Saturday, October 30, 1999, 6:03:50 AM, Ali wrote:
> stumbled upon it at www.winfiles.com in search of a decent e-mail
> client. I guess that's what happened to most of use here?
Yes, that is how I found it.
> However, not even linux is escaping the market influence. Distro makers who
> wish to make some money off packaging and supporting their distros are
> 'enhancing' linux to make it easier to install and use.
Distributions are not Linux. Furthermore, not all distributions are doing
it. In fact, outside of Red Hat, Caldera and SUSE most distros are just
watching what is going on, shrugging their shoulders and moving on. The 2nd
most popular distro, Debian, is not being influenced at all.
> The Desktop environments KDE and Gnome are significantly driven by this open
> market. This is where most of the funding is coming from isn't it?
What funding? Both projects were started and are heavily developed for
nothing. Let me put it this way, If all the corporations in the world dropped
support for Linux this instant, development would continue as it is now. I
know this because Linux, while the media's current Open Source baby, had
development before the attention. Other projects outside the big two (Linux
and Apache) still get development. FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSDi (for OSs), mutt,
slang, slrn, joe, vim, emacs, etc, etc, etc... All of those were developed
before the media and market attention and will be developed if such attention
were dropped. I don't see "funding" anywhere in there at all.
> I myself hate automation, especially those which bypass situations
> where there is a choice to be made, and in so doing making the choice
> for you. This is done to help the clueless but I think it does more
> harm than good.
Bingo! That is why I argue against some of the suggestions made for TB!
because they delve into that type of "automation." Furthermore, without this
Mac style automation some training is required.
> I think they already know that. This is why when they see the popup
> box in win98 that says, "this program has performed an illegal action
> ...blah blah", they jump back wondering what they were doing wrong. :)
Well, that is Windows, isn't it. Go ahead, guess how many times I see
that with Linux. ;)
> I don't think they are becoming easier at all. Windows applications
> are becoming more and more complex because of their monolithic nature.
As I said, ever notice how the "easier" they get, the more training they
require? Quotes around the easier denote mockery or ironic intent in case
you're not familiar with that bit of online notation.
> It's hard to find a mainstream app that does the one thing that it's
> advertised to do. They usually are able to do a myriad of other tasks
> (the jack of all trades syndrome) with buttons and menu items to
> invoke all these tasks. They clutter the interface, complicating it
> and making things harder to learn.
It is not hard. Just don't look on that particular OS. Also means people
need to learn instead of just floating along. I posted my list of software in
reply to someone else's list. The fun part with my list is that most of them
are free (beer, mostly speech) programs which work quite well.
> This is why the secretary has her hands full learning Word and
> PowerPoint much less having Bash imposed on her as well.
I'd wager that if they weren't imposed with Word and PowerPoint that the
grand total with Bash would be less. :P
>> Incorrect, they do expect to use a computer with no training at
>> all.
> Incorrect. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. They just
> don't expect to have to learn what *you* expect them to.
*snort* Uhm, no. The statements that followed that one bore out the
truth.
>> Just look at the number of computer stores that boast that you
>> can take their computer home, plug it in and turn it on. Viola', it
>> works!
> But it does just that doesn't it?
Apparently not. You just spend 4-5 paragraphs complaining on how
computers don't work.
> Well, a lot buy them to take them home to have fun from the very
> start. That's the misconception.
As I said, they want to use it with no training. They pick up the hammer,
swing it, and when they clock themselves in the head, blame the hammer.
--
Steve C. Lamb | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
ICQ: 5107343 | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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