Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on January 06, 2004 01:11 AM
I think you are confusing popularity with usefulness. I want Gnu/Linux to be useful, I could care less if its used. And, by useful, I mean useful to people like me, a developer, what does it matter if some end-user can figure it out, what are they going to contribute, except for a bunch of non-bug bug reports, or some crazy idea about how my software should have been written. I don't work for these users, they don't pay me to write OSS. So forgive me if I am not interested in making a training video for them.
Why should developers care about end users? If a developer's software works for this developer then, job done, in my opinion.
End users have no right to expect that the software be changed to make it easier for them. The developers are generally doing this work for free, on their own time. Users can suggest changes, but if the developers don't agree then too bad.
And besides, software isn't bad just because it can't be used by everyone, some times its better because its not saddled with all of the bloat associated with making it "easy to use".
Adding GUI's and other bloatware just takes the developer away from meaningful enhancements and introduces more bugs and greater maintenance overhead.
I, for one, am more than happy with the current state of the GNU/Linux OS, I find it far easier to use than other, GUI riddled, propritary OS's. I find it far easier to edit a single text file than to hunt through a stack of menus looking for an elusive check box.
Feel free to disagree with me, feel free to add GUI's to my code, just don't expect me to do it for you.
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on January 06, 2004 01:11 AMWhy should developers care about end users? If a developer's software works for this developer then, job done, in my opinion.
End users have no right to expect that the software be changed to make it easier for them. The developers are generally doing this work for free, on their own time. Users can suggest changes, but if the developers don't agree then too bad.
And besides, software isn't bad just because it can't be used by everyone, some times its better because its not saddled with all of the bloat associated with making it "easy to use".
Adding GUI's and other bloatware just takes the developer away from meaningful enhancements and introduces more bugs and greater maintenance overhead.
I, for one, am more than happy with the current state of the GNU/Linux OS, I find it far easier to use than other, GUI riddled, propritary OS's. I find it far easier to edit a single text file than to hunt through a stack of menus looking for an elusive check box.
Feel free to disagree with me, feel free to add GUI's to my code, just don't expect me to do it for you.
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