Hello,
I am instructor who regularly starts people on the Gnumeric path. But there is
a recurring problem which strikes at the very growth potential of this
wonderful open-source product.
I want to thank all those who are so dedicated to this project. It has been a
boon to my students, My request here is only my small attempt to make Gnumeric
more successful!
The problem --
In going to the web page "Getting Gnumeric" the new, excited, but
unknowledgeable potential user is confronted with an immediate technospeak
problem. Pushing the "Get Gnumeric Now" produces nothing now. It produces a
confusing explanation of possible sources, but nowhere to just Get Gnumeric.
There are three explanations:
1) Getting Gnumeric From Your Distribution -- Most people do not know what
their "distribution" is, much less know what one looks like. The
recommendation to "file a request" seems particularly off putting to someone
who does not know where to find their "distribution." or what one looks like.
2) Getting Gnumeric From Third Parties -- Why can't I just get Gnumeric from
Gnumeric? Pressing the "There is a build of 1.9.1 available." Pressing this
seems to perform the magicial download. But it is scary to someone who does
not want a "development" version. They do not want to report bugs. They want
the most recent stable version to learn from and to use. There is no such
button to push.
3) Getting Gnumeric From Source -- Who is "source" ? I thought this page was
the "Get Gnumeric Now" Source. Going further down one finds " The source code
is available from gzip'd tarball or bzip'd tarball. Dependencies for this
version are:"
Pushing either of the buttons takes one to a "Windows File Association"
Anything here now requires you to buy some commercial file translation package
in order to get the open source. Worse yet, once in this site, it will not let
you back out. (A MS trick to make things more difficult?)
Looking down at the "dependency/version" table is even more intimidating.
It perhaps scares off the last of the stalwarts.
There has to be an understandable way for the newbie to download a stable
version of Gnumeric. This is a wonderful service and product. But my students
are inevitabley put off by the difficulty and mystery of how to just "Get
Gnumeric" !
I apologize for my descriptions. But I suspect we are losing many, many
supporters, and even future contributors because of the initial frustration.
George Dell_______________________________________________
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