Re: Upstream packaging (was Re: Derivatives, MongoDB and freezes)
On 04/25/2013 09:40 AM, Andreas Tille wrote:
> There are actually users who do not "see" the system but just the
> topping.
Yes, but I don't think we should encourage any users in this skewed view
of the system.
> I would never try to blame the user about this.
Nor would I. However, I would not use this as an excuse not to educate them.
> For my father
> it is even easier to understand what I'm doing in Debian because I spend
> most of my time with leaf packages (if I do not care for Blends
> infrastructure stuff). So telling him "Debian is an app store and my
> work on it is adding apps to the store" this is an very easy to
> understand explanation which leaves out the part that is not
> understandable to him: What is an operating system. (Hey, also Windows
> is no operating system - it is just a kick-starter for Windows, Excel, a
> browser and a mail client, right?)
I understand using app store as an analogy, as long as it is explained
as such, and qualified as being an imperfect analogy. But the common
conception of an "app store" as involving you solely as consumer and not
as participant in the free software ecosystem encourages poor
relationship between users and producers (or distributors) of free
software. So long as users continue to see themselves as a tiny,
insignificant recipient at the end of the production of the software
with no input into the system, you've stripped them of the power to
change the software to meet their needs. So using the "app store"
analogy is walking the fine line and really needs to be qualified to
avoid doing damage to the user's relationship to the community.
> If you do not like the selling part: Store in the sense of some
> "storage of goods" is not necessarily about bying (at least of my
> understanding). Or tweak it like this: We are selling our stuff but
> the price tag says 0€/$. Feel free to blame me about oversimplification
Honestly, I don't think the selling part is the most offensive part of
the concept of an "app store". It's the one-way nature of the
transactions carried out with them.
Ben
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