On 26.03.2019 03:55, Richard Kimberly Heck wrote:
That has not been true for a while now. It is very much not true now
that we've shifted lyx.org to a much more reliable server.
Every server can stop working. Therefore having mirror is always a good
idea.
It has been said before, but I'll say it again: It's insulting for those
of us who put in as much time on LyX development as we do to be told
that we don't care about the needs of average users and only do what
benefits us.
Why is this insulting? I invested many years in developing LyX and I was
told frequently that I was mostly implementing things I need personally.
This criticism was right and not insulting. At first I implemented e.g.
math stuff since as physics student I needed formulas all the time. It
is always a problem for a developer to focus on personal needs and I am
no exception in this respect.
I mean, shit, do you have any idea how many hours I spent
figuring out how to create a Windows installer?
But you never asked me for help but did everything on your own. This is
no collaborative development. I think I also spent much more time on the
installer than you, so invested time is no sensible argument.
Do you think that
benefited me personally, or 'expert users', in any way at all?
Yes, I think so because otherwise why was it for you that important to
make decisions for Windows users? You don't use Windows for your daily
tasks so you could let things be as they have been developed together
with the Win user community over the years. You wanted to change it
nevertheless so there must have been a personal benefit for you.
What there is here is (at most) a disagreement about what 'average
users' need or want, but for some reason you've appointed yourself as
the spokesman for 'average users' and indict the rest of us as selfish.
Let's ask what an installer is for. With your knowledge it is an easy
task to set up a fully functional LyX. You could extract its files from
a ZIP, install TeXLive, ImageMagick, Python and friends and can start
writing.
So an installer is for users who don't know what has to be setup in
order to get a fully functional LyX. All others don't really need an
installer. When I started with LyX there was no installer and I
nevertheless could use LyX on Windows.
Now you have an installer that requires more knowledge many users have
so - to use you wording - it is selfish to make decisions on personal needs.
Now take for example the laboratory guys in my company. They have to
write a laboratory journal and LyX would be the perfect program to do
this. But they are excellent laboratory workers no computer experts. You
cannot expect them to learn in advance what a package and a distribution is.
They use LibreOffice instead and this is sad for LyX. I mean if LyX does
not try to attract more users by offering tools that make life as easy
as possible I don't understand why I should develop it. Yes, here I am
selfish because it makes me happy if people to use what I develop.
I got the feeling that most core LyX developers are working at
universities and institutes while the majority of users have business
jobs where time matters.
If so, then maybe they should do something to support development. Like
pay for it.
Why? Users have various choices what to use and it is understandable to
choose programs making life more easy.
I also worked for companies that regularly spend money to Wikipedia,
LibreOffice etc. because their employees benefit from it. At first
companies need to see that a program/service is useful.
I also understand that private persons don't spend in most cases no
money as they don't have much of it and also LyX is no foundation to get
some money back with the tax repayments for charitable contributions.
regards Uwe
