Subject: Re: Better than YDL and OSX
From: Nathan A. McQuillen (nm@steaky.dhs.org)
Date: Sun Oct 28 2001 - 12:42:59 MST
Ummm...
Maybe your snippy reply was better sent off-list, TS? Since it wasn't, I
think it demands a sensible reposte from somebody who /doesn't/ have
contempt for those who expect quality and functionality in their operating
systems. Let's get real here: YDL, insofar as it is Red Hat, is easy to
find documentation for. Much of that documentation is excellent. YDL,
insofar as it is a smallish distro running on a variety of more and less
customized, parochial hardware, is more difficult to find documentation
for, and as expected some (not all) of that documentation is sub-par.
This is simply to be expected -- the x86 Linuxes have more users, ergo...
It is also to be expected that the majority of people with Mac hardware
laying around are going to be /mac users/, and are going to have an
abnormally high level of expectation, especially when it comes to the
transparency of hardware operations, background process functionality,
networking, etc. Apple does one thing exceptionally well, which is to make
certain that their systems simply /work/, at a guaranteed quality
standard. It's not difficult to shift to the Linux mentality from the Mac
one, but it requires some adjustment, and the documentation that exists is
marginal when it comes to the psychological and perceptual differences in
the user experience (e.g., why X apps sometimes take so bloody long to
start after you invoke them -- an experience which, for me as Mac user,
two years ago, was literally frightening, because on a Mac, that usually
means you've crashed).
As to the appropriateness of BF's initial posts: it's not like this is a
kernel hacking list or anything. "General questions from all ability
levels" or something like that -- and I personally am of the (not
unpopular) opinion that comments, even negative, have a home here as well:
it is good for those who work on improving a product to hear as much
feedback as possible, /especially/ from people whose expectations are
high. If there were not constant pressure from those who simply want a
turnkey, functional, even elegant system, Linux would not be as tuned and
usable as it is. We wouldn't have Webmin -- jeez, we wouldn't even have
any X beyond Motif. There's still some distance to go in the evolution of
Linux, certainly, and it is this user pressure that will provide the
energy behind that evolution.
BTW, TS, it's not "lusers" (GOD I hate that term -- reminds me of all the
clueless kiddies who feel compelled to stick 'W@REZ' or '3L1T3' on their
Pagemill homepages) providing this pressure. The 'lusers' are using Win98
-- in my experience 'lusers' don't notice poor quality and
discontinuities, they just swear a bit, flip the power switch, reboot
Win98, and pop another bag of chips while they wait for Tribes to reload.
The pressure for Linux (and freeBSD, etc.) to improve is coming from
people who *use* and *like* Linux (ibid.) but have more important (and
lucrative, honestly) things to do with their time than making somebody's
unnecessarily difficult, localized, or cryptic software work the way it
should. This includes programmers, sysadmins, hardware gurus -- for a lot
of people, it's just a waste of time bowing and scraping to poor quality,
anachronistic code and conventions. That's why most of us, even the
engineers and coders, don't roll our own -- we start from a distro and
customize it, letting someone else, often someone we've paid some money
to, take some of that nasty mess out of our way for us.
BF's frustrations are understandable. Linux and "the open source
revolution" have been hyped sky-high and the reputation far outstrips the
reality for most, especially non-x86, Linux distros. If there's anything
to blame for this, it's the false advertising all of us in the community
are somewhat to blame for -- "yeah, i use Linux, it's easy, it's fast,
it's powerful, it's great", utterly ignoring the nights up reading faq
after manpage after list archive trying to make the damned ethernet card
work (when the card, we tend to forget, simply /works/ for someone running
MacOS or Win2K or ProDOS :) or whatever). For some of us, the rush, when
we /do/ put the puzzle together, is enough to erase the frustrations we go
through in the process, but that does /not/ excuse the hassles we've set
others up for through our zeal and evangelism. We've got to be honest
about it -- some things in Linux are as easy as they are powerful (file
permissions, i.e.) and some just aren't (sendmail), and it is the job of
those of us who /do/ know something a little more advanced to help those
who don't, and while we're at it, if we program -- especially if we
program for a distribution -- to improve the experience, make it more
transparent, faster, always higher quality.
Pax,
Nathan
On Sun, 28 Oct 2001, Timothy A. Seufert wrote:
> At 10:41 AM -0700 10/28/01, Brian L. Friesen wrote:
> >Steve;
> >
> >Thanks for your note. Actually, I didn't even read most of the replies I
> >received. I figured I would be flamed plenty.
>
> That would be because you came off as a freaking whiner. "Waah, YDL
> didn't meet the unrealistic expectations I invented for it, screw you
> guys, I'm going home!"
>
> It doesn't help your case that this whining came attached to an
> all-too-typical luser plea for somebody else to do work for you.
> Show at least a LITTLE incentive; it's not THAT difficult to figure
> out how to remove yourself from a mailing list, especially if you
> were smart enough to archive the first message you got from the list
> server...
>
> >I just have reached the end
> >of my patience. I have worked with enough engineers to know that they think
> >everyone is stupid if you don't want to read endless books and dream in code.
>
> Turn that on its head and think about how you are presenting
> yourself. YOUR attitude here seems to be "Damn that nasty cabal of
> Engineers; they are keeping Linux too hard for me!".
>
> And yes, I am an engineer. I don't think you are stupid if you don't
> want to live in my world. But I reserve the right to think you
> stupid if you want to use software that requires living a little in
> my world but expect it to be a cakewalk for no obvious reason.
>
>
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