“Operating systems come with cultures as much as codebases. I was forcibly reminded of this fact over the holidays when several family members and neighbors press-ganged me into troubleshooting their Windows computers. Although none of us had any formal computer training, and I know almost nothing about Windows, I was able to solve problems that baffled the others – not because of any technical brilliance, but because the free software culture in which I spend my days made me better able to cope.”
and companies’ obsession with so-called intellectual property and vendor lock-in encourages them to force users into the role of unquestioning consumers.
As a geek who generally does not use open-source software (what I use at work excluded), I find this highly insulting. What he talks about is not necessarily a product of open-source communities, but rather computer enthusiasts in general always wanting to learn more and understand what they are using. Open source simply takes it a step further into the source code rather than just the product.
But the example which HE uses to start the article is a poor one, since any geek probably could have solved the issues.
I disagree, I think his observation is fairly astute, and certainly not meant to be insulting. Proprietary software tends to have a ‘You will use the computer the way WE want you to’ mentality (much like the fascist IT department I have to deal with at work – gack). It is altogether too easy (and in many cases, tempting) to say ‘ok’ to this and cope as best you can. Why question what is really going on when tech support is only a phone call away? Free software, on the other hand, has much more of a ‘do whatever you want’ idea.
And frankly, it would be in software companies’ best interests if users did not have preferences, if we did all use the computer the same way; to not have to worry about feature requests and user habits, to only have to design one theme and worry about a single use case.
And obviously (as you are the case in point) there are plenty of users of proprietary software who do not fall into this mental trap. You want to know, you want to learn, you want to be able to use the computer the way you want to, and find that proprietary software allows you to do this to your satisfaction.
I do agree, though, that the connection between an open-source software mentality and his inital example is rather tenuous, but I think he was just trying to illustrate how proprietary software can lead people into an attitude of helplessness. I mean, the monitor cable? Seriously, at least -try-.
“much like the fascist IT department I have to deal with at work”.
By your reasoning you wouldn’t mind the fascist IT dept. coming over your house and using your sink as a toilet.
You forget that you are using THEIR computer and THEIR network. You are obliged to follow their rules… Which are generally there to reduce the companies exposure to liability and support issues. No matter if its open source or whatever.
You make it sound as if the IT department owns the company and is the sole reason for ones employment. As if they are some benevolent entity who are doing us the favour of letting us use their infrastructure.
The IT department is there to perform a service and they don’t own the computers or network anymore than the janitors own the toilets. I’ll let them tell me what software to run when I let the janitors tell me not to shave or brush my teeth in the washrooms.
If I may cite Simon Travaglia as the original BOFH: users cause a decrease in performance on network and servers, so the best working networks and servers are the ones without any users around them.
But seriously now; your analogy with the restrooms is not correct. It comes down to what is considered appropriate use of company resources, be they restrooms or computers. Generally, when it comes to computers, it has been proven that you get better results if you restrict the users from altering the environment on their work computer in significant ways.
Installing software carries a very high potential of damage to that environment. So any administrator worth his salt will forbid that and many other things. He is there to keep the workstations, servers and network in working condition at all times and it simply cannot be done if every user could alter what is supposed to be a homogenous system in unpredictable ways.
Some of the best working networks I’ve seen were those where the admins kept tight control over the users’ workstations. Such as giving them access only to a home directory on a partition mounted with limiting flags such as noexec. No admin rights and definitely no way to alter the machine’s environment significantly.
The company owns the computers and network and the IT department enforces any rules the company sees fit to implement. This means if the company has a policy of employees NOT installing unapproved software or modifying the base configuration in any way, it is IT’s role to make sure you don’t do that.
So how does a “do whatever you want” attitude help someone better understand a propietary product or unfamiliar product? It doesn’t.
His example illustrated that it’s important to understand CONCEPTS, not a particular culture.
You completely missed the point… well, until I read this:
And obviously (as you are the case in point) there are plenty of users of proprietary software who do not fall into this mental trap. You want to know, you want to learn, you want to be able to use the computer the way you want to, and find that proprietary software allows you to do this to your satisfaction.
So if I didn’t fall into the trap, what’s stopping anyone else? Nothing really, except an attitude and a willingness. Which is why I found his choice of words insulting. I was never “forced” into anything, nor anyone else I know. Most people simply don’t care about the details of using their computer, they just want to do what they need and be done with it. They’ll take the path of least resistance.
Edited 2008-01-13 19:35 UTC
It’s just typical elitism that is often found in certain groups.
This article is stupid as hell.
Sure, it has its merits but it make it seem that the technical merits of open source software are a hindrance to the development of computing in general.
Somebody show this dude the Firefox brochure please.
What is missing here is that the bane of open source users are not meant to be products of beligerence but are purely reactionary to the limitations of the closed source alternative.Hence,the open source paradigm should not be seen as an end product out to destroy standards and but an evolving developmental model to assist where the closed version falls short.
Edited 2008-01-13 19:49 UTC
What is missing here is that the bane of open source users are not meant to be products of belligerence but are purely reactionary to the limitations of the closed source alternative.
I detected more belligerence in your comment than in the article. The author is covertly praising how excellent free software is by describing the desires and habits of those that use it.
If I wrote that article, I wouldn’t have be able to hide the irritation and exasperation I often sense when I try to explain something to a Windows user. (What’s a text editor?) The author did better than I would have.
You are certainly right that we react to the limitations of closed source software. But I don’t think that’s a good summary of our motives.
Why go through the trouble of changing “Free Software” to “Open Source” in the title?
Also the author refers to the “four freedoms” definined by FSF instead of the similar open source definitions that OSI has.
Personally I’m not interested in nitpicking about this (especially as both parties of the open source and free software debate seem to agree that the two definitions, “free software” and “open source” mean practically the same in the end, only the communities and philosophies around the two definitions may be a bit different). But because some people do seem to care about such things a lot, maybe the original author too(?), it could have been polite to keep the original author’s definition in the title.
I’m one of those people that cares about such things. I don’t think that the two mean practically the same thing in the end. I like the element of freedom that OSS offers, but I often find that the agenda of the “free software” community is as restrictive to my personal freedom as the proprietary organizations are. I don’t want a religious battle. I don’t want a philosophical battle. I just want the ability to use the software that best meets my needs, open or proprietary, without hindrance from anyone. I resent any organization making that choice for me, which is more or less what drove me to pursuing OSS. That I generally prefer to use OSS software is more indicative of the quality of OSS software in general, than an element of “sticking it to the man”.
The free software community is but a single sub-community within the OSS community at large, in as much as linux users are but a single segment of the compuiting base at large. It would be ridiculous to assume that the viewpoint of the linux community is representative of computing platforms in general, and I get frustrated when I see the viewpoints of the free software community espoused as being representative of the OSS community in general.
But that’s just me.
1. Free software users expect open licenses and no activation methods
2. Free software users expect regular upgrades and patches
3. Free software users expect to work the way they choose
4. Free software users want control of their own systems
5. Free software users explore
6. Free software users expect to help themselves
7. Free software users don’t fear the command line
8. Free software users learn software categories, not programs
9. Free software users expect access to developers and other employees
1. Free software users expect open licenses and no activation methods
2. Free software users expect regular upgrades and patches
3. Free software users expect to work the way they choose
4. Free software users want control of their own systems
5. Free software users explore
6. Free software users expect to help themselves
7. Free software users don’t fear the command line
8. Free software users learn software categories, not programs
9. Free software users expect access to developers and other employees
Free software users expect free beer for giving back nothing….
I didn’t get past the part where it says we’re all defined by Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman.
Is there an ascii emoticon for regurgitation?
>:-O~~~-~-
heh
Eureka. Man plugs in video monitor, then writes dissertation on why he’s a genius. Only joking, halfway anyway. The chap was able to fix the problems because he knows a lot about computers and the owners of the problem computers either don’t or don’t want to. Happens every day. In a way, no further explanation needed.
So the more interesting question is whether the ways of open source software improve your problem-solving skills. Granted immersing yourself in FOSS will make you more knowledgeable about computers, but will it help you with all sorts of other things? Improve clarity of thought, rigour of approach, analysis, lateral thinking? If the writer had addressed a few of those, this could have been a very interesting article. As it is, I felt that he settled for a series of comfy assertions. They’re all familiar ones to FOSS people, but being assertions they’re not really of much value on their own and could and should be challenged to see whether they stand up and work in practice.
If they don’t stand up, after all, one would have to ask oneself whether FOSS was worth it and provided any real benefits over competing approaches.
He made sure to compare himself to a limited group of people who don’t have the desire or the time to spend just “poking around” and learing about computers. And made sure that the label he gave them (“closed source”) suited his purposes.
I think the article is rather good at defining the characteristics that old-school software houses needs to at least consider, before trying to sell anything on an open platform.
It is of course a very generalized description of the differences between the two majorities; the majority of open OS users and the majority of closed OS users. Thus there’s of course many on one platform with the behavior of the majority of the opposite.
With that said, the old-schools doesn’t necessarily have to change their products to comply with all these characteristics, it’s simply a reminder saying that a user-forum with periodical staff visits and that continuous focus on quality and functionality are both very good ideas. And that any effort selling support to private users on open platforms would be waste of advertising funds.
I think the article can save a company or two from failing big time and save them from spending money in the wrong ways.
”
it’s simply a reminder saying that a user-forum with periodical staff visits and that continuous focus on quality and functionality are both very good ideas.
”
hm.. when was the last time the leading Old School software company focused on quality and functionality?
(I know, I know.. I couldn’t resist.)
I stopped reading after this:
How on earth can Adobe make that conclusion when they have NO PRODUCTS for Linux? the last time I had a look, there were legions of end users on Linux waiting with baited breath over the opportunity to purchase Framemaker for Linux. Months before the promised released Adobe turned around and canceled the project.
It has NOTHING to do with ‘not paying for software’ it has to do with the fact that as end users we’re not going to turn around and purchase a piece of proprietary software that is marginally better than the opensource version.
Visualise this; is Photoshop really thousands of dollars better than GIMP? sure, I’m willing to accept that Photoshop is superior to GIMP (thats no debate), heck, I love it, and use at home (academic licence as am a student). The question isn’t whether one is better, but whether one is so significantly superior to justify such a large price.
Maybe if Adobe sold Photoshop say for NZ$150-NZ$200 for a copy, you would sell a lot, but asking for thousands of dollars for the same piece of software – please, Adobe needs to learn a little thing called ‘value for money’. Unless their product is delivers thousands of dollars more in value than GIMP, no one will purchase it.
Even if you take the price out the equation; you still have the remaining issue – all of Adobes non-Windows version are absolutely crap. They truly are. From their crash happy flash plugin to their bloated reader – its a litany of bad programming right throughout the product range – written by, quite frankly, intellectual pygmies who value ‘teh written code fast’ than ensuring that when they do write their applications it is portable and it actually performs as well on those alternative platform as the original host platform.
How on earth can Adobe make that conclusion when they have NO PRODUCTS for Linux? the last time I had a look, there were legions of end users on Linux waiting with baited breath over the opportunity to purchase Framemaker for Linux. Months before the promised released Adobe turned around and canceled the project.
Marketing research. Adobe and other commercial vendors
such as Microsoft do marketing surveys. Adobe has no doubt found that there are plenty of Linux users who want to USE their products, but probably few of them actually want to PAY for them — or, at least, PAY what Adobe wants to charge. Just my opinion.
Because we all know Windows users LOVE to pay for their software. That must be why software piracy is rampant in Windows and allegedly destroying the profits of closed source vendors. Right.
It’s not a question of LOVING to pay for software. People who use Windows and OS X, typically, are accustomed to purchasing software; whereas, in the Linux community, there’s a general sense of DISDAIN about paying for software. I’m not making this up. Look around. Ask a typical Linux user whether they’d pay for some commercial software, and you’re likely to get the response, “No, not when there are free alternatives available.”
Software piracy is rampant in Windows because, for many people, they either can’t/won’t afford it, and Linux isn’t an alternative.
You’re confusing a vocal minority for the many. If Windows and OSX users are so accustomed to pay for software why do we have a piracy problem? Or did you mean they expect to pay but dont give a shit and pirate their stuff anyway?
I’m certain the share of users who’d pay for good software is approximately the same in both camps.
Of course, there are much fewer Linux users so perhaps the small minority of Windows users that do pay make up for it in numbers.
So? The bottom line is they dont pay, it doesn’t matter why.
Edited 2008-01-14 12:16 UTC
They want to USE Adobe’s products but since they don’t want to actually pay, they go “The grapes are sour anyway!” like the fox.
In the end that just means that there will not be enough people interested for Adobe to spend the money porting.
Actually I think you are wrong. There are a lot of companies and schools that would much rather be using the Linux or a Unix platform and be able to teach Adobe on it than you think. I know at my university that we would have a lot more linux on the desktop if it were not for a few professional level programs.
Several million purchasers every year seem to think so…
Photoshop is not thousands of dollars…
http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-23102480-Photoshop-CS3/dp/B000NDIBYG/re…
$629.00
1) I am from New Zealand – it says it quite clearly in my profile that I am, so therefore, one assumes that I must be referring to NZ dollars.
3) According to Ascent.co.nz
http://www.ascent.co.nz/productspecification.aspx?ItemID=353213
The price is: $1,090.24 including GST – not exactly ‘thousands’ but still a good thousand – be it in NZ peso’s.
Not everyone looks at user profiles, and since this is an international site, you’ll have to specify which dollars you’re talking about, otherwise people will assume you’re referring to greenbacks.
No, thats just intellectual laziness; I always check out where the person is from. If the person is saying $1000, I’ll say, “is that in their own local currency?” then I’ll have a look.
Remember sugar buns, the world doesn’t revolve around the US – no matter how much the Americans would love that to be the case.
BTW, if you actually READ the first post, I CLEARLY quote NZ$’s. You’re replying to the reply to the reply. Read the original post, then make a reply.
It is also known to be the most widely pirated piece of software on the market. Millions of users don’t equate to millions of purchasers.
I’m sure there are a few OS X user who might disagree.
You have to be aware of that companies can pay for Adobe products. But for Adobe to support their products on Linux would be very expensive as it has to support numerous of different distributions. Everything has to change allt he time in linux. New libraries, new Fontrenderers, new Soundsystems etc. While on let say XP where you have a architecture with a specific lifetime and static envirionment you don’t have to worry about these things. And this goes for most bigger software. You don’t want to deploy a big software system on something that you can’t expect to behave the same way in one year. I don’t want my hammer to change the way it works. I wan’t my hammer to work just like it did last year.
If you haven’t read about why the flash plugin haven’t worked that well in linux (before) is because some of you linux users have. ESD / ART / GSTREAM(?) / OSD / ALSA / “the new one ive lost memory of” as their soundoutput with differnt mixing interfaces etc. While in XP you can just talk to the DirectSound interface.
Linux in general is just ha hobby thingie because developers can’t really agree to an architecture. I belive far more in Haiku (www.haiku-os.org) as it actually has a architecture.
No they don’t, they just have to support the most common ones. And it’s not like they’re fundamentally different or anything. The differences are minor
That must be why Oracle support Linux. Oracle isn’t big software or anything.
Tell that to Google and ILM. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled knowing that their search clusters and render farms are just “hobbie thingies”.
Edited 2008-01-14 19:02 UTC
They are different. Where do we put menu information for instance? Just put it in a bunch of directories and we might hit the right one that is used. The binary compatability isn’t that great either. Libraries gets recompiled. Okay, you can deliver your product as a big badass static
For their sake it could be worth it as it is a server product. Aren’t you more or less restricted to Red Hat? I remeber when I installed VMware on a linux box, you had to fiddle around to make the system mimic a Red Hat installation or something. It was quite a time ago.
Thats a very different situation, they controll their own software and plattform. And then again, a “server” situation.
You’ve cited a good example of why the Tower of Babel (aka the Linux platform) sometimes doesn’t serve customers well. Too many competing standards. Too many different ways of accomplishing the same thing.
Pardon? ALSA exists in EVERY platform, Qt/GTK is part of the LSB standard – any LSB distribution has that. There are standards, LSB; if you base your application on the common elements that exist on all Linux distributions, you won’t have a problem. When you fail to maintain and communicate with the community, nothing but pain and expense will follow you.
How is it our fault that Adobe is so arrogant to fail and sit down with the community and help correct the issues; the default desktop for the vast majority of desktops is GNOME – so why not target GNOME/GTK then?
Its nothing more than a pathetic excuse used by companies for not supporting the platform rather than it actually being a genuine issue with the platform.
Sure, it does. But, it’s worse on a platform such as Linux because the platform is completely open and, therefore, subject to the not-invented-here-syndrome of many different competing standards. On Windows, you’re not going to be able to do much better than Direct3D. OpenGL isn’t bad, but it will never reach the kind of integration that Direct3D has with graphics cards. Hence, a single standard (and therefore less “choice”) can actually work in customers’ favor.
I’m not blaming you for Adobe’s failures. I’m simply saying that Adobe made choices and, in many cases, those choices didn’t serve customer interests adequately. But, regardless of what Adobe did, it would not be able to address all of its customers needs. That would not have been the case under Windows.
I don’t think that that was the only reason why Adobe has had difficulty with Linux. A bigger reason is probably that there are comparably few users of Linux, compared to Windows and OS X.
Working at a university I see a lot of trends that people talk about. Its easy to spot these when you have seen thousands of students cycle through your program. The attitude that Open Source users are more capable looks like its true on the surface. But its just an illusion. The real problem is that there are two types of IT people, as I like to label them, the geeks and the 9to5’ers.
We have students who just went in to IT because they thought it would be a good career. These are the 9to5’ers. They do the minimum learning to skate by. And nothing is easier to look good at running than Windows. Thats not to say it IS that easy to do well, but with a little knowledge its pretty easy to look like you know what your doing. These people don’t touch linux or unix because it requires a lot more effort to learn it to any degree of proficiency.
Then we have the true geeks. They would be doing this no matter how much it paid. They are the type of people that just think about technology all the time. These people put in whatever effort is necessary to learn whatever they want. Some of these people end up in Open Source. Some stay in Windows. Either way they are experts at what they do and know a scary amount of stuff.
I know many 9to5’ers who pretend to be Windows admins. I dont know any 9to5’ers who pretend to be Linux admins.
Nahh. TRUE geeks used the command line only on early versions of VAX/VMS, non-geeks used ALL-IN-1.
No, true geeks crack open the case and move bits with their pocket magnets and tiny flashlights
🙂
Edited 2008-01-14 21:13 UTC
😀
As someone who is over 50 and did not officially become a paid geek until my late 30’s I can say that I have observed the “geeks vs. 9-5 ‘ers” in all professions. There are those people who come in and do their job blindly and there are others who actually take an interest in what they and the company is doing. I realize that working at McDonalds, et al may not be exciting but I guess I have been lucky. My first job with computers was inspecting 40 lb disk drives that held 20 MB and 1/2 inch tape drives for backup.
I haven’t always enjoyed my jobs but I always found something there that was at least mildly fascinating. Of course once I became a software developer and a full fledged geek, I am at nirvana.
The nine things he cites about Free Software users are effects, not causes, of the difference.
Sure, Free Software users aren’t afraid of the command line, and are used to thinking of completing tasks versus using programs… but that’s got more to do with the current nature of Open Source software (many solutions, usually different from the Closed Source most of us grew up with…)
Open Source users are the ones who sought out something different, and it’s THAT kind of behaviour that makes them different. It’s got little to do with the software itself. That helplessness fostered by some programs he thinks he sees probably has to do more with the kinds of programs those non-geek users seek out.
Very good….
It’s pretty much saying the obvious – that Free/open-source software users have clues, unlike those who spend hundreds on a product like Vista (which does nothing except “gum up” your computer….. 😀 )
Get a clue, Windows users….
For the most part I agree with what the author of the article wrote. Although there are certainly ample exceptions to what he describes, the exceptions prove the rule. The differences between Free Software users and your typical Windows users are primarily ones of expectations and what constitutes the comfort zone of percieved competency.
Free Software users tend to be quite flexible and pragmatic when it comes to expectations-they are not as quickly disappointed and simply resign when confronted with something that does not work as expected. Additionally Free Software users tend to develop a sense of competency about most of the routinely performed task, as stated in the article Free Software users think in terms of categories and not in terms of product names-this means that when something does not work as expected one simple resorts to using another tool to get the job done as opposed to being confronted with a situation where something is simply undoable because a particular product does not allow for it.
Being able to choose a particular tool, and awareness of the limitations of particular tools, their relatives strengths and weakness, and how these tools are just means to the ends of the task at hand leads users to a degree of competency.
To touch on one moment which underlies much of what the author was saying: Microsoft and the propietary culture of Microsoft applications have done a serious disservice to computer users over the last 10 years. When I talk with average Windows users they tend to be more functionally crippled, more ignorant about how anything works(or conversely why somethings dont work), and largely incapable of understanding that a particular product is but an instance of a category of software and as such replaceable with other software of the same kind.
This situation is not new, but it has deteriorated greatly over the last 10 years-I attribute this primarily to 2 trends -1) a tremendous surge in the number of casual computer users, whereas 10 years prior relatively few used computers at all. 2) a progressive crippling of the UI of Windows software through multiple versions of development.
Q: What is the number 1 problem which Windows users have ?
A: Where is the file I just created, downloaded, copied, saved ?
Most Windows users have 0 grasp of the directory structure which underlies almost everything they are doing. Most Windows users no longer even know of the existence of a file manager (aka Windows Explorers). Of course Microsoft has also encouraged this: Firstly by naming the file manager Windows Explorer the possibility of confusion with Internet Explorer reaches the highest of possible hights, then the ungodly long and counter intuitive directory naming scheme and gobs and gobs of subdirectories which make travering the directory tree difficult and unrewarding, then by hiding, by default, much of what is actually present in the directories, forcing you to go to options to click on things to be able to see what is there, and even then still not having direct access to all of the files due to layer upon layer of obscure pseudo security mechanisms.
Then of course why does one need a file manager- you already have links to My Computer,My Documents, My Share Documents etc. on your desktop-that each of these in turn are nothing but “views” of particular directories, directories in a tree, is completely lost on most Windows users. I have great empathy for my fellow Windows users/lost souls, they are hopelessly overwhelmed by an utter lack of transparency, by their inability to form some kind of mental picture of how things are organized on their computers, never really knowing where anything gets saved and wasting untold hours using the “search” function for the PDF file they just downloaded from the internet.
Oh how ironic it is that people used to criticize the lack of UI consistency in Free Software desktops-but just look at the current Windows Desktops arround-and I am only speaking of XP not Vista!. Each major proprietary software product is using its own widgets, has its own UI, hell even Microsoft has a half a dozen various widget sets- this is mayhem and chaos for the mere mortals forced to used this system everyday. It has been YEARS since I was confronted with a similar level of UI inconsistency using GNOME.
The vast majority of Windows users do not even have a clue as to what an Operating System means. For the overwhelming majority of Windows users the INTERNET is “Internet Explorer”. Although Microsoft Office is a proprietary additional purchase, most people who use it consider it to be WINDOWS, much like the equation between INTERNET and IE.
It is positively discouraging how ignorant(unknowing) the majority of Windows users are-but my point is not to point out the obvious, but to point to how this ignorance has been manufactured, breed, designed and sought by Microsoft.
One could of course argue that users should not need to know these things and that it is a sign of UI failure when users must know these things- but this line of thinking of computers as appliances, stands at total odds to what Windows portends to be. The UI of an appliance should never lead to confusion -appliance UI means radically delimiting the ways something can be achieved to things which are immediately discoverable, so optimally there should be one way to perform a specific task, and appliances are task specific-ie. they are only good for X number of things.
Whereas Windows wants to be best in every aspect of computing(media, gaming, office productivity etc.)
With Windows you always have 10-15 different ways of doing things and most users will have mastered 2-3 ways, yet which 2-3 ways are chose,leads to a fragmenting of collective usage experience. The abuse of metaphors in the Windows desktop leads to a crippling in the ability of most to grasp the abstract relations at hand, leaving users out in the cold, lost, quickly overwhelmed and continuously frustrated by their own apparent failures.
The utter lack of transparency on the UI level of Windows makes users scared to experiment and try things-one wrong click somewhere and all of a sudden something changes and one has virtually know ability reconstruct the changes that were just made. Most Windows users do not know what a WINDOW is! What the difference between a window and the desktop is, or what that right mouse button is supposed to do! They click things once which require a double click, they double click things which require a single click-why? total UI confusion. Oops pressed something and the app went full screen- which key (maybe mouse!) should I use to exit fullscreen, try a dozen keys nothing happens immediately so just press the power button!. What percentage of Windows users even know about Drag and Drop which arguably works much better under Windows than under other Free Software ?
I write all of this because I have spent THOUSANDS of hours helping people with their problems with Windows. Each and every time I try to help someone I end up in teaching a class in BASIC COMPUTER SKILLS 101 which should have been learnt through sheer osmosis if the UI was not such a utter nightmare of inconsistency, anti-transparency, black-magic mumbo jumbo.
These same people who I help with windows problems occassionaly visit me- when they do and they want to use a computer I let them use my laptop running Ubuntu strangely enough they never seem to have any questions….
There is lots and lots of software for Windows which I wish I could use under Linux, somethings under Windows are amazingly trouble free and simple, but I refuse to use a system which only can succeed in the market by dumbing down its users into total ignorance and which treats its users as the dumbest thing since sliced bread.
Shame on your Microsoft.
Most Windows users have 0 grasp of the directory structure which underlies almost everything they are doing. Most Windows users no longer even know of the existence of a file manager (aka Windows Explorers). Of course Microsoft has also encouraged this: Firstly by naming the file manager Windows Explorer the possibility of confusion with Internet Explorer reaches the highest of possible hights, then the ungodly long and counter intuitive directory naming scheme and gobs and gobs of subdirectories which make travering the directory tree difficult and unrewarding
Ah, so I guess if Windows just used names like “usr” “opt”, “bin” and the like, everyone would get the hang of it?
Well, /etc/hosts is a HELL of a lot better than:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
I honesty can’t make any sense out of why or how Microsoft came up with that location for the HOSTS file, other than to make it harder for people to get to.
And /tmp is easier to find than:
C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\Local Settings\Temp
Which leads me to wonder… if damn near everything else in the file system is written in full, then why the hell abbreviate “Temporary Files?”
Not to mention user data is located in one location in Linux–/home/user–instead of scattered all over a cryptic (and dangerous) registry, in various files scattered in dozens of folders under “Program Files,” in a user’s “Documents and Settings” folder, etc.
Really, both Linux and Windows have their quirks, and after dealing with Windows’ setup for so long, Linux’s filesystem is a breath of fresh air. The one directory in the UNIX structure I can’t stand is /var; it’s got a bunch of vaguely-named directories inside, often leading to more directories, and some files… but even it at least seems somewhat organized compared to C:\WINDOWS and C:\WINDOWS\system32, which are both crammed full of files of all types (thousands of files, in case of system32). DLLs, screensavers, critical system files, settings… hell… even Solitaire, Minesweeper and the calculator (huh?!).
Not sure *why* those are in there instead of in some folder named “Basic Windows Applications” or something under Program Files, but whatever…
Yes, you’re right that a lot of Windows folders make no sense. But the most important ones–the ones that average users generally need access to–do make sense. Documents, Photos, Music, Videos, Program Files. It doesn’t get much easier to understand than that.
Also, a lot of people rag on the registry, and for good reason. It’s a complete mess that just gets slower and more bloated with time. BUT: that doesn’t mean that text files are the be-all end-all answer. For the average user, a simple GUI interface (maybe with an extra “Advanced” tab or pop-up dialog box) is almost always the way to go. Especially considering that it’s accessible directly from the application in question, and doesn’t require any additional documentation to use.
Edit: Now that I read it over, I realize that my response didn’t directly address all of the things you were talking about (it was also partially a response to the article)… oh well.
Edited 2008-01-16 00:02 UTC
I didn’t like how long your comment is … until I read it. Well said!
You’re frustration speaks. I know you don’t mean to impugn the users you help–you are just frustrated at the lack of understanding of fundamental things which is perpetuated by the design of Windows. Many of us are too.
By this guy’s logic, everyone would be exploring their computer to the full extent, IF ONLY they were using a free OS.
That’s like saying that everyone would be their own mechanic, IF ONLY they drove a hot-rod, or everyone would avoid eating at restaurants and only cook for themselves, IF ONLY they owned more cookbooks. Are we really to believe that if everyone just converted to Linux, somehow the masses would be better computer-educated and would never again need their nerdy relatives to help them? In your utopian dreams.
The fact is, the vast majority of people DON’T HAVE THE TIME, much less the desire to make the time to delve into the depths of their computer. And they have EVEN LESS INCENTIVE to make the time to try out a new operating system, at which point they have to make EVEN MORE time to “test out every possible alternative app in each category until they find the one they like best” (paraphrased).
The fact that most users use Windows and proprietary software, and the fact that they do not explore their system, is hardly cause and effect. Rather, the cause and effect is happening on the part of the minority of users who DO have the time/motivation to delve into their systems, as they are the ones who are more likely to give Linux and free software applications a spin.
I know plenty of people who are computer enthusiasts and know their way in and out of every nook and cranny of Windows like the back of their hand. This kind of exploratory behavior has very little to do with whether you use Linux or Windows. Either you’re motivated or you’re not, that’s the deciding factor.
Bringing Linux to the masses may indeed encourage people over the long term (read: the next generation of children) to look at code and contribute to software projects. It may also (hopefully) contribute to a world devoid of proprietary file formats that require a tax every other year to view. It may even lead to a world where all software, even the most powerful, is available to everyone cost-free. But will it encourage every single user to know their computer inside and out? Doubtful.
If you love open source, then stop fixing closed source programs.
Even for your friends, or your family.
They can understand really well that since you don’t use their OS or their programs, you won’t be able to help them. On the other hand, if they want a hassle-free computing, you’re quite happy to spend as much time as necessary to help them install an open source distribution, then configure it so they can do their daily activities with it without ever having to face viruses/malware that prevents them to use the computer they paid for.
People chose Windows because they think they’ll easily find somebody to fix it (they know it’s gonna crash bad after a few month anyway). The time open source users stop providing support for an OS we don’t use, then this misconception can stop.
Eventually, you’ll have helped them more than spending a few hours fixing their Windows OS, because then they’ll get hassle free computing experience (how many days/week do they lose each year when their computer is unusable and they’re still waiting for a “friend” to come over?)
______
Not including the money I’ve helped friends save when a Windows “expert” told them they had to change a piece of hw when just booting a Live CD was enough to show them the hw was not at fault
Oh, and that their 5 years worth of photos and data had to be erased “because of a virus” when just poping the Live CD and accessing / copy-pasting the files was ok. Sadly, sometimes you arrive after the Windows Xpert (or the computer shop SAV) and it’s too late.
Please, help your friends. Think about their childrens. Stop “fixing” their Windows.
Edited 2008-01-14 15:57 UTC
Wow, where does one even begin criticizing such tripe? Most of the main complaints have already been made here, but I’ll just add a couple points:
1. There is WAY too much interface/advertisement garbage on this site, to the point where it’s hard to read the actual content buried somewhere under all those ads and sidebars. Please stop assaulting my eyeballs
2. Please stop splitting articles into adview revenue generating pages! There’s maybe 5K of actual content here, yet we have to load a MB of junk, make 60 http requests, and manually make 3 clicks. Stop wasting my time.
3. My god, that picture… “Hello, I’m boring.” That’s what your lame face makes me think. Your boring writing only confirms this.
There is WAY too much interface/advertisement garbage on this site, to the point where it’s hard to read the actual content …
True, true. But then, that’s true of very many news web sites.
That’s what Firefox’s Adblock if for:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10
Edited 2008-01-14 22:27 UTC
The linked article is nothing more than a blog post masquerading as a professional editorial. There’s a much better essay by Paul Lutus called “A Crash Course in Creative Problem-Solving” – and he managed to write it without trying to make tenuous links between his OS of choice and problem-solving abilities:
http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/crashcourse.html
For the most part, the purely desktop user’s sensibilities are not sapping the free software culture so much as being accommodated and isolated as a special case. Unless they are content to stay in their normal routines, within a year or two, desktop users will face some problem that they cannot solve without becoming either more adventurous or more in contact with the mainstream culture. When that happens, they will have taken the first steps away from being passive consumers and towards becoming the owners of their own machines.
Yes, all those poor deluded ‘normal users’ will soon find the True Path to understanding and mastering the machine. Uh-huh. I especially like the way he refers to a minority of computer gurus as ‘the mainstream culture’.
I’ve been interested in computers since the late 70’s. I lived vicariously through the pages of computer magazines of the time, until I could finally afford to buy my own. I watched as the ‘business computer’ shifted from custom-built S100 systems to the IBM PC platform. And perhaps more to the point, I lived through the first great ‘home computer’ wave.
Back then, everyone involved with computers seemed to assume that the world was moving in the direction of understanding and working with the guts of the system. Magazine pages were filled with program listings in BASIC (with the occasional program in Pascal, Forth, LOGO, or other language). Everyone would learn to program – if this wasn’t being stated explicitly, it was taken for granted. We were headed towards a Brave New Computing Culture.
Except that it didn’t happen.
Some of those kids did learn to program their Atari 400s and Commodore 64’s and TRS-80 CoCos and TI 99/4As. And some of that first generation of ‘home computers’ did become hobbyists’ dream machines, and bridged into the wider world of computers. But an awful lot of them just got used to play games… and when people grew tired of them, they sat in the closet. The bubble burst. No true next generation. No legacy, beyond that minority of hobbyists that bloomed. The Dream of a great society, the general public, that learned to program – to get inside the machine to make it do what you wanted, to control it fully, to hack – was just that… a dream.
I believed in the Dream, back then. I don’t any more. Computers didn’t become widespread in society as a whole until they became usable without having to know how to program, or even learn much about the depths of the machine. Visicalc was the opening wedge, prepackaged business software for the IBM PC/MS-DOS platform the follow-on, and the GUI brought the flood.
So yes, I had to laugh when I read the conclusion I quoted above. Rather sadly, but I had to laugh. The public at large is not made of computer geeks, and it never will be. Some of the commenters above have pointed out good reasons for this; heck, I have to admit going that way myself. I don’t have time to audition multiple competing linux distros any more, or spend hours tweaking environment variables and pouring through preferences to get my system set up Just So. I don’t mind being able to poke around when I have the leisure time, but when I want to use it I want to Just Use It, with no messing around. It’s no fun having to open up and tinker under the hood when I want to be barreling down the interstate at 70 mph to see the Royal Gorge.
If you are insulted by the article, I would like to define the word “culture” for you. A “culture” is a genereal set of beliefs followed by a group of people”.
There are outliers in every culture, be it computing, tabletop gaming (some GenCon attendees do take showers, have wives, et cetera)or the workplace.
To take on the culture’s identity as your own is a mistake. Do not read into it; it is a sociological phenomenon…there are always outliers.
If a windows user wants to fiddle with his registry, that rocks! If a Linux user wants his environment like windows, that is ok too. We don’t (or shouldn’t)take these individuals and chastise them (though some would, they really don’t have the right to tell them how to compute, Richard Stallman included). Just because they go against a culture is not an insult; it is just a statement of fact.
So get over being insulted.
10. Open source users are cheapskates. They do not pay for software. If somebody has the audacity to charge (gasp) money for software, they will create (or adopt) a lame alternative.
In this thread I posted a somewhat spontaneous rant which was triggered by the article. My point was fairly simple although perhaps not well formulated. To reiterate:
Those who design user interfaces have a tremendous responsibility which goes far beyond questions of coherency, consistency, discoverabilty, expectability and intuitiveness; they are responsible for empowering users.
One aspect of this empowerment is that users are able to grasp and understand their own interaction with the computer. Only when users reaches this level in their interaction with the computer do users develop a sense of competency. Only when users are competent in their use of computers can computers become a natural extension of their own capabilities. A UI which fails to propagate such competence radically delimits the usefulness of the computer itself and leaves the user feeling powerless(frustrated, annoyed, resigned, jaded etc).
Thus in a sense there is a certain pedagogic aspect inherent in all UI design. In the early days of UI design(which may one day be referred as the stone age of UI design) those performing the design were cognizant of the fact that most potential users had little to no experience at all with computers. Much effort was made to facilitate learning how to use the computer and the UI was a self-reinforcing learning environment.
The point of many of the current UI themes (coherency, consistency, discoverabilty, expectability and intuitiveness) does not lie in the usage of the current manifestation of a particular UI but rather the gradual development of said competence over multiple generations of UI development and changes in the degree of abstraction and complexity. There will always be new users who have no understanding of computers and who must learn how to master a UI(whether one is talking about the desktop or application specific UI).
My previous tirade lent expression to my frustration of having helped people who had already been using Windows for 10-15 years professionally(ie. for their livelihood) and who had utterly failed to grasp even the most basic concepts of the tasks that they performed daily. At this point one can draw one of two conclusions(ok I will exclude a third for the sake of logic
): either these people are all thoroughly incompetent and have no business using a computer or Microsoft has utterly failed in one of the most important aspects of UI design. (please notice that the first of these two positions is the same attitude which is almost universally held by hardcore computer geeks concerning their fellow human beings).
Some of these people worked on average 8 hours a day 5 days a week over a period of 15 years and still had no real grasp of their interaction with the computer-sure they could perform certain tasks with specific apps but one mouseclick later, one small change, which changed something in how the apps appeared on the screen and they were totally lost.
These people have had ample time to properly learn and explore their computer environments-if it were the case that one realistically *could* learn and explore Windows -yet Windows violated the metaphors which composed its own desktop multiple, multiple times- the complexity of Windows exploded infinitely and the UI lagged far, far, behind, and finally Microsoft itself and third party app developers kept reinventing the wheel, where *upgrades* became usability *downgrades*.
Yet what happened is that these people gave up on learning, defeated by mind numbing UI choices which created a kind negative feedback system where one felt punished for trying to learn. The vast majority of those who work daily with computers use Windows. Their positions in the companies they work for are pre-created through the mandatory usage of applications available under Windows.
In this environment computers have become the anti-thesis of personal empowerment and Windows has become that which embodies this. Microsoft is of course not the only guilty party here. Empowered workers cost more than their unempowered counterparts at least in the short term. “Dumb” workers are *cheap*. Microsoft to its credit has created many, many empowering technologies over the years(BASIC, excel macros, visual basic etc.)
There are probably thousands of reasons why this happened but the total lack of transparency, a vehement despising of any standards, NIH syndrome on steroids and the incestuous proprietary software culture which creates value-add out of hiding knowledge and know-how and artificially delimiting interoperability certainly played a critical role in this development.
We who chose the path Free Software experienced much the opposite. Software was remarkably transparent, standards were held high, NIH was the exception, and the Free Software community thrived in sharing knowledge and know how and maximizing interoperability.
Many of the tasks on Windows were comparably easier than they were in the Free Software world, thus creating a challenge to learn the best way to achieve the desired results. Those who have just come to Free Software in the last 2 or 3 years have no clue as what progress has been made. One can honestly now state that is easier to use Ubuntu for the majority of computer tasks(not all) than Windows on the majority of computers (not all). What an achievement!
I personally do not ever expect most computer users to have a deep involved understanding of the technology they are using-but I do hope that most computer users can reach a level of competence which enables their computers to become a natural extension of their own capabilities. From this vantage point Microsoft failed the masses extraordinarily. And my hope is that Free Software can capitalize on this failure.