On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:36:37 -0600 Chad Perrin <per...@apotheon.com> articulated:
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 05:35:57PM -0400, Jerry wrote: > > On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 13:48:52 -0600 > > Chad Perrin <per...@apotheon.com> articulated: > > > > > I blame Microsoft, GNU, and Canonical for this trend, mostly. > > > > Chad, I believe I stand on firm ground when I state that you would > > blame Microsoft if the sun didn't come up tomorrow. You obviously > > must have a life time membership to "Slashdot". > > I would not blame Microsoft if the sun doesn't come up tomorrow. I > probably should have included Apple in my list, and in fact in this > particular case I'm skeptical that Microsoft is even as much to blame > for feeding this trend as Apple, at least in the cases of iOS and > MacOS "classic" (though MacOS X does mitigate this corporate impulse > a little bit). > > Every membership at Slashdot is lifetime, as far as I'm aware. If you > create an account there, I don't think they delete it unless you do > something really egregious to annoy the people who admin the site. > That said, I've made comments to maybe two or three discussions at > Slashdot in my life, I've only submitted one story there ever (and it > wasn't accepted), and I have long since forgotten my login > credentials for the site because I haven't visited it in years. > > You don't seem to stand on such firm ground, after all. Are you sure > you're not thinking of some other Chad? Maybe you saw something aobut > Rubyist and author Chad Fowler encouraging people to join a robots.txt > fueled boycott of Microsoft's search engine. There's some crossover > there, given I'm a Rubyist and an author (of a somewhat different, but > related, variety) as well, though I never joined the robots.txt > boycott. > > > > > > Microsoft creates programs, utilities, etc. for Microsoft. With very > > few exceptions, it does not actively create programming for a > > non-windows theater. It certainly never created any programming for > > *nix systems that deal with hardware discovery & configuration. > > Microsoft is not your problem. The people writing software, drivers, > > what have you for *.nix & *.BSD are your problem. > > Microsoft encourages, employs, and supports a software design > philosophy that prioritizes user obsequious operation over user > enabling functionality, regardless of whether any of Microsoft's > offerings are compatible with any computing platforms outside of what > Microsoft itself produces. By producing and marketing software that > proceeds from that philosophy, organizations like Apple, Canonical, > GNU, and Microsoft help push it into the mainstream within their > particular market niches, where each of them is significantly > influential. > > The people writing software, drivers, "what have you" for Unix-like > OSes (including me) are to some extent influenced by these things. > Despite the fact that Microsoft is not really in the Unixy markets > very much, it has a disproportionately large effect on those markets > because its flagship platform is so widely used by people who develop > software, even when they are developing it for other platforms. > > > > > > Contrary to whatever you may think, the over whelming majority of > > users want a system that just works. They don't want to spend > > hours/days or more just tying to get a printer or sound card to > > work. They would rather leave that to people like you who have time > > to waste. Those of us on the clock don't have the luxury of > > fiddling with a piece of hardware when we could be doing something > > productive. > > I never said that offering automatic configuration is bad. I think > it's great, as long as it doesn't hinder, override, obviate, or even > prohibit user attempts to specify custom configuration. If you think > I was saying nothing should ever be done automatically, you were not > reading very closely. What I was saying was that trying to do things > automatically in such a way that it *breaks* the ability to engage in > direct customization when such is desired is a bad way to automate > such things. > > It's great if sound "just works". It's not so great if some software > tries to make sound "just work" and fails, then prevents the user from > fixing it, when fixing it was trivially easy before that software was > integrated into the standard distribution of the system. > > > > > > Two statements in your post stand out as being totally bizarre. > > > > 1) <quote> > > People design software meant to eliminate the configuration and > > management hassle from the end user, but it doesn't always work > > perfectly. > > </quote> > > > > OK, what software always works correctly? That never fails, hangs, > > or just blows up. Deal with it, it is a fact of life. Ask any of a > > number of users who have tried to get OpenOffice to work as > > designed the first time; or even ever. > > I never said any software "always works correctly". There actually is > some software that does so, I'm sure -- but I was not saying that it > was reasonable to excoriate the developers for writing the software in > question in this case because there are bugs or limitations in the > software's operation. That statement was not meant to be taken in a > vacuum; it is the set-up for the following statement, and I believe > that the fact you have taken it as a stand-alone comment conveying > some critical judgment that was not in fact evident in my phrasing is > an indication that you really are not interested in having a > reasonable conversation. Indications, conversely, seem to suggest > that you will take anything I say in the worst possible light, even > inventing unreasonable interpretations of my words to support your > belief that I'm a bad person for saying something unflattering about > Microsoft. > > > > > > 2) <quote> > > Unfortunately, it so zealously attempts to guess what the > > user wants that it effectively *disallows* easy fixes when the user > > discovers that something needs to be "fixed". > > <quote> > > > > Of course your statement is sans any documented proof, which in > > itself is not news worthy; however, who's specific configuration > > should the designers of said software use for a template? I know, > > yours, right? It is obvious that the designers are attempting to > > guess what the user whats. Obviously, they are not going to guess > > right 100% of the time. It is just the nature of the beast. Are you > > trying to say that you cannot manually change a configuration file? > > By the way, it will only get worse as no one can come to an > > agreement on one unified replacement for HAL. Nothing like > > fragmentation to make things work better. I believe that XFCE has > > dropped all support for HAL too. Is that Microsoft's fault too? > > This is not the six o'clock news. My statement does not need to be > "newsworthy". It is a simple statement of my perspective and > experience. If you have some kind of evidence or reasoned argument to > the contrary, please share it; I'll be happy to consider it and, if I > find it worthy, change my perspective accordingly. Simply accusing > me of being some kind of anti-Microsoft zealot based on the turning > of the tides and astrology (or whatever motivation you falsely apply > to my statements) does not do much to convince me I'm wrong, though > -- nor does pointing out that I have not cited scientific studies > when making a simple observation based on my own experience. > > In any case, you seem to have completely missed my point here. My > point is not that anyone should design software to enforce the > configuration that works best for me, specifically. Rather, my point > is that software developers should probably consider how easy it is > to make things right when their software breaks. > > Of course I can manually change a configuration file, but I think you > completely overlooked my statements about how things should really be > easier than a lot of current autoconfig software makes it when the > autoconfig needs to be overridden. > > > > > > I have two Linksys Wireless-N PCI cards in front of me that work > > fine on a Windows platform. FreeBSD doesn't even have a driver for > > them, thereby rendering them useless. I suppose that is Microsoft's > > fault too. > > No, not really. It's more the fault of the hardware manufacturer. Chad, up until this point I had taken your response seriously. In fact, I thought it was well presented. Then, you went and blew it. You fell into that trap that is all to prevalent in the open-source community, and especially odious with the *BSDs. That being the "blame the manufacturer" banner. If at first it doesn't work, blame the manufacturer. Strangely enough, those two Wireless-N cards work in Windows from at least XP forward (no surprise there), but they also work with Ubuntu from what I have read on their forums. I also believe that Linux supports the chip, although I don't have the time or ambition to check it out right now. I do remember checking over a year ago, and a driver was suppose to be available. BSD is notorious for bringing up the rear with its offerings of drivers. It is just easier to blame someone else I suppose. I know you are now going say that the hardware manufacturer should be responsible for the driver. I totally disagree. There is no way that a manufacturer can reasonably be expected to product a driver for the extremely fragmented open-source community. Look how much trouble nVidia had getting 64 bit drivers into FreeBSD. You cannot even get the community to agree on a replacement for HAL. They aim for the biggest target, linux and basically leave the rest to their own devices. You can blame the open-source community in general and *BSD in particular for that problem. Even if they did come to some consensus, they would end up in a pissing contest over the license. Go ahead, now you can blame Microsoft, Apple, GNU, the man in the moon, and who knows who else for that problem too. > I don't know why you have such a problem with me that you are > unwilling to read my words as written, and just make up your own > unreasonable interpretations and misrepresentations instead, but it > isn't very amusing. I wasn't trying to be amusing. Like I previously stated, I thought your response was fine, until you stated preaching the company gospel. -- Jerry ✌ freebsd.u...@seibercom.net Disclaimer: off-list followups get on-list replies or get ignored. Please do not ignore the Reply-To header. __________________________________________________________________ The Wright Brothers weren't the first to fly. They were just the first not to crash.
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