Re: SEUL: request for comments on independence document (fwd)

[Roger R Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

> I have written a piece of text as a reaction to my experiences with the
> Linux community on usability. It is available at:
> 
> http://independence.seul.org/~stefan/resistance.html
> 
> I really need some subjective views on it. Do you agree with the
> contents? Do you think that I have gone too far? Am I being objective
> enough? Is your experience different?, etc. etc. Rate it even if you
> wish.
> 
> I want to learn from this "RFC" if my writing/ opinion is any good. So
> be honest with your reactions: if it isn't, I can just as easily get
> another hobby ;-)
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Stefan (new on this list...)
 
First of all, Stefan: are you actually on this list?
If not, you should subscribe. :) You can read the back-articles
(including this thread so far) at
http://www.seul.org/archives/seul/pub/

As for the article itself, I had mixed reactions.
I agree that it's well-written and clear (tho it has some typos and
odd phrasings that I'd want to fix before presenting it to a wider audience).
And from one perspective, it is correct in most things that it says.
But on the other hand, I find myself asking at the end 'so what?'
I mean, yes what you're saying is reasonable, but I don't have a clear idea
of why you're saying it or where you're going with it.
Which isn't a bad thing in itself, I guess, but you could probably write a
clearer and more integrated article if you had a specific goal in mind.

If the goal is in fact to convince people that they shouldn't be unhappy or
upset that Linux is starting to get more user-friendliness, setting out
exactly why you want to convince them of this would be useful.
If the goal is to convince people that they should work towards making Linux
more user friendly, you could attack that point much more directly.
It looks like it could turn into a very useful article, though, with a bit
more thought and work.

I also agree with Doug that relying on 'big business' to be the ones to
bring user friendliness to Linux isn't necessarily the right way to go. I
will grant that some of them have a lot of experience in making stuff that
consumers want to buy. But on the other hand, I don't know how much of that
is the marketing engines -- just because a company sells a lot of software
doesn't imply that their software is good. On the other hand, software built
by hackers for hackers is well-known for having unfriendly interfaces...
(all of the perl software I write these days is extremely configurable --
you just go in and change it -- but that doesn't work for people who aren't
perl gurus. :)

Thanks,
--Roger