On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 14:07 -0800, John Leonard wrote:
> I am inclined to agree with you on this issue. The problem as I see it > is that the open source community consists of a lot of fantastically > clever programmers, but few designers and even fewer technical authors > who can put together decent documentation (especially in several > different languages). > > Worse, it is considered a rite of passage to have to trawl through > hosts of poorly designed websites, post to forums for answers that you > don't understand when you get them, and to learn the terminology > before you can get going. This is fine if you are technically > inclined, not so good if you are the average Joe whio is just trying > to get a job done. > There is a large business community that is happy to help you with your MS Windows problems for a fee. The size of that community and the very visible advertising for it clearly indicates (to me at least) that there are lots of problem even with non-open source programs. So if "average Joe" has a problem with an open source program, why doesn't he hire somebody to talk them through those installation or other problems. I am pretty sure that you could find somebody knowledgable for the appropriate fee. There are lots of volunteers that work on open source software which benefits many people. Each of them obviously has a reason to do so but none of them is required to help "average Joe" just because "average Joe" would like it. If you feel that a web site needs improving then you should provide an improved page (note that I am not saying that you need be able to write one, you could hire somebody to do so and then offer the page to the project.) Andreas _______________________________________________ gnumeric-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnumeric-list
