KDE 4 problems highlight shift from community users to consumers
Posted by: Anonymous
[ip: 192.168.0.59]
on July 16, 2008 09:08 PM
You are right to say that there are more users than contributors these days. What did the developers think would happen if a lot of people used their work? Did they think that the number of people who were interested in and/or capable of writing code would increase? Most people (99.99%) want to use software not write it. They also want to use documentation not write it, and they want to get support not give it. Why? Because 99.7% can't do any of that stuff and another .2% who could aren't interested (count me in that group).
You are wrong to say that users don't like change. They love change they understand. They hate to be told that if they were fully capable of understanding what feature X will be capable of doing they would be tickled pink. FOSS people like to think that marketing is just BS (disclaimer: I am not in marketing or sales, I'm a finance guy). But it is not, it is communicating with your customer (user in this case). With regard to KDE: Best case - Marketing done poorly, Most Likely Case - arrogant developers who thought they didn't need to market to users, Worst Case - really crappy software.
By the by, while I'm on the subject, here are two quotes from Seigo: "we did not do as good a job as we should have of managing some of the conversations" and "the tone was set by this small group of people who were loud, ill-mannered, and obnoxious. And that set a tone, and a sort of mob mentality set in." How would that sound coming from Ballmer about Vista? If you said,"Like whining," you win the prize.
Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux help
KDE 4 problems highlight shift from community users to consumers
Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 192.168.0.59] on July 16, 2008 09:08 PMYou are wrong to say that users don't like change. They love change they understand. They hate to be told that if they were fully capable of understanding what feature X will be capable of doing they would be tickled pink. FOSS people like to think that marketing is just BS (disclaimer: I am not in marketing or sales, I'm a finance guy). But it is not, it is communicating with your customer (user in this case). With regard to KDE: Best case - Marketing done poorly, Most Likely Case - arrogant developers who thought they didn't need to market to users, Worst Case - really crappy software.
By the by, while I'm on the subject, here are two quotes from Seigo: "we did not do as good a job as we should have of managing some of the conversations" and "the tone was set by this small group of people who were loud, ill-mannered, and obnoxious. And that set a tone, and a sort of mob mentality set in." How would that sound coming from Ballmer about Vista? If you said,"Like whining," you win the prize.
#