
Product Websites / Download Options (Score:5, Insightful)
#5 seems odd (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't seem to me to be specifically open sourcey (sp?) to be religious about technical issues. I mean just look at Microsoft, they are a frikkin' technical monopoly:
John.
Re:Motivation. (Score:5, Insightful)
i got one (Score:5, Insightful)
ESR's rant over CUPS is something we need more of.
Agreed wtih the article (Score:3, Insightful)
PROPER TESTING.
When by proper testing, I mean test cases for each and every OSS app is getting released out there. Simply releasing an app as a "beta" and asking for input from random people who will use your app on the web, is NOT how proper QA should be happening. Unfortunately, distros are not any better on this, who are supposed to be "professionals".
I agree with this... (Score:4, Insightful)
Little things like this make programming something about 10x easier (which is why most open source programmers do it, even I do it), but really do leave out the general public.
I mean look at the most popular open source programs (going by sourceforge). You have DC++, which has a beautiful interface, much better than its closed source counterpart (also more useful). You have Gaim, again designed with the interface and users in mind.
What is the common factor among the list? A pretty GUI. How many powerful console applications do you see up there? Very few.
The author definetly has a point.
Backward Compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Not unique to OSS... (Score:5, Insightful)
This motivation is even more present for commercial apps; developers are asked to add every feature that somebody suggests in a focus group, etc. for better advertising - e.g, We have this feature and $COMPETITOR doesn't! Many of the Windows security scares have been due to poorly thought out features becoming bugs; for example, using ActiveX or VBScript to "spice up" web pages or Outlook's tendency to "enhance" emails by displaying HTML
Interesting points (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, addressing a problem that other guys haven't is a good way to improve the chances of getting ahead.
Um, no (was Re:er ...) (Score:5, Insightful)
Make it good enough that ordinary users demand it, and adoption will come automatically.
Re:er ... (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, it does ship on a minority of new computers. And, heck, it's about as easy to install Linux as it is to reinstall Windows.
Secondly, and more importantly, OSS isn't widely adopted because, while free, it doesn't work as well or better than its proprietary counterparts in all aspects.
A fine example of this is GIMP. I've installed it at home and at work, but I wound up doing most of my edits in Photoshop today because it does the task better.
(Another good example of this is OOo; if you want a summation, check out my journal.)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
GUI design (Score:5, Insightful)
I think she missed the biggest reason of all here: Designing a good GUI is very hard. Wait -- let me further clarify that: it's very, very hard.
Designing a GUI from scratch requires a sense of aesthetics (balance, color, flow) and the ability to decide exactly what needs to be up front, and what needs to be hidden behind a menu, option button, or some such. Frequently the developer will have a fervent opinion about "this is the most important thing, it must be on top" whereas a good user interface designer can step back and see what will work for the users. A good UI designer will also run user acceptance labs to test their designs. Many open source projects end up with little more than "Hey Bill, would you check this out for me?" And Bill, being aware of the project from its inception, and having heard about it over the lunch table for the last five months, already posesses a deeper understanding of the task that prevents him from being able to adequately judge the design.
Apple, of course, has always been at the forefront of GUI design (at least as a commercial success, I'm fully aware of the contributions of Xerox Parc, et al.) I believe this comes from a strong, single, visionary designer, a rigid set of GUI design guidelines that must be absolutely followed, and a corporate mindset that the GUI is the most important aspect of an application. They undergo rigorous testing procedures, and countless user feedback labs. Microsoft hasn't ever caught up to Apple in that respect, although they do have a good set of GUI guidelines and some very strong products.
But nobody in the open source world wants to be "told what to do". Also, nobody in the open source world feels they have the authority to stand up and say "you must design your GUI in this fashion." Some projects, of course, will have beautiful, solid GUIs thanks to having a quality GUI designer on the project. But that currently doesn't pan out beyond the scope of the single good application. So the consistency isn't there, and it will never be there until someone puts together a GUI committee that has the authority to stamp "Tux Approved -- Good GUI Inside" on open source projects. It will require a single, strong voice. And that voice has to have a world of talent behind it. That's a mighty tall order for hundreds of grass-roots volunteer efforts to come up with.
Re:Mozilla (Score:2, Insightful)
The author of article specifically says that Firefox is an exception to the general trend. However, she doesn't name what project X is, and as far as I can tell, uses a lot of vague, unproven arguments, such as the one bashing gnome and kde.
"If I'd put the same person on KDE or Gnome, they probably would have spent half of their time fighting their own intuition, and the other half wondering why they were being forced to sit in front of such a clunky desktop when their Windows XP computer worked so much better."
Prove it. It might be true, but this is just a supposition. I haven't participated in an open source project and have minimal programming skills, and I can find my way around quite well.
code vs. ui vs. documentation (Score:5, Insightful)
Code can be split into parts and reused. A professional programmer benefits by having a large body of good open source code.
Documentation, on the other hand, is much more likely to be a one-shot thing. If a professional technical writer were to write, say, a terrific GIMP manual, and release it open source, it's not likely that they are going to get anything back that will help them on other documentation projects, at least to the extent a coder gets for releasing code.
Same for UI designers.
Basically, good open source documentation and UI design comes from people doing it as an act of charity, whereas there are good practical reasons for people to write open source code.
These points have nothing to do with OSS. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm currently develpoing OSS and getting paid to do it. Overall consitency goes way over 'cream-code'.
My partners don't care about dirty hacks as long as the result is usable and looks good. Thus I'm cutting corners in code-beauty. It's going to be GPLs OSS none the less.
Open Source has tons of money (Score:5, Insightful)
Red Hat spent $700,000,000 on buying out compiler companies and dot-coms, and then the reason their programmers give me for why their software has usability problems is "we can't afford an HCI department."
Linux companies like Red Hat (and Suse, bought out for $200,000,000) have tons of money. It's just that they don't consider usability to be very high on their list of priorities. To these folks, its only the technical stuff and server stuff that matters. Screw having a properly trained user interaction dept that makes their software easier to use.
If I'm doing it for free... (Score:4, Insightful)
fvwm (Score:3, Insightful)
i fully agree that this is a problem. projects like FVWM have it right. with many different programs (taskmanager and so on) on top of their core. All modules have their own manpage and are configured in the core or separate.
Re:Installers (Score:2, Insightful)
So I'm a Windows 2000 user. (Score:3, Insightful)
Poor user interface design in Open Source projects (Score:3, Insightful)
> the poor quality of user interfaces, but here
> are some explanations I've heard roaming the
> Open Source circles: geeks value integrity over
> beauty; the gender gap in Open Source
> communities; it's intuitive to the programmers
> so why would they fix it? (see Programming for
> the Self), the belief that a pretty user
> interface can always be designed later once
> they're done the real work, the belief that user
> interface design isn't real work, and several
> others.
I think the two main reasons:
1) Open source developers just don't think about usability - they think about functionality. It's kinda of like a blind spot that naturally develops when you spend all day coding.
2) Good user interface design is very hard. It is a skill that most developers don't have.
When you see a slick application like the Apple i-Apps or pro graphics and video programs, the reason they're nice is that they were designed by usability specialists, who are following interface guidelines and testing the interfaces on actual users.
There are just not enough of these people in the the open source community.
Re:well.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a perfect example of a techy who may be more intelligent than Einstein, but is still dumb when it comes to understanding people.
People don't want to have to be educated about software. It's a tool, like a hammer. You don't have to take classes to use a hammer (or most carpentry tools -- unless you want to be a master craftsman).
When I started my business, I hadn't programmed in 10 years. At first I was extremely frustrated because programmers are so self-centric that they don't get the fact that, to most people, a computer and the software is just a tool. They want to buy a computer, plug it in, turn it on, AND DO THEIR WORK -- not read manuals or books -- just DO THEIR WORK. Then I spent several years building up the software my business is based on. Without wanting to, I had to become a programmer and think of nothing else for over 2 years. Then I understood the programmer mindset -- GUIs are a pain to write, using tools that think logically to provide a intuitive interface is hard (and other similar attitudes).
That's when I realized the problem with open source software is that many of the programmers are simply incapable of listen to thers or understanding there are other points of views regarding computer use that are just as legitimate as theirs.
If you want to rant about GUI design, go ahead. If you want to complain about the "shitload of people" who need "a bit of eduction," please do. But, after you do that, don't sit back and wonder why people are paying hundreds of dollars for programs that do what FOSS programs do, but do it in a way that is easier for users to grasp.
Until programmers learn to look at things from the point of view of a user who JUST WANTS TO DO THEIR WORK, the FOSS will always be relegated to the back room where geeks who can't understand human interaction work and live.
Don't whine. Do it. (Score:0, Insightful)
Why don't these people *get* it? We write open source software because it's fun. If other people want to play, that's fine too. But you're going to have to play by our rules, because it's our game. Got it? Good.
That said, if the author of the article doesn't like the state of the documentation for the software she is using, perhaps she should consider improving it.
Don't whine. Do it.
I couldn't read this (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight:
You say that OSX is a great example of interface design, because real live people have told you so... and KDE or Gnome are poor examples of interface design, because of an imaginary scenario?!?!?!
For the record, I've put people (such as my mother) in front of a KDE desktop, and they've had no problems with it (in fact my mother said how much she liked it.)
Note that neither this, nor the author's experience actually has any bearing on whether KDE or Gnome are usable or not.
Using the exact same methodology in this article, I could prove that MS has no money, that the moon is made of green cheese, and that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. (Hmm, come to think of it, maybe this guy works for the White House.)
Remember kids, if you can imagine it, it must be true!
*sigh*
Bad title (Score:2, Insightful)
Fundamental issues with open source software development
From the article :
This paper discusses five fundamental problems with the current Open Source software development trend
And later :
First of all, there will always be exceptions to every rule. For example, I believe that relatively few complaints listed here apply to the Open Source browser Firefox [2] which continues to surpass my expectations. I'm discussing general trends that I've noticed, not specific cases. Secondly, I don't think that these are unresolvable problems. The purpose of this document is to raise awareness -- not to mindlessly complain -- in hopes that the Open Source community may begin to change their mind-set about some of these issues and work towards improving them.
I'd argue that the last paragraph I quoted indicates that these are not fundamental problems with Open Source Development, but merely common problems with Open Source Development. The author seemed to overuse the word fundamental throughout the article. Sorry to be nitpicky, but the title suggested a very different article than what I found. I was expecting something more along the lines of, "Open source software will never be useful, because the open source development model is fundamentally flawed in such and such a way."
Of course that would have merited a very different response, such as, "You're clearly being payed by (Insert evil proprietary software company here)".
Other than the lousy title and the gratuitous use of the word "fundamental", this article seemed very mild, obvious, and full of information that gets regurgitated on Slashdot every two days or so.
OK, open source has its problems... (Score:2, Insightful)
All the problems he has noted really are the hallmarks of a "Immature" package but as time goes by the worthy packages get better and "grow up". Take KDE or GNOME in point. A few years ago it was VERY clunky (still better than win 95 tho). In just a few short years with NO PAY these guys made something quite usefull, nay may be even intuitive. It has problems and as time goes I am sure they will be addressed. It is all in the process of maturation that the project shed the bugs and effects of bad project design to become a intuitive finished project. This is true for all softwear and maturation is not free nor instant, it takes allot of effort to do this.
When a software company devotes massive $$ to make a intuitive ap that nobody needs/wants then they go bankrupt and stop. In opensource it is different. Someone has an idea. A basic implementation is made. If it is good and the demand is high it will be polished by the many that flock to use and develop it. Then it will mature and become a product that is less cumbersome, those packages that are less need/popular stay basic implementations, "infants".
*I wonder what linux wants to be when it grows up?
Free, cross platform installer that doesnt suck (Score:3, Insightful)
As developers, generally the first thing we do after downloading some new open source software is read the README file. Then maybe the GOTCHAS.. Most users won't or can't pay attention long enough to read the instructions in a wizard based installer, much less a 50+ README. Programmers tend to be fast readers in my experience, many other people are not. So, if you can, include a one click installer and make the program configurable at runtime through a nice, easy to understand GUI.
Re:Who cares about the general public? (Score:3, Insightful)
Software with crappy or lacking documentation isn't good software, no matter what interface it uses.
Btw: one of the tenets of user interfaces is: if the user requires a manual, then the interface has failed in its task.
Re:The webserver shoulda been running apache... (Score:1, Insightful)
Also, to out-anal your tiny mind: "Linux" is a trademark of Linus Torvolds which has been licensed for branding use by several similar operating systems. So you are wrong.
Re:I agree with this... (Score:5, Insightful)
A wrench is a tool, plain and simple. You could have a brand-new engine from a vehicle you've never seen before, and you know that if you want to open it up, you'll probably need a wrench. This program would work the same way.
I'm thinking along the lines of a widget-based GUI tool designed to manipulate text files. Each new application, when you run the install script, would install a "plug-in" into a directory under /etc. These would basically be files (XML?) that describe each application's configuration options. The "wrench" would then map these into standardized windows, with pull-down boxes where multiple options exist, checkboxes for Boolean flags, etc.
In an ideal world, plug-in writers could also organize those options into meaningful series of screens/tabs, so the UI was even more intuitive. But not too much, mind you! The idea isn't to create entire HTML-based interfaces full of graphics etc., where every one looks totally different. The idea is to stay as generic as possible, so that using the tool feels totally familiar after the first few times you do it. Like hand tools in your garage.
Noob installs software. Noob sees message saying, "Thank you, that was successful." Now what? Noob has half a clue enough to figure he probably needs to configure some options that software. How does he do that? Of course, he runs GConfigure, and voila! There's the application he just installed, in that little hierarchical list on the left. Click here, click there, point it to the right drives/directories/database instance, press the Start button, and away we go.
Re:This is true (Score:3, Insightful)
BULL EFFING DOG P00P!!
Have you read the user's manual for Windows lately? Oh wait... did you even get one?
For effs sake. This documentation issue is complete crap. We're going to match documentation which isn't "idiot friendly" vs. documentation which is nonexistant?
This is complete crap.
So right but so wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
There are plenty of applications which exhibit all the flaws mentioned by the paper -- I don't disagree with any of the summary points.
Most of those applications are in-house proprietary business applications, not open source. The author is complaining about a general problem with the politics and pride of software development, not open source methodology or products.
If someone chooses to develop a tool or product that meets their personal needs, and offers it up for others to use or extend, they aren't typically getting paid for it.
If you don't like it, extend it, fix it, or hire someone to do so. Don't dump your personal application requirements on community members who are just trying to share what they have.
You want professional UI designs? Hire some developers to fix your favourite open source project, or fund the existing project development team. My idea of a professional UI is basic, plain, and functional -- no skinning, no beeps, no video, no candy.
Nothing pisses me off more than someone who demands the world for free, then bitches and whines because they can't have it without putting in an effort.
WHAT??? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Coming back to reality) OSS does have problems. In my experiences the problems are not techical but are with the interface. I started using Linux in 1998 and over the past six years the UI has improved. Linux is a mature OS and can no longer be considered a hobby OS but with that being said the interface, (KDE, Gnome, ect.) is still not as clean as Windows.
Re:Motivation. (Score:2, Insightful)
Though this is probably parly true, for many people the reasons are different. I have started writing free software because after all the software I got out of the community, I wanted to give something back.
For many the reason is simply to improve there own programming skills. (In fact, that is the reason for most programmers I worked with).
Besides, I disagree that there is too little effort put into GUI programming. I mean, look at the GNOME project, for example. That's what the whole thing is about - providing a clean, consistent and simple user interface. There are enormous efforts put into this area. Making a project compatible with the GNOME policies is consuming almost half of the time in every GNOME project. And the user interfaces of GNOME (and maybe KDE) are already better than on Windows systems.
Re:I don't agree (Score:5, Insightful)
I do agree to an extent with the writer. The main focus of open source is often from a programmers point of view, so most programmers or computer savy people are more confortable with it. KDE and GNOME have vastly improved, but still have a few weak areas.
In the case of a mac, my roommmate can go to the Mac store and buy a printer, camera, video camer, software, install it and use and not have to think about how to get it running. You can't do that with Linux, there are few if any stores that sell Linux software, linux cameras, linux video cameras, etc, ( except for online stores ). Buy a quickcam 4000 and try to get it running. You must download special software and then 'compile...' I'm sorry but once you start haveing to require a person to compile anything they loose interest if all they want to do is use the computer. Most people think of the computer as a tool to do a task and don't want to f*** with the OS to get stuff done. Redhat and SuSE and several other vendors and programmers have made installing it and using it somewhat easier, yes, but my experience has been Mac is easeier to use, and I use Linux as my primary desktop. Windows is even easier to use.
The difference is that both Windows and Mac have UI designers, that work at the whole look and feel and making things easier for the end user. Most open source projects dont have that and need it desperately.
I think the point that you may have missed in the article is that the design of most open source is by a programmer and used by other programmers who understand all this stuff. End Users dont. I do, but I'm a programmer.
To many of the HOWTOS out there are missing a few things here and there and require a little debugging. They usually cover the majority of cases, but people don't want to read a how to they want to turn on a computer and it just works. The reason cell phones have gained such a huge acceptance today is because you just turn it on and it works. That is what made Palm so liked, was the fact that it was a simple UI. This is what Mac is famous for. The simple to use UI. of course if someone tells an open source programmer that their UI is lacking, they take offense. Hey why shouldn't they! They did it for free.
Bottom line is you get what you pay for!
Motivation Or: How I learned to stop bitching an.. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I write an application to suit my needs, I will use alpha and beta versions myself, and address any problems that come up. There's no way I'm going to write test-cases and go through a formal testing procedure, because I'm not motivated to produce a mature and complete application...just to do the bare minimum to satisfy my needs.
As for "asking for input from random people who will use your app on the web", who better to do it? People who are using the software are on many disparate platforms, which may not all be available to a developer. Those same people have just as much interest in seeing problems fixed quickly as the developers..possibly more so. Why do proprietary software vendors release beta versions of their software for interested parties to evaluate? How are *they* any different? Because those betas are released under NDA and not to anyone who wants to use them?
Knowledge should be free. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:well.. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not like a hammer. A much better analogy is a car, and guess what, you do take classes to use a car. It's called Driver's Ed. Anyone under 18 is required to take it before they can get a license (at least in my state, might be different elsewhere).
Re:GUI design (Score:1, Insightful)
First, you need to have a lot of exposure to good GUI design in order to be able to see the bad. Being a Mac OS user is a big plus here. You can easily spot a bad GUI once you know how they're supposed to work.
Next, you need to learn about the formal elements of GUI design. You should read, or at least skim, Apple's Human Interface Guidelines or the the one for Java (there may be ones for Windows and Gnome and all that, but I've never looked). This is needed to get from the "I can recognize a bad GUI" stage to the "I can design a good one."
When writing a program, you need to think about the GUI as the first step in your program, before you've even coded a single line. (In fact, most Mac programs begin life as a facade; just a GUI, with no functionality behind it!) Too often OSS people think of the GUI as something slapped on top of the program rather than the program as something that supports and implements to GUI. You need to say not, "what problem does my program solve?" but, "what problem does my user want to solve with my program?" The difference is subtle, but important. But if you are always thinking about the user, you have a much better chance of getting a good GUI.
It is especially important to NEVER slap a GUI on top of an existing command line program. E.g., don't try to slap a GUI onto ffmpeg. Ask what problem you are trying to help your users solve. Probably, in this instance, it would be "my user wants a program to convert A/V formats." Then try to figure out a good interface for doing that. (Hint: always look at what the leaders, Apple and Microsoft do; then do it better; it should be easy to do it better than Microsoft, but even Apple is not infallible.) It's okay if you use ffmpeg underneath, but don't think of your tool as "a GUI for ffmpeg." Think of it as an A/V conversion program.
Re:My thoughts (Score:2, Insightful)
Most people think that if they whine and complain enough somebody else will fix the problem for them. Until that perception is changed we will be subjected to endless articles about how much open source sucks from the perspective of the user.
It should be pointed out that users in general are never happy. They never read the documentation, they haphazardly push buttons, they never read the dialog box that pops up in their face and they constanly complain about how much computers suck. We should resign ourselves to users now bitching about linux as much as they bitch about windows.
There is an answer to all the so-called problems of the open source and that's to get off your ass do something. If you can't then give some money to somebody to do it on your behalf.
We need to make a push to make the users understand that they are not buying a product. They are joining a worldwide effort and they help is needed. Just as some shmuck gave up endless staturday nights to code that nice GUI, you need to give up something to help the process along.
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you're really saying is "hey, you didn't have to pay for it, so just sit there and shut up about how bad it is. We don't care about your problems with it and we're not going to fix it. If you think you know so much, why don't you go fix it?"
And people wonder why average users consider OSS proponents to be arrogant and egocentric?
Nothing pisses me off more than someone who demands the world for free, then bitches and whines because they can't have it without putting in an effort.
And some people, instead of putting in that effort, will choose to simply buy proprietary software right off the shelf that does what they want, how they want it, and without them needing to learn how to program in Perl, Python, C++, and learn the intricacies of vi. And Linux will remain within the reach of only those who have the technical wherewithall to use it or the stubborn patience to learn it (about 5% of the world) while everyone else goes and buys Windows. Linux users feel all smug, superior and happy while Microsoft laughs all the way to the bank.
But hey! Linux users can feel all smug, superior, and happy knowing that they "put in an effort." And that's what's really important at the end of the day, right?
To paraphrase you, nothing pisses me off more than someone so damned unbending and stubborn that they're willing to take a platform I believe in (Linux) and refuse to allow it to mature into something that could displace Microsoft. Instead, you'd prefer we return to the Bad Old Days when users had to conform to the software instead of the other way around, and everyone needed a Computer Science degree in order to work a PC. I'd prefer we move forward instead of backwards, embracing new users and accomodating them. You'd rather we just slap them around and chastise them for not picking up a C++ and learning how to program. Elitist, indeed. And ultimately self destructive.
bad docs not unique to open source (Score:3, Insightful)
Just ask Microsoft what Office is:
Microsoft Office XP Professional puts the features needed within easy reach at all times. Working alone, experience a smarter way to work. Working with others, collaborate more effectively. And increased reliability means never looking back - which is perfect, because your best results lie in front of you.
Re:Is she high? (Score:3, Insightful)
Violent puppy rape is not consensual sex between adults. Using the former term to refer to the latter act is incorrect and makes no sense.
Free Software IS Open Source software. It says so right on the label. Some, but not all, Open Source software is free software. In other words, Free software is a perfect subset of Open Source software. Using Open Source to refer to both is technically correct and should be perfectly acceptable. Using Free software to refer to both would be incorrect.
Re:It also lacks decent installation (Score:1, Insightful)
I personally find it a LOT easier AND less irritation to type "emerge mynewpackage" and 10 minutes later I have my new package ready to be used(and it's the most recent stable version, fully patched etc etc, no need to now go to an "update" site to make sure I haven't opened a huge hole into my system etc etc) as opposed to those stupid click click click click YESFFS I ACCEPT THE EULA click click click packages that you get with windoze.
And there's the added bonus that anything I install in linux using for eg gentoo's portage installs only what I need and no more. Those nice installation packages u get with windoze these days often install not just the app but those delightful spyware bits and bobs.
Re:The Issues with Open Source (Score:3, Insightful)
I will second that opinion, and run with it a little. But first let me say that this is a self-perpetuating situation: geek1 is using OSS and needs a program to do xyz->geek1 looks on freshmeat->geek finds program for xyy written by geek2 using OSS->geek1 mods xyy program to be xyz program and reposts to freshmeat, playing geek2 to someone else's geek1, writing minimal docs that only a geek can understand. The only way to break this cycle of unintelligible geek-oriented documentation is to have some large company ( *cough* Novell *cough* ) start paying people to write OSS docs with pretty screenshots and small words aimed at Mary Lou and Jimmy Wal-Mart Shopper-- otherwise, it will never get done.
I don't write new code becuase of the bragging rights, or becuase of the potential for 3. PROFIT!!! the reason I modify software is that I have a problem that I can't solve with the software that is currently available.
I write new code because I can't make the stuff I found on freshmeat or sourceforge do what I want it to do: it doesn't play nice with my db format, or it messes up the layout on my web pages, or it won't take my track list from xmms as a template for the order of tracks on the cd (*) So I write a little code, or tinker with what's already there, to meet my specific need. And if I come up with a solution that I think is elegant, maybe I'll submit my changes to the guy who is listed as the main contact at the place I got it from.
But your job is to provide the "service layer",
No, my job is something else entirely, and my job deals with software only tangentially. I use OSS at home because it's more secure, more flexible and more stable than Microsoft. I made the jump from windows98 because I needed a NAT box, and I didn't have any money to buy a standalone router, but I did need internet access through one DSL line for 3 computers at the same time. I solved that problem with OSS, but I didn't take the time to write documentation for it-- I HAVE OTHER THINGS I'D RATHER BE DOING. I don't get paid to write software, or write docs for someone else's software. Once my specific problem is solved, I don't care if anyone else uses the code I write... I just get on with my life.
And I argue that this is where the problem with documentation lies- if I write software that is good enough to solve my problem, then I use it, no docs required. Since I know what problem it's supposed to solve, and how it solves the problem, I don't need documentation. And since I don't care if anyone else uses my mods, I'm not going to go out of my way to write docs that no one will ever read, so that this hypothetical imaginary someone else who wants to use my software to take xmms playlists and use them to order tracks to burn cd's can do so without parsing the raw code for themselves. I think that in general people write docs for OSS only when the user base for a given program is large enough that it takes less time to write a howto than it would take to respond to questions individually. Before that threshold, it's just not worth the effort to write good docs! After all, my problem is solved, remember?
(*) the program I had these issues with was x-cd-roast [xcdroast.org], an excellent GUI frontend for cdrecord maintained by Thomas Niederreiter. I know, I know, I could just use **insert program name here** instead, but I tried 3 or 4 other guis, and was using fvwm2 instead of KDE, and... it ended up being easier to just write a script to translate the
Re:Product Websites / Download Options (Score:4, Insightful)
Next thing I do is decompress the first one and check the readme. For some weird reason it wanted me to go through the hassle of compiling it myself... now I could have learnt how to compile from the command line, but I just felt lazy and the project didn't look THAT great from the screenshots so I ended up trashing it.
The other one wanted me to compile it too. And I said what the hell. So I run "sh build.sh" or something similar to build the code and the next thing I know is it won't compile. Reading through the docs I find out that there's like 5 or 6 libraries I am supposed to download and install in my system. SDL, ziplib, can't remember what they were... but I just decided to trash it too.
My point? I was interested in two open source projects and I ended up trashing them just because the developers didn't bother to make them easy to install. Because the developers didn't bother to make the process painless to someone who still has to learn the ways of Linux (actually OS X is based in BSD).
I know, many people here will probably tell me that compiling source codes from the command line is as basic as turning on the computer. But as an end user, I felt highly uninterested in learning the inner workings of my system or the programs I downloaded.
Diego
Re:Motivation. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, for one, if the code is open, then the project isn't really "dead". Just fork your version and go on with life.
Coordinating your patches with Joe Blow's adding of new or improved functionality, that might be a more reasonable concern.
Jay (=
Eye candy != user interface design (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
I also think the author of the article doesn't understand how open source projects get started and evolve. My impression is that most start from the individual "scratch an itch" program and then grow and evolve from there. This is, I need a program to do X so I write a command-line program to do X. I know where (newsgroup, whatever) other people are who might be interested in X hang out so I post about my program there. If enough people are interested, it becomes a real open source project and someone says, "Gee, it would be nice if it had a GUI."
The prevalence of command line programs is not some deep dark conspiracy to retain the command line but, if you just need something for yourself, who is going to engineer a complete GUI? That only comes after you figure out how to do X (unless you also want to learn about crafting a GUI). The main difference is that in the commercial world someone says, "We need a *product* that does X," so the ease of use and human engineering are part of the *product* development because they know they have to make it easy to use in order to *sell* the program. You will note that this misunderstanding of motivation also comes through in the original article's problems 3 and 4.
2) Documentation
Most general purpose software documentation sucks regardless of whether its from a FOSS project or a commercial vendor. The last hardcopy documentation I saw for Microsoft Office was simply the on-line help printed and bound. You don't see anything like the quality documentation that used to come with some of the old DOS programs (e.g., WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, etc.). Part of this was that the people writing that documentaion had to assume that the user didn't have the faintest idea of what a computer was or what their program did.
3) Feature-centric development
I don't see this as being restricted to FOSS projects. About the only difference is that with commercial software, the feature-centric development just means the features come from marketing instead of the developers/users. I actually see *less* of this in FOSS than I do in commercially developed software. Commercial software producers have a huge monetary incentive to keep their customers on the upgrade treadmill to maintain their cash-flow. I see more of a recognition in FOSS that a program can be relatively complete.
4) Programming for the self
This one I have to agree with although I see hope in companies like IBM and Novell getting involved in FOSS. I see them as having the resources and incentive to do real human interface engineering.
5) Religious blindness
I don't see this as a problem either. I think this is one place where the author needed to provide some specific examples instead of just making general accusations. I do see a very valid position taken by the FOSS development community to respect open standards and rejection of proprietary protocols and formats. If this is the "religious blindness" she's talking about then so be it.
My own list of strengths and misconceptions (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is this is a debate or an issue? Why do most projects still get this wrong? Having configuration stored in a text file is absolutely the way to go, this has tons of benefits, probably the biggest and least mentioned is that the configuration can be passed around or backed up. So although you spend 3hrs configuring server x and services, you then backup the conf files to a floppy and pop them back in place the next time.
Text config is also the most flexible way to go, you always have the most power and control (or potential for it anyway) with text config. That's great, it covers half the battle.
What does that have to do with the absolutely neccesity to have a configuration program? At the cli I should have two options, the text file direct or ncurses configuration app which offers 99% of the functionality available to me by editing the file directly and does so in an intuitive manner. At the gui I also have two options, the gui based configuration app which works like the ncurses one and editing the file directly. Alot of projects come close (although usually they offer one or the other) but they make said app a one time shot, rather than say, letting me configure, and then *gasp* later modify rather than completely start over my existing config or manual modifications.... and this is produced by the same people who already wrote code to parse the config file and read in the values!
The other issue here is conformity, despite configuring dozens of apps via text file every day about once a week I encounter a new style/format of config file. We need to come up with a standard for this. We also need to work on defaults, I've yet to encounter a project with even vaguely reasonable defaults... defining reasonable as the most commonly used values. As an example, neither postfix nor sendmail actually come "out of the box" configured for the most common mail setup, to use the already set host value, and relay for the most commonly used private subnets (namely 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.0.0) and use mbox files. Other configurations are exceptions rather than the rule and 90% of those exceptions would require no more than a change to who to relay for so why don't these programs come with this default config out of the box?
Installer, binary, source, wizard...
I don't see a real question here either, the answer is all of the above again. The source code of course should be available but is hardly the format of consumption for end users. The binary should be available (at least an rpm that doesn't have dependencies or has them packaged with it) and an installer wizard which helps you arrive at your initial configuration, put things where they should go and install any dependencies which the program needs with just a few clicks or key punches (after all there should be an ncurses version of the installer as well). Nvidia has a good concept with downloading the source if the binary doesn't match the system which the app is being installed on.
Someday someone will figure out that there really aren't many distro's that make use of
Documentation
There should be some! Most I've seen doesn't cover the whole spectrum, either it's for idiots, or it's for programmers or the worst, it's outdated and inaccurate and/or wasn't even vaguely accurate when it was current. For an example, look to grub documentation on installing the bootloader from the native command prompt, you'll find two different general sets of commands to use, the most common method found on a google does not work on any version of grub I've EVER encountered but is faithfully repeated, the commands listed outright wrong.
Generally a basic, and advanced USER guide which don't reference source code or compiling at all. And then a seperate set of programmers documentation kept as curre
Re:If I'm doing it for free... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it is open source, so if you don't like it you can change it yourself.
Except I can't. I don't have the time, knowledge or inclination. The software or the OS is a tool to aid me in my chosen (or paid) activity. Time spent changing the tools is time I could have been enjoying or earning.
Im my last job, they moved us over from WinNT to Red Hat with KDE. For a while I had two machines sitting on my desk. On one occasion I wanted to print something double-sided. I forget the specifics, but if I wanted to print double-sided from the Linux/KDE machine I had to type a fucking lpr command complete with all the relevant switches. (But it isn't in a shell, it's in a nice box with an OK button underneath so it must be usable, right?) Or I could unlock the Windows box and select Double Sided on a set of radio buttons.
You seem to be saying that I should re-write the relevant part of KDE to give me all those command line options as a nice pointy-clicky interface, if that's what I want. And I can see your point. But my point is, when I can pay for something that does what I want, and when most of my gripes with OSS are with basic usability issues, why on earth would I hack KDE to bits? I will pay someone to do the interface properly, and if he happens to be Bill Gates, that's just tough for OSS.
I'm considered by my friends and family to be a geek. If the software or the OS isn't usable, and I won't rip it apart, does anyone here seriously think my Dad will? Do you think my Dad's going to read through man pages to teach himself how to print? I tried that and still chose to print from the Windows machine. This is what OSS is up against, and (as has been discussed elsewhere in this topic) until the usability is at a level where people would pay for the product, no Joe Public person is going to tolerate it even if he's paid nothing. I'm certainly not going near KDE again, that left a nasty taste in my mouth.
(Mods: This is not intended as flamebait or trolling, but it's hard to express the strength of my feeling without sounding like it is!)
Re:Is she high? (Score:3, Insightful)
And I didn't say she wasn't referring to Free Software. She's referring to both. To go back to the puppy analogy above, referring to puppies necessarily refers to poodles. Not all dogs are poodles, but all poodles are certainly dogs. One needn't refer to "puppies and poodles." The term "puppies" necessarily includes poodles.
In a discussion of the relative merits of poodles, it might be appropriate to specify poodles in some places. In a general discussion of puppies, saying "puppies and poodles" is redundant. Similarly, there are some conversations where it makes sense to differentiate between Free Software and software that is Open Source but not Free. This isn't one of those discussions, since the issue is the develpment process and not the philosophy behind the movements.
Vender written software that is released as Open Source probably does not fall under the article because it likely wasn't developed using the Open Source development method.
Just my 2 cents... (Score:2, Insightful)
Admittedly, in the last few years there have been real strides made for free/open-source software -- the GNOME project is the most vivid example, keeping true to its philosophy of simple, usable programs. I am particularly fond of applications like Epiphany, SoundJuicer, and Totem, all of which take a simple, user-oriented approach toward the tasks they perform.
As for advice, I would say that more projects simply need to take the advice the author of this article gives. Spending more time trying to avoid the five pitfalls outlined in this article is really all they need to do -- the real problem is that they're usually just not aware of these issues, or if they are, they don't care. If they want to make their software usable by others, they need to fix the problems.
The one thing I disagree on is the lack of documentation. I don't disagree that documentation for most free/open-source projects is poor, but were the program intuitively designed, it would be unnecessary. How many people read the documentation for a Mac or Windows system? Not many. I'd rather the developers spend time making the program usable than documenting something that is not.
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
A maintainer of a Open Source or Free Software project is under NO OBLIGATION to fix anything, or even to guarantee that it works at all. It says so right in the standard disclaimer, its provided in the hopes that its useful, nothing more. If it doesn't work, the only person you can rely upon to fix it is yourself, and it is nothing but whining to expect someone else to ix it for you, so yes, they can just sit down and shut up if all they're going to do is whine and cry it doesn't work. For the record, good bug reports aren't whining, but even then you can't expect it to be fixed immediately.
The reason I mention the religious blindness is that it works both ways. The article uses it in rejection of all things closed and proprietary, but that implies the reverse, all things open and free are the only way. With this mind set, users of FOSS feel that it is their right to DEMAND that all software is free and the maintainers are REQUIRED to give all the same support to their little pet project as if it they when out and paid for it. Yes a linux user may feel smug in getting something to work right, and so they should, you should take pride in your accomplishments, and yes at the end of the day, the only thing that is important is if you learned something.
To paraphrase you, nothing pisses me off more then someone so damned blinded by their own beliefs that its their right to have FOSS given to them with all the work done for them, that they see a platform as a religion ("...I believe in (Linux)...") that exists to quelsh all that they are told is evil ("displace Microsoft"), refuse to realize that they have actually no right to expect anything from anyone, even if they released their work for anyone to use.
I think you'll find that most people do not follow the same religion as you do, that being putting your faith in the almighty RMS, and really do release software in the hopes that its useful, but with no warranty at all, and yes, they program for themselves. This is why Linux was released in the first place, remember Linux is 'just an engineer' not a blind disciple of RMS. If you really want a platform that was created for your religious beliefs, ie a platform I believe in (Linux) and refuse to allow it to mature into something that could displace Microsoft you should be using the GNU/HURD, but then again, you'd have to sit down and actually work out the problems yourself, I don't think the people working on it take to kindly to "OMG IT WONT READ OVER 2GB MAKE IT WORK", and they'll probably tell you to sit down, shut up and do it yourself, its not like you paid for it.
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure even Linus isn't that religious about this. I don't think your goal for Linux can be imposed on volunteers who might have other goals.
In the past, I'd make a concession at this point and say "it's a good goal anyway." Lots of people have that goal. But nowadays, I can't even concede that. I'm really thinking that Linux needs to extend its reach to power users and stop there. I don't think Linux should try to displace Microsoft. Instead, I think it should get comfortable being used by the 25% of the population that is fairly tech-savvy. Leave the other 75% alone. They come with too much baggage.
Well now this I agree with. I think the rudeness and discourtesy some developers show others is a big problem. I just don't think the solution is to be doormats. For better or worse, the Open Source model puts developers on par with end-users. This becomes collaborative, and both sides must cooperate. If one side is rude or demanding, the other has every right to walk away. If that means a project run by assholes ends up stuck in a niche of a niche and never gains market share, so be it. If that means a project gains huge market share but deliberately draws the line at 50% of the population and says "we're fine with the smart half, but we're not going to be able to accomodate the other half" then so be it.
As usual, I think there are courteous ways to say no (such as "I'm sorry, but that's a lot of development time and we have no one to spare") and there are rude ways (such as "build it yourself noob").
Re:Motivation. (Score:1, Insightful)
Best documentation awards are like awards for the best totalitarian state. The fact of the matter is that if you need documentation, you already failed the UI design process.
Also, no programmer wants to be awarded "best documentation." Its like being praised for servicing the public good by paying the most taxes.
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I say, "What's wrong with that?"
Is there some inviolate law that says people have to program for others for free (as in "with no charge")? I hear Marx muttering from his grave, "...from the programmer to the end user...".
If you don't like what you get without charge, then either expend the effort to change it, or pay someone to do it for you. I don't expect doctors to treat me for free, or lawyers to represent me for free, so why is there this perception that those that provide software without charge should somehow be obliged to meet some arbitrary whim?
Granted, ease of use translates into popularity translates into greater support, and those that care about software popularity might make the effort to consider usability issues. Hint: that may not be the prime developer of a particular piece of software.
Linux was not created for your benefit or mine: it was created by Linus Torvalds for himself. Of course, others with similar interests shared and contributed to that effort, and the synergy is amazing. But the fact that it is useful to you or I is happy coincidence.
Elitist, indeed. And ultimately self destructive.
You know, I have a brother in law that is seriously into motorcycles. He goes on and on about minutae of bikes that I barely understand. Elitist? Perhaps. But, he does not require or expect me to share his interest or desires. And, I do not expect him to explain things to "my level". Why is it, then, that we expect open source and free software programmers to "owe" something to society? Ironic how free software, wrongly criticized for being "communist" suffers under accusers far more "red" than it's protagonists.
"Ultimately self destructive?" I suppose if a popularity contest or some measure of market share is the issue, the argument might hold a drop of water. But, that isn't the issue, and never was. If free software requires popularity, it is only because opponents of the philosophy behind it would seek to use the force of corporatist-purchased government law and force to extinguish it's fire. Frankly, with IBM and others "on side", I don't think we need to worry about that.
I am not a free software or open source zealot. I believe that the only way to produce mass-market user-interacting software is with the kind of market research that can only be funded by providers of proprietary software. That said, there are large underlying components of such software that could be leveraged in other areas and will soon be supplanted by free alternatives, commoditizing them at zero cost to end users. The line has been drawn between effective free operating systems and non-free applications and services. The question is how much will it move into the application space? My bet: "Not very much."
Free office suites and web browsers will exist, of course, but will generally play the "compatibilty catch up game" with their most popular non-free counterparts. They will be standards-complient and Microsoft-incompatible. Maddeningly, standard non-conforming software will continue it's popular ride. The market, after all, is not made up of a majority that can evaluate the benefits of the free vs. non-free alternatives: they get their decision-making input from TV. I've yet to see a television ad for Apache (notwithstanding in the context of IBM hardware and support).
Just as squares are a subset of rectangles... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe a better one is...the difference between sex between consenting adults trying for a baby and sex between consenting adults who just want to spread some love in the world.
A pre-requisite of a program being Free Software is that the source is open, this is pre-supposed by the 2nd and 4th freedoms. The reason for the source of Free Software being open is ideological.
The reason for "Open Source"(N.B. capitals) software having open source is one of practicality/necessity/development methodology.
She clouds the issue, well aware of the "political" implications of doing so, why? Why not just drop the capitals from Open Source? Or better still, use the respective terms as befits the situation.Instead she relegates Free Software to a footnote and expounds on the "sociology"(hah!) of Open Source software.
Ya know...is all...
Re:WHAT??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Something's still wrong here.
Re:Motivation. (Score:2, Insightful)
Kinda says it all about how much you value documentation within the open source community.
I wouldn't mind doing some documentation for OSS projects, but most projects require documentation people to have several years of technical authoring experience, which I don't have. I might view myself as an okay sort of writer, and have some journalism experience and some user hand-holding experience, but it wouldn't be enough. And in any case, would I really want to do this in order to claim the huge prestige of being labelled as 'couldn't hack it as a developer'?
Re:My thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, I'm sorry, but you must have Open Source confused with Free Software.
I frankly don't give a damn about your "worldwide effort," and if that's the official position of OSS, then I don't want any part of it. I want the most cost effective software that does what I want. If OSS can provide that, so be it. If I have the urge to contribute to something that lacks features, I will do so. But I certainly do not feel compelled to design a UI for someone's pet project.
But you say I'm not allowed to complain unless I fix it myself. I have always disagreed with this idea. Let analyze it:
Situation 1: you're a developer creating a public good work as a pet project. You're not particular devoted to some "worldwide effort." I complain. If you're interested in making your project appealing to others, you will fix it. If not, no problem. I might switch to another product, but you don't really care.
Situation 2: you're a developer creating a public work as part of the "worldwide effort." I complain, despite cries that I should not. Now, if you really believe in the worldwide effort, you (or someone in the effort) will fix it because you're trying to get more people on board. But if you really just want to be self-important, you'll insist that I fix your bugs because to be in your little worldwide effort, I have to take part. You're no longer really creating public works. Instead, you've got your Eric Raymond "gift economy," in which, if you had it your way, a non-contributor would not even be allowed to use the Free Software.
Situation 2 is why the average user will hate Linux.
(That being said, I do contribute to projects from time to time. But not because I'm obligated to.)
Re:This is true (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't that different from the closed source world
Good documentation is no fun to write. It's great if it's free, but it's reasonable to expect to pay for some of it.
Re:Motivation. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that Microsoft is a *monopoly*.
If BeOS or Mac OS X wants to be proprietary, most people don't *care* because they aren't forced to interact with it or be compatible with it.
With Microsoft, you don't get a choice. You have to deal with Windows, you have to deal with Microsoft file formats and protocols, end of story.
You can always legitimately complain about an artificial monopoly.
But why? Do we want World Domination? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I like OSS, I use it all the time, but I see no reason why non-geeks should do so too. The only really bad thing about proprietary software is that most of it is owned by one company. And that causes problems when it comes to defining standards. But if it wasn't for the proprietary Word, Excell and Windows Media documents: why would we care that 95% of all computer users are using proprietary software? Does it hurt us? Most open source programmers have no advantage by the number of users. TV stations are being payed according to the number of viewers, OSS isn't. When a programmer uses OSS, and he adds code to the project, then we have win-win situation. But if 100 milion simple users use OSS, we're not getting payed, we're not getting any new code, but only millions of mails with questions that are already answered in the READMEs, FAQs or documentation. So to me it's not important that everbody uses OSS, the only important thing is that companies and OSS developers can agree on some standards, so that it's possible, and will keep being possible in the future, for users of different software to communicate with each other.
Re:My thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the rub: If I want to find an existing project to write documentation for, I have to either a) read all the existing documentation, figure out what the product does, then figure out what documentation is needed and write it, or b) find that there's no documentation at all, read the code, figure out what the product does, then write documentation from that.
In no way should I be allowed to approach a project's web site, introduce myself on the forum saying that I'm a documentation writer, and have people offer their expertise as developers in telling me what the product does so I can write documentation for it. God forbid that I should ask questions that are clearly evident if I would just read every post to the forum boards for the last year and corrolate that with code snippets that were submitted to CVS.
So, based on that, I spend my time fooling around with bad software and figuring out how to use it on my own. Once I do, I'll be pretty good at it, and I can be an elitist (l33t???) that tells people how I could lower myself to telling them the answer to their question, but I don't really have the time because I'm too busy posting to Slashdot.
Re:My thoughts (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with all points in the original article. I also agree with your indications of where the solution lies to (1)-(4). However I can't agree that there isn't a significant problem of religious blindness.
As just one example, take the issue of the MDI interface. Mentioning the lack of MDI as an issue on /. is likely to result in your karma being wacked with a chainsaw. But the reality is, some people with experience with all four ways of doing this find MDI easier and more convenient. Yet open source projects consistently refuse to add MDI as an option.
The four ways are, of course:
I for one have experience with all these approaches, yet I still find the lack of MDI on Linux annoying in the extreme, and the alternatives less than convenient. Especially in the Gimp. The lack of MDI there really shits me.
Formal Flamebait (Score:3, Insightful)
Why am I calling it flamebait? Because of the 5 problems he describes, not a single one was unique to open source software development.
User interface design. I've seen some truly horrendous user interfaces coming out of non-OSS companies. He points to MacOS X as a shining beacon of "UI done right" and I have to agree. But that's Apple. They're very good at it. Not all companies are as good as Apple. Not even all MacOS application developers are that good!
Documentation. He slams OSS as providing a mixed bag of documentation. Non-OSS is exactly the same! I've worked on non-OSS which is poorly documented, and I've worked on non-OSS which is brilliantly documented. In fact the OSS UNIX-like docos blows away the majority of non-OSS UNIX competition. That's one reason why almost all the non-OSS UNIX companies are kaput; their offerings were considerably worse than Linux!
Feature-centric development. Has he forgotten that the bloated-does-everything application was the hallmark of non-OSS development for years? He rightly accuses some OSS developers of repeating the same mistake, but this is a bad design habit being carried over from the largely non-OSS PC OS and PC apps market. It has nothing to do with OSS specifically.
Programming for the self. This one really takes the cake for nonsense. Has this guy ever worked with Cadence? Or Oracle? Or Paradigm? Those apps are extremely difficult to ramp up with so they have the exact same issues that he describes for OSS. What does this specifically have to do with OSS? Once again, absolutely nothing.
Religious blindness. Lest we forget, the term "zealot" was first used to describe Mac users and later Amiga users. I realise I've just invoked Godwin's corollary (the person who first says "zealot" loses the argument) but the shoe fits. All platforms have their religious nutcases. Once again, not OSS specific.
It was a flamebait article designed to invoke angry responses. The 5 problems he listed were not fundamental problems with OSS. If they were, then all OSS projects would exhibit those 5 problems. The fact that some OSS projects don't have those 5 problems is proof that they're not fundamental to OSS development. The fact that some non-OSS projects do have those 5 problems is proof that they're issues with all software development, not just OSS.
What he has described are 5 pitfalls that all projects, OSS and non-OSS, sometimes fall into. If he had rewritten the paper as "A number of pitfalls that OSS projects would do well to avoid" then he would have had a winner. If had even written it as "some OSS projects have these undesirable qualities" then that would be OK. However written in the sweeping over-generalised sense, that those 5 problems are fundamental to OSS and therefore inescapable, it's inciteful nonsense.
Do you hear that collective groan? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whenever you take a collection of small applications and try to turn them into wide-spread, useful tools, you need to change the small applications so they conform to standards and can be used by the masses.
Everything needs to look the same, everything needs to act the same, and everything needs to be done graphically. Yes, the elite know you can hop out to a prompt and do certain things with certain apps, but the regular users don't, and assume the program doesn't do it if there's nothing graphical (and obvious).
Does anyone remember what VB apps looked like with VB3? Everyone was doing their own thing: some programmers used certain tools, others used only basic tools, some programmers used the Form_Load event as their Sub_Main (and basically turned it into a non-graphical program)
Don't get me wrong - standards are boring. They take all the fun out of everything (unless you consider standardization fun). But they're a necessary boring.
Re:well.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The computer is not a tool. The computer is infrastructure. The computer should not be thought of as a tool, much less a mere simple tool.
The computer is the foundation on which other tools do their work.
If people want computers that just work, they might have to give up flexibility for specialisation. Tools that do one thing well are generally simple and intuitive.
The computer is not a tool. It is not a single-function tool. It is not a multi-function tool. It is infrastructure for programs like electricity to appliances.
A user who just wants to do their work but is confronted with an undecipherable tool has always had two options:
(a) learn the tool
(b) find another tool
I'm quite certain that everybody who believes that Apple/Microsoft software is more intuitive has opted for (a) in the past and are now trying to use a different tool but are opting for (b).
Microsoft Engineering Version (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, motivation in commercial software is a huge problem too. As a business, Microsoft only pursues security to the extent it increases profit. The mass market has demonstrated that it will mostly tolerate insecure code and so M$ keeps churning out--you guessed it--insecure code.
With their resources, Microsoft could have every buffer overflow fixed inside of a month. But currently, the competition (open source or otherwise) isn't enough of a threat to justify that expense.
If you want Windows fixed, get your friends to install Linux.
What is the end goal of "Open Source." (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
The systemic, fundamental flaw with her analysis is that there is no united "open source" goal from which to be held back!
The assumption that all free and open source developers share the principal goal of supplanting or competing directly with more traditional software is just wrong.
For some projects, it may be true, but clearly not for others. Do the authors of ghostview want to supplant acrobat reader? I don't think so. Do the authors of the Gimp want to compete directly with photoshop? Perhaps.
Do Star Office and Open Office developers want to erode Microsoft's share of the office-suite world? You bet.
Do the mingw people want to compete with visual C++ (or whatever Microsoft's latest c++ compiler is called)? I don't think so.
In general, do you think GNU people want to compete with anybody? I don't. I think they just want to be free to create the kind of software they like.
It seems to me that there are a huge variety of goals out there, and in many cases, competing with commercial software is not one of them. In other cases it is. But in my opinion only newbies and idealists believe that free software should try to or will eventually take over the world and put closed software out of business.
What free sofware does is put pressure on commercial software. For example, I'm sure one of the reasons that Microsoft fixed the TCP/IP stack in its newer OS's is because the Linux and BSD stacks are so good. (In fact, I've heard people say that Microsoft just lifted the stack from some BSD variant. I don't know if that is true.) Microsoft also took a lot of heat for stability, once again due to the stability of various Unix-like OS's running on the same hardware. This has forced Microsoft to improve. Finally, now, Microsoft is taking tons of heat on security. We'll see how they react. (In my opinion, this already makes Linux and the BSD's a complete success. They forced Microsoft to compete!)
And of course, Linux is sort of like the blob. Microsoft tries to fight it off on some narrow front, but it just expands around that area and pushes in somewhere else. Whether it's servers, PDA's, the embedded market, or 64-bit systems, or gaming consoles, Linux is there, making life difficult for Microsoft, not out of malice, but just because it is what it is.
Anyway, just my $0.02.
MM
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Examples? (Score:3, Insightful)
The author of this article fell into the very temping trap of least effort: not actually giving any examples whatsoever to back up her points. The only example (Firefox) is basically an admission that her points are not universal.
What's more, it is easy to argue (with examples) that all of the points in the article except for "programming for the self" are far, far more prominent in the proprietary software world than in the open-source software world. As for "programming for the self," there isn't an example and it's only true in a small subset of open-source projects.
So what can you expect? With no examples, no programs even mentioned in passing, and basing the entire article on a seemily-fictional piece of software called Project X... there's simply no content.
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
Yup. However, (as I'm sure the poster you're replying to understands), for proprietary software, arrogantly chastising the user and slapping them around a bit is a viable business model. Just ask Microsoft....
It is that attitude (the one exhibitted by the poster you were replying to), that that stymies the growth of open source software. Combine that attitude with lousey code and non-existant documentation and you have a death knell... Gates would be proud.
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
I say, "What's wrong with that?"
Answer: nothing, if the software is not intended for use by anyone but its authors and the elite.
However, if we want "the rest of the world" to adopt and love an open source solution over an old proprietary one, then inaccessibility is bad. You cannot convert the world to the open source gospel if you water you give them to drink of leaves them thirstier than before. You must give them to drink of the water of eternal . . . no, wait -- that's a _different_ gospel.
But here's a point: Resisting efforts to legally erradicate open source software requires popularity. If our numbers are small enough, our rights can be taken away.
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
I think your analogy here is flawed. I have a friend who likes to rebuild automobile engines. He's very good at it, and very into it. He can and does go on and on about the merits of this model, this engine over that... stuff that I care little about, and cannot claim to fully understand. What I do know is that when he has "built" a car, it will run and run well. I can drive it. I can accomplish my own purposes with it.
I would rather have him give me a beater that he has rebuilt than go out and buy a new car. Not only is it cheaper, but I have a much higher degree of confidence the vehicle than I do in one that just rolled off the assembly line. And chances are it will perform better.
He does what he does because he likes it, often at his own expense. He feels he owes it to himself to do a good job. It's a point of pride. He does not expect me to learn to rebuild an engine in order to drive one of his cars, although if I want to rebuild an engine, he'd be happy to show me how.
If I apply those precepts to software development, I produce software that is "driveable" by anyone with basic driving skills. It's not about the Open Source community "owing" me anything, it's very simply that if they produce something that is too much hassle to use, no one will use it. Some developers don't have a problem with that. I personally think it's just short-sited and basically ignorant. If you don't care about your users, go back to coding for windows. Your product will be short-lived, and useless to the majority of the community, anyway.
Bottom line is, I don't think we need fewer users. I think we need fewer developers. I don't need L33Tist crap software, free or otherwise. It's simpler just to write it myself than to clean up some kiddie's mess.
If there is going to be a body of usable Open Source Software, it's not going to be produced by a bunch of whiners crying "I don't owe you anything", it's going to be produced by developers who take pride in doing a thing right. As in any other field...
Re:GUI design (Score:3, Insightful)
You developed an interface. You sat down and watched your users. You came up with some novel solutions, and streamlined your users' tasks. You brought the GUI to someone with an artistic eye (your sister.) You repeated the process until your users' workflow was optimized.
Think about how much work went into the steps you detailed here. You actually described that you went through the process I mentioned in my earlier post, from making decisions about data to be entered, workflow, aesthetics, and went on to a usability lab (OK, you watched it in production, but the key was you watched it.) That sounds like a lot of work over a long period of time. Plus, you had the luxury of drawing a paycheck while it was happening.
Getting someone to do all that work is hard. And once you've gone through it once or twice, you realize the benefits you gain from it. But open source project developers frequently don't have that experience, and nobody ever considers it the "glamour" work, even though you may know you'll derive lots of satisfaction from seeing happier users.
Features == bad? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure how this relates to the ease-of-use issue. I can see how having multiple small well-designed programs can solve a problem better than one large monolithic program. But that doesn't really scale to the GUI world.
For example, I'd rather run Thunderbird to read my mail, news, and RSS feeds (through an extension) all in one place than run a mail reader, a news reader, and an RSS reader seperately.
Similarly, I'd rather run Gaim than Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, ICQ, and MSN seperately. I get a consistent interface, and I use fewer system resources.
How do these things apply to the whole "small tool that does one thing and does it well" paradigm?
Re:So right but so wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Answer: nothing, if the software is not intended for use by anyone but its authors and the elite.
This is generally the case from the perspective of people who write software to solve a particular problem.
2. However, if we want "the rest of the world" to adopt and love an open source solution over an old proprietary one, then inaccessibility is bad.
True, but those doing the evangelizing are often not those doing the developing! Granted, there are some exceptions (Desktop development, the whole GNU effort), but high-profile evangelizing generally is divorced from development -- those ranting the most are often those developing the least and presume to suggest what developers should do. One can "suggest" all they want, but unless they have an agreement with a developer, that's all they have a moral right to do.
3. Resisting efforts to legally erradicate open source software requires popularity. If our numbers are small enough, our rights can be taken away.
Well, not according to the U.S. Constitution (if you happen to live in the U.S.A.), even as it's being Patriot Acted to death. But the point is a good one. Still, a small movement tends to be not worth the while to attack, and a large one is beyond legislative attack. The vulnerability occurs at the midpoint, just when something is starting to "take off".
I think the open source movement has advanced beyond that stage -- it offers enough cost savings to cost-sensitive organizations to be "kept legal". IBM isn't in this for the philosophical aspects, you know.
The greatest danger, though, is in an attack on the free software movement. By driving a wedge between open source and free software, one can vilify one as extreme, while grudgingly tolerating the other. I can imagine laws passed that permit certain combinations of open and closed code that the GPL might arguably forbid, under pressure from industry to "mine" GPL-licensed software to "reduce costs", and stave off "layoffs". Yes, this would likely be illegal in the context of present copyright law, but who says the law is internally consistent?
It is espescially dangerous when people are quite willing to use non-free applications on free operating systems, or vice-versa; or when the notion that a closed kernel module might not be acceptable to a future kernel license causes concern to those who want to use it.
Personally, I think these kinds of combinations of free and non-free software are acceptable -- the GPL draws quite a useful line, as unclear as it may be when it comes to the notion of plugins and non-free dynamically linked extentions to free code (and vice-versa). In any case, people will want to make them for reasons of sheer convenience. Nevertheless, the right of people to use the GPL, or an even more stricter free software licence, if they choose, should not be infringed.
But, I am not convinced that making open source software popular will help in this area -- it's a philosophical and moral debate, and not a pragmatic one: open source will always be more convenient that completely free software (particularly that with a license stricter than the GPL 2.0 -- GPL 3.0, perhaps?) simply because it admits a coexistance with non-free software, albeit perhaps subject to GPL restrictions. Just look at the popularity of Debian vs. Red Hat vs. Suse distributions. Debian, true to the free software philosophy is the dark horse, and I'm not entirely convinced that it is due to UI ease of use issues.
So, while I don't think that open source software is going away any time soon, I do think that free software might come under the legislative attack you descrbe, and the force to counter it would be philosophical argument not popularity, since few would understand the difference between the two. While popular open source software can help the free software movement (and I think open source is popular enought to survive legislative attack), I don't think it will be enough to protect it unless the philosophical differences between the two are understood.