On Wednesday 14 June 2006 10:55, Tim Bray wrote: > > On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Bryce Harrington wrote: > >> With > >> few exceptions, most open source developers are really just users > >> that > >> got very passionate and curious. ;-) > > I *really* don't think so. Most OSS developers are people who like > computers and like programming computers and like sharing the > results. Most *users* don't actually like computers, they just want > to get things done.
i don't think that's that linus is saying =) he notes that most users won't
become developers (only a very, very small % will) and so is in agreement
with you, but added that most contributors were users of the software they
contribute to before they started contributing.
what makes it interesting/maddening is that it's almost impossible to
tell "user who might contribute" from "user who won't" before they start
showing their curiosity and start contributing. this is an important point
IMHO.
> Having said that, Linus is right that we do a crappy job of getting
> input from them.
we also tend to do a crappy job of dealing with the input when we get it.
well, some of us anyways. we're painting with broad brush strokes here that
don't cover everyone equally =)
> developers. But bear in mind that while end-users are really good at
> spotting irritants ("I plugged the projector into the VGA. It didn't
> work.") they are bad at coming up with new ideas.
yes, the "best solution" often comes from the mind of someone who is
intimately aware of all the workings and has a good background in designing
those types of tools / solutions (i like the analogy of the civil engineer
building a bridge, personally, but i won't bore you with it here =).
but if one pays attention to how a user phrases something, one can often
become aware of things we weren't. often because users come up with creative
ways of (ab)using tools or have wildly different expectations that reflect
the real world to which we are often insulated =)
--
Aaron J. Seigo
Undulate Your Wantonness
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43
Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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