Re: To Quit, or Not To Quit
On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 13:57:45 +1300 "gordon_cooper hughgord...@gmail.com" sent this: >Too many people merely click on the Reply button, resulting in posts >that are far too long. I have to disagree. I like to read the "long repetitions" and I am on an Internet connection very slow and flaky, not dialup, but indistinguishable from it, in most cases during the day. On other information and help lists, people information they think is unimportant because they know it, and something vital is gone for those who don't. If it's repetitious or boring to you in a thread you're following, scroll past it. How hard can that be? Just my opinion and way of doing. Realising we are all different. Be well, Charlie -- Registered Linux User:- 329524 *** The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. --Sengstan Third Zen Patriarch *** Debian GNU/Linux - just the best way to create magic -
To Quit, or Not To Quit
(With an apology to Will Shakespeare.) Proposed by Alan, Seconded by Liviu, That I do not quit. After a night's sleep and time to think, I accept Alan's proposal. Thank you gentlemen. I will stay, but for how long is probably out of my hands. I was teaching digital and solid state basics in the early 1960's, so that my time left on earth to work with Lyx, or anything else for that matter, is definitely limited. May I make two comments about this group. 1. Alan said that this group is "one of the friendliest around", I agree. However, I think that any newcomer, joining in the middle of the recent acrimonious discussion, might well be frightened away. 2. There are far too many repeats. There is no need to regurgitate all of a previous post when replying. A few words or a couple of lines should be all that is necessary to define the subject under discussion. Too many people merely click on the Reply button, resulting in posts that are far too long. Current computer based composition methods include easy editing. Why not use it? I should make another comment. I 'own' a computer group - most of them 'distaff ' members, who use a fairly specialised CAD programme for design with fabrics and fibres. One of the rules is "No lengthy repetitions". Offenders get a friendly caution. Persistent regurgitators are placed on moderation, meaning that their posts have to be approved before reaching the list. This system works. Remember that there are some parts of this planet where users are still on dial-up. Repeats serve no purpose and cost them money. Cheers, Gordon, Tauranga N.Z.
Re: why people give up on open source software
On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 12:55:37 -0600 Richard Talley wrote: > On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer > 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. Maaan, 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
Re: why people give up on open source software
On 10/26/2013 02:08 AM, Wolfgang Keller wrote: And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT. That's backwards. Its part of the solution. It doesn't matter if you read it or not, because it applies whether you read it or not. -- 0xCCE82347.asc Description: application/pgp-keys signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: why people give up on open source software
On 26/10/13 04:12, Bruce Pourciau wrote: On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful pdf's, and it's solid as a rock. A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers. Bruce I second that. I've used LyX since its beginning. It is the best software ever written (apart possibly from Unix/Linux). I use it for all my document production. John O'Gorman
Re: why people give up on open source software
On 10/25/2013 11:12 AM, Bruce Pourciau wrote: For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful pdf's, and it's solid as a rock. A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers. Bruce Absolutely! -- David L. Johnson And what if you track down these men and kill them, what if you killed all of us? From every corner of Europe, hundreds, thousands would rise up to take our places. Even Nazis can't kill that fast. -- Paul Henreid (Casablanca).
Re: why people give up on open source software
On Oct 25, 2013, at 2:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: > 25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer: >> Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in >> the long run? > > It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, although > at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the fact that we > continue to advance in a time where the number of active and enthusiastic > developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust project. Having 3 more > active developers (I mean good enough to avoid generating random code that > will take years to clean up) is the most we need probably. > > What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer > app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready to > make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough to > entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success. > > JMarc For me, LyX is in fact a killer app, in the sense that it has killed any need or desire to have an affair, a one night stand, or even flirt with any other app. I write long, structured papers that contain mathematics, figures, cross-references, and bibliographic citations, and LyX has been the perfect partner and document processor. It does everything I need, produces beautiful pdf's, and it's solid as a rock. A heartfelt thank you to JMarc and the other LyX developers. Bruce
Re: why people give up on open source software
> You think you are owed an explanation of how everything you download > and run works. That could be a mistake. These licenses generally > state, "AS IS WITH NO WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A > PARTICULAR PURPOSE". Its usually printed all or in part in all > captial letters. And that may be the origin of the problem, SINCE IN ALL CAPS IT IS PLAIN UNREADABLE AND THUS NO ONE WILL ACTUALLY READ IT. >;-> Sincerely, Wolfgang
Re: Mavericks troubles
On 10/25/13 2:52 AM, Scott Kostyshak wrote: On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: 25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak: ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary. From the top of my head, it is at /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable take care of this? Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line. If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do "open myfile.lyx". OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type, where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX. Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to that kind of organization. I just learned about Jean-Marc's information about OS X applications a couple weeks ago. If you want to see the contents of the individual application's folder, open the Applications folder. Right click on the application you are interested in, such as Preview.app, and select Show Package Contents. Now, if you want/need to, you can do all the normal file management operations you usually. To fix something on this Mac, I had to do just this. But danged if I remember what the issue was. :-( One other thing, simply removing an app from the Applications folder does not remove all files associated with the application. Depending on the program and how it's installed, i.e. for a single user or for all users, the various Library folders may contain files used by the application. Those files get left behind if you simply remove the application from the Applications folder. You can manually search for the extra files and remove them, or use a program to remove them. I use a free program called AppCleaner that looks for those files. A couple of mouse clicks, and the extra files are gone. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.5 Firefox 24.0 Thunderbird 17.0.8 LibreOffice 4.1.1.2
Re: Mavericks troubles
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:45 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: > 25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak: > >>> ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx >>> binary. >>> From the top of my head, it is at >>> /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx >> >> >> Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable >> take care of this? > > > Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line. > If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do "open myfile.lyx". > > OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type, > where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all > its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by > drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder > looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX. Ah, I see. Thank you for the explanation. I can see the advantage to that kind of organization. Scott
Re: Mavericks troubles
25/10/2013 10:13, Scott Kostyshak: ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary. From the top of my head, it is at /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable take care of this? Because Mac applications are not supposed to be run from the command line. If I want to open a lyx file from the command line, I do "open myfile.lyx". OSX programs are of two kinds: the usual unixy commands, and the OSX-type, where each application is actually a folder containing the binary and all its resources. This is great because it allows to install an application by drag and drop. By default, the Finder hides this and the application folder looks like a plain executable on which one can double-click to launch LyX. JMarc
Re: why people give up on open source software
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: > What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer > app, > ..which LyX already is. I like the gasp of people, who have been inflicted with LaTeX, when I show them how easy and straightforward it is to create document and get a PDF output with LyX by simply pushing the magic button. They also seem to go nuts about the table editing feature in LyX; a colleague told me that she could never manage to understand how to deal with tables in LaTeX, so she was doing the tables in Word and then inserted them in .tex as a screenshot. > but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready > to make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough > to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success. > Indeed. Liviu
Re: Mavericks troubles
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 3:53 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote: > 25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak: > >> I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the >> problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from >> the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export >> your .lyx file to a pdf with >> >>lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx > > > ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary. > From the top of my head, it is at > /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx Thanks for the correction. Why doesn't the PATH environment variable take care of this? Scott
Re: Mavericks troubles
25/10/2013 03:08, Scott Kostyshak: I just reread and saw the crashing part of your email. I thought the problem was only when you were exporting. In that case, exporting from the command line will not help. But just for reference, you can export your .lyx file to a pdf with lyx -e pdf2 yourlyxfile.lyx ... except that, for a Mac user, doing that requires to find the lyx binary. From the top of my head, it is at /Applications/LyX.app/Contents/MacOSX/lyx JMarc
Re: why people give up on open source software
25/10/2013 02:37, Ken Springer: Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in the long run? It is already successful. We have users, LyX continues to advance, although at a frustratingly slow pace these days. But in some sense, the fact that we continue to advance in a time where the number of active and enthusiastic developers is low is a proof that LyX is a robust project. Having 3 more active developers (I mean good enough to avoid generating random code that will take years to clean up) is the most we need probably. What I mean is that I do not want personally to create some kind of killer app, but provide a trusty tool for a small to medium circle of users ready to make some investment in learning time. Having people who trust LyX enough to entrust their writing work to us _is_ a success. JMarc