Re: Proposed documentation, please comment! [was Re: Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM...]
You say I am defeatist but you are defending against loss...
Wouter Verhelst schreef op 22-10-2016 10:24:
I think that that is a feature, and that we should try to avoid losing
it.
<snip>
I don't think so. Making something difficult is the best way to avoid
getting more users. Not getting more users is the best way to avoid
getting more developers. Not getting more developers is the best way to
lose traction, which would get us into oblivion.
I have no problem with what Debian is today, but you seem to have a
problem with it.
I am not arguing against something that exists today, I am arguing
against trying to turn it into a user-friendly system for people like my
little sister, which I don't have, but she is 34 and would never be able
to use Debian (or any other Linux variant) to any reasonable degree of
proficiency, and most people agree with that who are *NOT* using Linux.
You claim I want to move Debian backwards. I just don't want you to move
it forward in a way that is actually a backward motion.
Many improvements today are detriments, they are actually regressions.
"It is the mark of a primitive society to view regression as progress"
someone once said.
You speak of "making something difficult". No no, you are trying to
"make it easy", I am not trying to "make it difficult". I am saying
nothing to make it "worse" than what it is today, because I don't think
today is "bad".
So you accuse me of wanting a backward motion to where we stand today
(from where we stand today). You accuse me of advocating a certain
direction.
I am not advocating FOR a direction, but only against it.
If you are going to exert effort to make it user friendly beyond what is
reasonably possible -- the only thing I am advocating is realism -- the
only thing that is going to happen is that a lot of energy is going to
be wasted on "hand holding" and making promises to people you cannot
keep.
You will get the PR of "Debian is user-friendly, you can use it too!"
and then you get the disillusioned people that find out the reality of
it. Then you get the bitterness. Don't make promises you can't keep,
please. Ubuntu is doing that thing but the bliss of Debian is is that it
doesn't promise anything, it is take it as it is.
Without promises, no PR around it and no image to uphold. That allows
you to focus on what you do, and what you are, without nervous or
frantic activity to expand the scope of the userbase by somewhat
artificial measures such as creating /extra/ friendly user documentation
that you cannot uphold _across the field_ without constantly chasing
that goal. You will find that in some places you would have achieved
your goal but there is too much documentation you cannot change and now
there is a discrepancy between the one and the other. It Dutch we call
it "mopping with the tap running" as I'm sure you'd know ;-).
(Dweilen met de kraan open).
I just feel it would be "pushing the boundary" but you would need to
keep pushing forever. It would require constant effort to achieve that
"higher level of user-friendliness". It is like having to keep blowing
air into a baloon.
You say I am defeatist here because I would say, in essence, to you
"Debian will never be that". But why should Debian /be/ that?
Why should it be a goal in the first place?
Why should it take that position, you know...
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