An ex-Microsoft employee is arguing that Linux is ready for the primetime and that only thing keeping it away is the number of bugs it has. He claims that if these few high-importance bugs are fixed one way or another, Linux can become a dominant power in the desktop OS world.
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Member since:2005-07-10
I'm sorry... what?
Okay... english is not my native language and I can't allways express in english what I would like to say.
You wrote about WANT and I wrote about EXPECTING. For me this are two diffrend words with differend meaning.
Screw them. Those type of people are the ones slowing down adoption.
I personaly think that the Gnome DE is following that way. Everything has to be as minimalistic as possible, yet very powerfull. I don't share their way of looking at the things. But I respect their decision.
For the most part, yes. But sometimes developers will snub their nose at certain requests, because they think they know better. I've seen it happen. A good project that actually listens to their users for the most part is Firefox, and it shows by it's success.
Okay... in real life I am a developer. Not for OSS but I do development for living (working in a company wich is IBM Advanced Business Partner). I can tell you one thing about developer: They mostly think their are good gift to humanity and they behave like divas.
That is a big problem. Not only in OSS development.
Normaly you would have some one talking with the custumer/user, someone analyzing that stuff, someone designing the system and someone developing it.
In OSS you have mostly one person for all the 4 jobs. Developers are not always best suited to have end-user contact and this is what I often see as a problem when you look in the varios DE bug tracking systems.
No, I don't think they are doing their best. They are trying, but they can do better.
I think that most of them do their best. Off course they can virtualy implement anything they like. They have the man power and the knowledge for doing so. But not all of them do active search for new ways of implementing stuff.
When you use a system for a certain time, then you start to adopt to that system and you start to be blind for the errors other new users would have with the system, because you don't see them or you lerned to live with them or you have your own way to handle them.
Member since:2005-07-06
You wrote about WANT and I wrote about EXPECTING. For me this are two diffrend words with differend meaning.
Expect has 2 different meanings are are hard to distinguish sometimes. One of them is pretty much the same thing as "want". So we what you meant cleared up, and I don't agree. I don't think he expects a 1:1 copy, but expects certain parts to work in a common sense way, which usually is the same as windows.
Okay... in real life I am a developer. Not for OSS but I do development for living (working in a company wich is IBM Advanced Business Partner). I can tell you one thing about developer: They mostly think their are good gift to humanity and they behave like divas.
That is a big problem. Not only in OSS development.
I'm a developer too, and I agree. That's where I think is a flaw in most FOSS projects. Developers should not be the one designing the "user experience" and "flow". But it's kind of hard to get someone to do that kind of thing for free, that isn't a developer. A project like Firefox has that, because Mozilla actually makes money and can pay their employees.
When you use a system for a certain time, then you start to adopt to that system and you start to be blind for the errors other new users would have with the system, because you don't see them or you lerned to live with them or you have your own way to handle them.
Yep. That's why you need more layers: QA, Project Managers, User Focus groups, etc.
Member since:2005-06-29
I think one problem is that users are simply wrong 95% of the time. And it's not that they don't know what they want or are stupid or anything like that. It's just that when two people want two opposing things, well you can't please both; one has to be "wrong."
So, when you have 20 users, all wanting conflicting schemes, 19 of them may need to be "wrong."
And guess what. The 1, or 19, are going to be vocal about how you suck (not necessarily, but given a large enough sample you'll get some bad apple).
So you're virtually guaranteed to get someone who says developers aren't listening. They may very well be, and they may be saying "no" loud and clear.
Then there are users who ask for technically imfeasible solutions. Things which could be done, but at more cost thant the developers are willing to put in.
You can't please everyone, so, you gotta please yourself 
. And since so many small projects are just someone scratching an itch, it turns out that they know exactly how to please themselves.
But let me tell you this. People developing GUI programs. The preference dialog: It's boring, it's obnoxious, it's a pain to keep up, and the developer has _no_ use for it.
He knows his config file like the back of his hand, and that GUI dialog is just troublesome. He didn't write it to scratch his itch. Remember that the next time you want to accuse him of being completely self-serving.
And it's not because his mailbox is flooded with e-mails either. Unless you're on a large project you don't get a lot of mail, and then it's going to be from other dev's as much as users.
Another thing that's hard to get used to on FOSS projects, and may be a real problem, is that most of them are in a constant development cycle. The KDE and Gnome project, and Linux of course, are almost oddities in the sense that they maintain very stable releases and branches.
Ever used fluxbox stable? Do you know how many years old it is . Of course, fluxbox-dev is so reliable you only know it's unstable because there are new features, every now and then.
One man projects just typically don't keep strong stable releases: It's a lot of work.
Commercial software, OTOH, has always kept strong releases. They have months (if things work out) of testing before a release, with paid testers.
There's a saying, "eat your own dog food." In other words, if you're a developer, use your last release, and use your next release for a while before you release it.
Visual Studio is one of Microsoft's most heralded tools, gee, maybe the fact that the whole company (I imagine at least 98% of the developers) uses it has something to do with that?
Of course I'm sure they use a lot of the other products as well, and I'm not picking on any of them; just pointing out that Visual Studio is an excellent product (and I despise IDE's).
So, don't feel bad if developers disagree with you.
Developers use your own programs, the ones the users have to use; and use it for real use.
And do realize that FOSS software != commercial software; it's not gonna be until their development methods have more in common.
Member since:2005-07-02
For the most part, yes. But sometimes developers will snub their nose at certain requests, because they think they know better. I've seen it happen.
True, but it's the exception, not the norm.
A good project that actually listens to their users for the most part is Firefox, and it shows by it's success.
There are many other projects that do, including such large ones as KDE.
No, I don't think they are doing their best. They are trying, but they can do better.
That's your opinion, but it seems to me your basing it on a few bad apples in a whole orchard. Also, I think such generalizations are a bit useless...
Member since:2005-07-06
True, but it's the exception, not the norm.
Yep, hence "sometimes".
There are many other projects that do, including such large ones as KDE.
Yep. The exceptions.
That's your opinion, but it seems to me your basing it on a few bad apples in a whole orchard. Also, I think such generalizations are a bit useless...
It's not meant as an insult. There simply isn't the incentive there for most FOSS developers. Doing it for the good of the community or to feel good isn't that great of an incentive.
They don't have to do anything. If they don't feel like workingo n it for a week, there's nothing anyone can do.
Member since:
2005-07-06
>> I did not say, that he WANTS Linux to be a 1:1 copy of Windows.
===>>> He is comming from the Windows world and expects Linux to be almost a 1 to 1 copy of the "Windows way", but Linux is not Winodows.
I'm sorry... what?
A better way would be a GUI component, where you could set such stuff. But then I see other Linux user freaking out, because of another dialog box and they will claim that Linux is bloated etc...
Screw them. Those type of people are the ones slowing down adoption.
The Linux community is very much open to make things easier for the user (that is my experiance with the community). But you have to send that requests directly to the developers and not post it some where on the internet. Developers don't crawl the net for such requests. They work in their own world. Some of them only look up their bug tracking software for new requests. That's it. Don't expect them to crawl the net for new requests.
For the most part, yes. But sometimes developers will snub their nose at certain requests, because they think they know better. I've seen it happen. A good project that actually listens to their users for the most part is Firefox, and it shows by it's success.
If you have used Linux that long as I am, then you would realize, that the Linux community is very much doing their best to get things easier for the average user. Linux changes very fast. I don't know any OS wich is changing that quickly (especialy on the DE area).
No, I don't think they are doing their best. They are trying, but they can do better.