On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 12:55:37 -0600 Richard Talley <rich.tal...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer <snowsh...@q.com> > wrote: > > > > > I can't speak for Rich, but it was not my intent to leave an > > impression of "mass exodus". Just my pulling back from the > > potential promise I saw that open source has, but IMO is not doing > > a good job of meeting. I think Canonical is making that effort, > > but I have no feel as to their success. Someday, when I'm rich but > > not famous, and have the time, I really want to try Linux. > > Personally, I don't care for the direction MS and Apple are going > > with the operating systems. AKA, I'm not a cloud fan and a devotee > > of the cloud idea for personal use. > > > > I see an opportunity for open source to be a real contender/option > > to be an alternative to MS and Apple for the users. I think this > > should be obvious with the success of the Android/Linux based > > phones. I am a fan of competition, of which there is little > > today. But I think the attitudes of many in the open source > > community may be undermining that opportunity. > > > > > The words I wrote that started this thread were a little harsh, but I > was frustrated. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! The subject line (as opposed to the body, which was just a typical problem), sent my blood pressure up to 220 over 180. Now I'm glad to hear it was just frustration. Heck, when it comes to frustration, nobody can top the inappropriate tone of my 2008 "Why oh why did you get rid of Xforms" LyX-List post. So if I criticized you based on a post you sent in frustration, I'd be the worlds biggest hypocrite. > My experience with LyX has been excellent - it's > gotten out of my way and allowed me to concentrate on the content and > structure of my documents, just what it was designed to do. > > In other circumstances, with no time deadline, I would not have minded > working on the problem. But I was writing from the point of view of > the majority of users to whom computers are not intrinsically > interesting, but just tools to get some work done. The response to > this is often an exhortation to them to learn about their computers, > an attitude that there's something lacking in those who don't. > But > I've known any number of intelligent doctors and lawyers and teachers > whose cognitive loads are already high enough that telling them that > they need to gain an intimate of knowledge of computers is just a bar > too high. They want their computers to just work, the way the other > appliances in their lives do. Maaaaaaan, did you open a can of worms with the preceding sentence. How often do appliances "just work", and what is the relationship between the richness of the appliances' feature set and its "just works" capabilities? Now it's true of toasters, at least the oldschool kind. You plug it in, you set it to light or dark, put in the bread, push the thing down, and your toast pops up five minutes later. When it stops functioning the way you expect, you bring ten bucks to Walmart and buy another one. Of course, toasters do exactly one thing. Move up the ladder a step to today's toaster ovens. We've had three of them in five years. Electronic or computer failure. They "just work" for a limited time, and then you spend sixty five bucks for another one. Toaster ovens do lots of stuff, as long as you define lots of stuff as roasting/baking in a small, computer controlled oven, whose controls you set. Up once more to your refrigerator. This is typically between $500 and $1700, so you don't throw it out when it doesn't "just work". And if your life is anything like mine, refrigerators don't "just work" for very long, then you bring in the refrigerator repairman. And here's where consumers start to diverge, depending on their degree of DIY'ness. When the refrigerator repairman comes to my house, I watch what he does. I notice his first step is to vacuum out under the refrigerator and everywhere that could restrict airflow to the fridge's coils. That fixes a heck of a lot of "it's not cold enough" complaints. I notice he thoroughly checks the rubber gaskets, because those are a common cause of "not cold enough" and frosting up. And I ask him how to keep those gaskets in good shape, and he tells me to close the doors tight, and if anything prevents that, rearrange. I asked the refrigerator repairman why the icemaker sometimes stops making ice, and he told me about permanently frozen ice chunks in the ice collector telling the sensor that the collector is full --- take those pieces out. I found out from him how to replace the water filter. Hey, I'd like my fridge to "just work", but they seldom "just work" well for very long, so in self defense I vacuum, close tight, de-ice the ice collector, don't fill the thing too tight, and change the water filter when necessary. That way I have a lot less visits from the repairman than the "it's gotta work and I don't want to lift a finger" crowd. And those guys have to put up with scheduling the repairman, and maybe he's late or cancels, and, well, my time's pretty valuable. Of course, some go so far as to get a new fridge when anything goes wrong with the old one. But that involves evaluation of a new fridge, and then an appointment from the installers. Personally, I like my way better --- all things told it burns up less of my time. Now let's discuss cars. Few of us do major repairs on our cars anymore, we don't have the tools or the manuals. But does that mean that when something breaks, we throw up our hands and declare it to be the repairman's problems? As head of Troubleshooters.Com, I hear from people who want to "just drive the damn thing" all the time. And their stories are usually horror stories. Here's a fictional example: for obvious reasons I cannot reveal real ones: http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200105/200105.htm#_editors_desk You can take this to the bank: The "I just want it to work" crowd refusing to learn the fundamentals of cars are the ones who end up like Ursula Unlucky, because they have insufficient knowledge of both the functioning of cars and the process of troubleshooting to recognize whether a mechanic is giving them the real story as opposed to a song and dance. Cars, especially modern cars, are appliances loaded with features, but compared to the average web surfing, Youtube watching, document writing computer, they're not much more than a toaster. If you want your computer to be a new kind of machine, all you do is install new software. A computer isn't an appliance. The most appliance-like thing that could be said for it is it's a bunch of appliances in one box. As a guy who used to repair stereo gear, I can tell you that often all-in-one means everything-busts. Remember those audio albatrosses that had turntable, tapedeck, radio, amplifier, and speakers in a single box? There was always *something* busted on those, and repairing them was a convoluted walk down the street of sorrows. Kind of like the DLL-hell, registry failure, dependency difficulty, and whatever all-in-one brings to the Mac. "I upgraded to Windows 8.1, and now nothing works!" "I installed a drawing program, and now my MS Word doesn't work!" Because I have a reputation as a "computer guy", guess whose shoulder the "I want it just to work" guys cry on when they get a phone call from Microsoft a minute after their computer stops functioning, and the Microsoft guy says they have a virus and have to buy this new antivirus software to restore their computer, and yes, they gave the guy their credit card number and password, and oh by the way they never learned to back up, and the photos of their long lost family members are gone. Wanting to separate yourself from knowledge of your appliances works great with toasters, but with computers, it can be the avenue to anquish. Wanting "just works" is a nice thought, and of course the industry is working toward it, but at this point it's merely an approachable ideal, like an ideal engine or a frictionless puck. > Apple seems to understand this better > than the rest of the industry; it's striking to watch toddlers pick > up iPads and just get to it. I've logged less than 25 hours on Macs in 29 years, but I do hear this all the time. It probably helps that they hold an iron grip on both the hardware, operating system, and to some degree software. But I will tell you, personally, every time I get on a Mac, I feel lost. Anyway, the bottom line is that people insisting on treating their computers as appliances that "just work" often end up the unhappiest of all, whether they're using Free Software or proprietary. SteveT Steve Litt * http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
