Brian Weeden wrote:
What is better for the future of OSS - having a program that is easy to use and popular that has a few flaws, or something that is flawless and rigorous but only the geeks know about and use?
I would argue that you need both. Just because a few of us geeks have some issues with it, in reality most common users don't notice them and don't care. They simply want something that is fast, easy to use, and doesn't serve lots of popups and corrupt their system. That's it. They don't care about creating unique secure processes or memory usage or some obscure flaw in the security model. In a perfect world they would care about all those issues like us geeks.
Your argument lumps a few things together. What we need is a software that from the ground up works properly, allows granular control over features. and yes, might be as complicated as setting the VCR clock (joke, most idiots can't do that much).
People can learn and do learn. They didn't switch to FF because it was easier or to diss M$, they did so because everyone & his mother was pushing it as more secure at a time when security is in the news daily.. In fact there's less vectors, but it's just as insecure in the hands of john q public as IE is.
I am happy with simply having so many people going out and downloading and installing it in defiance of IE and the rest of the establishment failing to do any thing about popups, browser hijacks, or security issues. That is a very good first step.
Failing to do so? That's going a bit far Brian, no?
None of this is (nor will) removing AOL from desktops and there's quite a few of that type of idiot. PEOPLE have to change and software has to be better thought out/written whether it's complicated or simple to use is secondary.
We all understand that Firefox is not perfect and has its flaws. And yes, as it becomes more popular it will probably come under more and more attacks. But the fact is that it is probably the most popular OSS product out there and the public loves it. I think that far outweighs the few flaws it has.
Fine but the premise was one of more secure which has been driving the john q public downloads. This is not as true and in fact can be less than true given that everything is on or off feature wise even without activex problems. They are fixing problems quickly but they're were not supposed to have the problems to begin with given their stance of more secure than IE.
What is happening is more publicity is stating to change the landscape for software developers. With more people aware & bitching, thing will change on all fronts, not just OSS vs M$.
