Re: Why "free" shouldn't have to mean "complicated"
On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 12:54:07AM +0200, Felix Steiner <felix_steiner@bluewin.ch> was heard to say:
> Why isn't there a bridge between developer and user, why isn't there a
> "debian smart"-distribution for my loved J. S.? Being installed from J. S's
> ugly Windows XP GUI in three steps (chosing auto-partitioning that doesn't
> delete the whole disk, chosing his country and his language, rebooting) and
> being able to work (doing configuration later -- or automaticly for
> usb-devices)? Why isn't working intuitive? Why don't you bring to customers
> what they are asking for in 310 MBs (or 420 or whatever -- but less than 650
> MBs)?
>
> Why isn't the customer being entertained, why can't he _love_ and not only
> like his product? Why isn't he waiting for announcements and praying for
> some entertaining news?
If you want to know why you're getting a negative reaction, the above
sums it up. You see, about every three to four weeks, someone has this
wonderful insight and feels it's necessary to tell the world about it,
either by posting to a Debian mailing list, or by posting the question
on a major website (*cough* Slashdot *cough*) Well, presumably it
happens even more often where I don't see it.
Anyway, the problem is that everyone has already heard these opinions
and arguments, and has already made their mind up what they think.
Posting long messages like yours, however impassioned they may be, just
serves to waste everyone's time -- at least, the people who don't just
ignore it -- and serves no purpose but to reinflame old arguments and
beat on old dead horses.
The only thing you can do to change this situation is to do
constructive work. It is guaranteed to be harder than posting grandiose
complaints to mailing lists, but it's the only way that you can be sure
that your personal goals are being met. Constructive work could be
something as simple as testing software and filing **useful** bug
reports, or as complex as helping to create the software and
infrastructure that's needed to achieve the ends you want.
Incidentally, this article has information on submitting useful bug
reports that you might want to read:
http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/149/
Daniel
--
/-------------------- Daniel Burrows <dburrows@debian.org> -------------------\
| Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the |
| process he does not become a monster. And when you look |
| into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. |
| -- Friedrich Nietzsche |
\---- News without the $$ -- National Public Radio -- http://www.npr.org ----/
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