subject:"why people give up on open source software"

No, hed doesn't, he got into the program :-)-O

el

On 2013-10-23 18:50 , Ernesto Posse wrote:
 You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
 LyX, is developed by *volunteers*, do you?
 
 
 On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
 mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:
[...]
 I got into the open source programs,
[...]

Re: why people give up on open source software

I do my CVs (in German and English, hence 2) in the EuroPass format.
(Google is your friend here).

Unfortunately there is no LyX module for it which really works (for
me) so I use the LaTeX version(s) with TeXshop.  That is ok, because
it doesn't change a lot and the changes are easy (the odd
publication is added :-)-O)

So, no Instant Gratification, but then on the other hand I don't
have an Entitlement Expectation :-)-O and to be honest figuring this
stuff out is fun most of the time, and help is there for the asking.


The German TeX user group had an article about the two Europass
classes available and they asked me for a live PDF to print as
example output :-)-O

I find that PDF is accepted very well, by the way.

el


On 2013-10-23 18:34 , Les Denham wrote:
 On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 22:19:38 -0600 Richard Talley
 rich.tal...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Now on to the résumé.  Let's see what's available.  ModernCV
 looks good, under development for seven years.
 
 Richard,
 
 That's what I thought too.  The documentation is, as you point
 out, rather sketchy.  But with a little effort I managed a very
 nice looking CV.
 
 Now the really big problem: most, in fact almost all, advertised
 job vacancies only accept resumes in MS Word format.  So I had to
 get my very nice CV into LibreOffice (where it did not look very
 nice) and save it in DOCX format.
 
 Sigh.
 
 Les

Re: why people give up on open source software

No, hed doesn't, he got into the program :-)-O

el

On 2013-10-23 18:50 , Ernesto Posse wrote:
 You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
 LyX, is developed by *volunteers*, do you?
 
 
 On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
 mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:
[...]
 I got into the open source programs,
[...]

Re: why people give up on open source software

I do my CVs (in German and English, hence 2) in the EuroPass format.
(Google is your friend here).

Unfortunately there is no LyX module for it which really works (for
me) so I use the LaTeX version(s) with TeXshop.  That is ok, because
it doesn't change a lot and the changes are easy (the odd
publication is added :-)-O)

So, no Instant Gratification, but then on the other hand I don't
have an Entitlement Expectation :-)-O and to be honest figuring this
stuff out is fun most of the time, and help is there for the asking.


The German TeX user group had an article about the two Europass
classes available and they asked me for a live PDF to print as
example output :-)-O

I find that PDF is accepted very well, by the way.

el


On 2013-10-23 18:34 , Les Denham wrote:
 On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 22:19:38 -0600 Richard Talley
 rich.tal...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Now on to the résumé.  Let's see what's available.  ModernCV
 looks good, under development for seven years.
 
 Richard,
 
 That's what I thought too.  The documentation is, as you point
 out, rather sketchy.  But with a little effort I managed a very
 nice looking CV.
 
 Now the really big problem: most, in fact almost all, advertised
 job vacancies only accept resumes in MS Word format.  So I had to
 get my very nice CV into LibreOffice (where it did not look very
 nice) and save it in DOCX format.
 
 Sigh.
 
 Les

Re: why people give up on open source software

No, hed doesn't, he "got into the program" :-)-O

el

On 2013-10-23 18:50 , Ernesto Posse wrote:
> You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
> LyX, is developed by *volunteers*, do you?
> 
> 
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer  > wrote:
[...]
> I got into the open source programs,
[...]

Re: why people give up on open source software

I do my CVs (in German and English, hence 2) in the EuroPass format.
(Google is your friend here).

Unfortunately there is no LyX module for it which really works (for
me) so I use the LaTeX version(s) with TeXshop.  That is ok, because
it doesn't change a lot and the changes are easy (the odd
publication is added :-)-O)

So, no Instant Gratification, but then on the other hand I don't
have an Entitlement Expectation :-)-O and to be honest figuring this
stuff out is fun most of the time, and help is there for the asking.

The German TeX user group had an article about the two Europass
classes available and they asked me for a "live" PDF to print as
example output :-)-O

I find that PDF is accepted very well, by the way.

el

On 2013-10-23 18:34 , Les Denham wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Oct 2013 22:19:38 -0600 Richard Talley
>  wrote:
> 
>> Now on to the résumé.  Let's see what's available.  ModernCV
>> looks good, under development for seven years.
> 
> Richard,
> 
> That's what I thought too.  The documentation is, as you point
> out, rather sketchy.  But with a little effort I managed a very
> nice looking CV.
> 
> Now the really big problem: most, in fact almost all, advertised
> job vacancies only accept resumes in MS Word format.  So I had to
> get my very nice CV into LibreOffice (where it did not look very
> nice) and save it in DOCX format.
> 
> Sigh.
> 
> Les
>

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
 I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
 program for a platform now long gone.
 
 But, as I wrote in
 news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
 reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
 requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
 fixing the bug?

Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
   generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
Jean-Marc Lasgouttes lasgout...@lyx.org 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. 

LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
complete outline mode.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 11:28:44 +1300
Bryan Baldwin br...@katofiad.co.nz wrote:

 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.

It's also in upper case in the GPL2, so he was pretty much quoting it
(inexactly).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Hal Kierstead


On Oct 26, 2013, at 9:25 AM, Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:

 On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
 Jean-Marc Lasgouttes lasgout...@lyx.org 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. 
 
 LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
 perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
 missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
 complete outline mode.
 
 Thanks,
 
 SteveT
 
 Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
 Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance
OK, I will take up the challenge.  I love LyX, and use it for everything, even 
my private notes, EXCEPT when collaborating.  Nobody else I work with uses it.  
Even if I write the first draft in LyX, and my coauthors do not change the 
front matter, I cannot convert their file to good LyX.  If this were possible I 
think my coauthors would be trying out LyX and quickly converting.  I cannot 
even get undergraduates or graduate students to give it a try.

I should at least be able to convert tex files produced by LyX back into the 
original version of LyX, even if it takes some ugly hacks like adding extra 
data to insure the conversion.

Hal

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Scott Kostyshak

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Hal Kierstead
hal.kierst...@icloud.com wrote:

On Oct 26, 2013, at 9:25 AM, Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:

On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
Jean-Marc Lasgouttes lasgout...@lyx.org 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.

LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
complete outline mode.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
OK, I will take up the challenge. I love LyX, and use it for everything,
even my private notes, EXCEPT when collaborating. Nobody else I work with
uses it. Even if I write the first draft in LyX, and my coauthors do not
change the front matter, I cannot convert their file to good LyX. If this
were possible I think my coauthors would be trying out LyX and quickly
converting. I cannot even get undergraduates or graduate students to give it
a try.

Hi Hal,

This is a common request and I understand your frustration. It would
be great if LyX were able to perfectly import LaTeX. I would like to
see this and I have the impression that many developers would like to
see this. The reason that importing LaTeX into LyX is far from perfect
is simply that it's hard. It's very hard to parse LaTeX because of all
of the possible commands and packages.

I'm actually quite impressed and thankful that it works as well as it does.

The good news is that it's getting better with each release. The
following lists the fifteen bugs that will be fixed in LyX 2.1 related
to importing LaTeX:

http://www.lyx.org/trac/query?status=acceptedstatus=assignedstatus=newstatus=reopeneddescription=~reporter=~component=tex2lyxsummary=~keywords=~fixedintrunkcol=idcol=summarycol=keywordscol=reportercol=statuscol=typecol=severitydesc=1order=id

I should at least be able to convert tex files produced by LyX back into the
original version of LyX, even if it takes some ugly hacks like adding extra
data to insure the conversion.

I can see where you're coming from but I personally don't agree with
this. I never think ugly hacks are the answer. And even if this were
done, maybe things would work better if your coauthors did not change
any single LaTeX command and only changed the text, but the moment
they change one thing (even adding a simple \textbf), this can be a
huge deal to the parser and not even ugly hacks will save us there.

I don't know of the following analogy is good, but I'm going to throw
it out there anyway. Think about a linguistic language translator.
Translating is difficult. Google translator does an incredible job in
my opinion, but even then there is no round trip. (The following is a
little OT but it works within the analogy so I'm going with it.) In
response to many who think that the goal of LyX developers is for
everyone to use LyX, I don't think the answer is to try to convert
everyone to speak English. Multilingualism is great and the world
would be pretty boring if everyone spoke the same language.

In my opinion the best thing to do is to improve tex2lyx little by
little. If you find a bug, see if it's reported (look for component
tex2lyx) and if not please report it.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Scott

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 10:32:05 +1300
John O'Gorman j...@og.co.nz wrote:

 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).

Don't forget the underlying (La)TeX, without which LyX wouldn't exist!

John

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
 if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
 is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
 fixing the bug?

Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.

John

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

But, as I wrote in
news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


Not the same situation, Steve.  In both examples, fixing my friend's 
skateboard bugs result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me 
something I can use.  :-)


If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's 
something I use but is broken.  When the bug is squashed, then I and 
everyone else has something they can use.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Ernesto Posse

Ken, you are not the one doing the fixing. The ones doing the fixing are
the ones deserving of gratitude and the ones doing the real work, far more
than the ones reporting the bugs. Reporting bugs (politely) is always
appreciated. Reporting bugs while insulting, and trashing the *volunteer*
work and demanding professionalism from those who are providing you with
a free product (developed for free), is not appreciated.

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me. But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

But, as I wrote in
news://news.gmane.org:119/**l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.orghttp://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
if I help by
reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?

Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*
http://www.troubleshooters.**com/http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance

Not the same situation, Steve. In both examples, fixing my friend's
skateboard bugs result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me
something I can use. :-)

If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's something
I use but is broken. When the bug is squashed, then I and everyone else
has something they can use.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

--
Ernesto Posse

Modelling and Analysis in Software Engineering
School of Computing
Queen's University - Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/26/13 1:25 PM, John Coppens wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.


Same here.  I don't care about a public thanks, just squash the bug(s).  :-)


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
 I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
 program for a platform now long gone.
 
 But, as I wrote in
 news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
 reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
 requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
 fixing the bug?

Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
   generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
Jean-Marc Lasgouttes lasgout...@lyx.org 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. 

LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
complete outline mode.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 11:28:44 +1300
Bryan Baldwin br...@katofiad.co.nz wrote:

 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.

It's also in upper case in the GPL2, so he was pretty much quoting it
(inexactly).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Hal Kierstead


On Oct 26, 2013, at 9:25 AM, Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:

 On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
 Jean-Marc Lasgouttes lasgout...@lyx.org 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. 
 
 LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
 perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
 missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
 complete outline mode.
 
 Thanks,
 
 SteveT
 
 Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
 Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance
OK, I will take up the challenge.  I love LyX, and use it for everything, even 
my private notes, EXCEPT when collaborating.  Nobody else I work with uses it.  
Even if I write the first draft in LyX, and my coauthors do not change the 
front matter, I cannot convert their file to good LyX.  If this were possible I 
think my coauthors would be trying out LyX and quickly converting.  I cannot 
even get undergraduates or graduate students to give it a try.

I should at least be able to convert tex files produced by LyX back into the 
original version of LyX, even if it takes some ugly hacks like adding extra 
data to insure the conversion.

Hal

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Scott Kostyshak

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Hal Kierstead
hal.kierst...@icloud.com wrote:

On Oct 26, 2013, at 9:25 AM, Steve Litt sl...@troubleshooters.com wrote:

On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
Jean-Marc Lasgouttes lasgout...@lyx.org 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.

Thanks,

SteveT

Hi Hal,

I'm actually quite impressed and thankful that it works as well as it does.

The good news is that it's getting better with each release. The
following lists the fifteen bugs that will be fixed in LyX 2.1 related
to importing LaTeX:

I should at least be able to convert tex files produced by LyX back into the
original version of LyX, even if it takes some ugly hacks like adding extra
data to insure the conversion.

In my opinion the best thing to do is to improve tex2lyx little by
little. If you find a bug, see if it's reported (look for component
tex2lyx) and if not please report it.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Scott

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 10:32:05 +1300
John O'Gorman j...@og.co.nz wrote:

 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).

Don't forget the underlying (La)TeX, without which LyX wouldn't exist!

John

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
 if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
 is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
 fixing the bug?

Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.

John

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

But, as I wrote in
news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


Not the same situation, Steve.  In both examples, fixing my friend's 
skateboard bugs result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me 
something I can use.  :-)


If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's 
something I use but is broken.  When the bug is squashed, then I and 
everyone else has something they can use.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Ernesto Posse

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me. But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
reporting a bug:

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a thank you. #2 garners what a douchebag!

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*
http://www.troubleshooters.**com/http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance

Not the same situation, Steve. In both examples, fixing my friend's
skateboard bugs result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me
something I can use. :-)

If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's something
I use but is broken. When the bug is squashed, then I and everyone else
has something they can use.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

--
Ernesto Posse

Modelling and Analysis in Software Engineering
School of Computing
Queen's University - Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/26/13 1:25 PM, John Coppens wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.


Same here.  I don't care about a public thanks, just squash the bug(s).  :-)


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer  wrote:

> I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
> I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
> program for a platform now long gone.
> 
> But, as I wrote in
> news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
> reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
> requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
> fixing the bug?

Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
"reporting a bug":

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
   generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a "thank you." #2 garners "what a douchebag!"

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
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. 

LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
complete outline mode.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 11:28:44 +1300
Bryan Baldwin  wrote:

> 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.

It's also in upper case in the GPL2, so he was pretty much quoting it
(inexactly).

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Hal Kierstead


On Oct 26, 2013, at 9:25 AM, Steve Litt  wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
> 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. 
> 
> LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
> perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
> missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
> complete outline mode.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> SteveT
> 
> Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
> Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance
OK, I will take up the challenge.  I love LyX, and use it for everything, even 
my private notes, EXCEPT when collaborating.  Nobody else I work with uses it.  
Even if I write the first draft in LyX, and my coauthors do not change the 
front matter, I cannot convert their file to good LyX.  If this were possible I 
think my coauthors would be trying out LyX and quickly converting.  I cannot 
even get undergraduates or graduate students to give it a try.

I should at least be able to convert tex files produced by LyX back into the 
original version of LyX, even if it takes some ugly hacks like adding extra 
data to insure the conversion.

Hal

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Scott Kostyshak

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Hal Kierstead
 wrote:
>
> On Oct 26, 2013, at 9:25 AM, Steve Litt  wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 25 Oct 2013 09:49:13 +0200
>> 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.
>>
>> LOL, how can you expect fast advances when the LyX pretty much became
>> perfect in 2004? I mean, really, name me one serious thing it's
>> missing. At this point we're down to more efficient hotkeys and a more
>> complete outline mode.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
>> Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance
> OK, I will take up the challenge.  I love LyX, and use it for everything, 
> even my private notes, EXCEPT when collaborating.  Nobody else I work with 
> uses it.  Even if I write the first draft in LyX, and my coauthors do not 
> change the front matter, I cannot convert their file to good LyX.  If this 
> were possible I think my coauthors would be trying out LyX and quickly 
> converting.  I cannot even get undergraduates or graduate students to give it 
> a try.

Hi Hal,

This is a common request and I understand your frustration. It would
be great if LyX were able to perfectly import LaTeX. I would like to
see this and I have the impression that many developers would like to
see this. The reason that importing LaTeX into LyX is far from perfect
is simply that it's hard. It's very hard to parse LaTeX because of all
of the possible commands and packages.

I'm actually quite impressed and thankful that it works as well as it does.

The good news is that it's getting better with each release. The
following lists the fifteen bugs that will be fixed in LyX 2.1 related
to importing LaTeX:

http://www.lyx.org/trac/query?status=accepted=assigned=new=reopened=~=~=tex2lyx=~=~fixedintrunk=id=summary=keywords=reporter=status=type=severity=1=id

> I should at least be able to convert tex files produced by LyX back into the 
> original version of LyX, even if it takes some ugly hacks like adding extra 
> data to insure the conversion.

I can see where you're coming from but I personally don't agree with
this. I never think ugly hacks are the answer. And even if this were
done, maybe things would work better if your coauthors did not change
any single LaTeX command and only changed the text, but the moment
they change one thing (even adding a simple \textbf), this can be a
huge deal to the parser and not even ugly hacks will save us there.

I don't know of the following analogy is good, but I'm going to throw
it out there anyway. Think about a linguistic language translator.
Translating is difficult. Google translator does an incredible job in
my opinion, but even then there is no round trip. (The following is a
little OT but it works within the analogy so I'm going with it.) In
response to many who think that the goal of LyX developers is for
everyone to use LyX, I don't think the answer is to try to convert
everyone to speak English. Multilingualism is great and the world
would be pretty boring if everyone spoke the same language.

In my opinion the best thing to do is to improve tex2lyx little by
little. If you find a bug, see if it's reported (look for component
tex2lyx) and if not please report it.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Scott

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Sat, 26 Oct 2013 10:32:05 +1300
John O'Gorman  wrote:

> 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).

Don't forget the underlying (La)TeX, without which LyX wouldn't exist!

John

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer  wrote:

> But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
> if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
> is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
> fixing the bug?

Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.

John

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer  wrote:


I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
program for a platform now long gone.

But, as I wrote in
news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, if I help by
reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Depends.

Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
"reporting a bug":

1) I think you need to bend your knees more.

2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.

#1 garners a "thank you." #2 garners "what a douchebag!"

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


Not the same situation, Steve.  In both examples, fixing my friend's 
skateboard "bugs" result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me 
something I can use.  :-)


If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's 
something I use but is broken.  When the bug is squashed, then I and 
everyone else has something they can use.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-26 Thread Ernesto Posse

Ken, you are not the one doing the fixing. The ones doing the fixing are
the ones deserving of gratitude and the ones doing the real work, far more
than the ones reporting the bugs. Reporting bugs (politely) is always
appreciated. Reporting bugs while insulting, and trashing the *volunteer*
work and demanding "professionalism" from those who are providing you with
a free product (developed for free), is not appreciated.



On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Ken Springer  wrote:

> On 10/26/13 10:17 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
>> Ken Springer  wrote:
>>
>>  I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But
>>> I did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial
>>> program for a platform now long gone.
>>>
>>> But, as I wrote in
>>> news://news.gmane.org:119/**l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
>>> if I help by
>>> reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting is
>>> requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
>>> fixing the bug?
>>>
>>
>> Depends.
>>
>> Imagine a buddy, who is a skateboarder, asking you for a critique of
>> his style while doing tricks. Both of the following could be considered
>> "reporting a bug":
>>
>> 1) I think you need to bend your knees more.
>>
>> 2) No wonder you're always losing contests, falling down, and just
>> generally screwing up. Your knees are straight. How unprofessional.
>>
>> #1 garners a "thank you." #2 garners "what a douchebag!"
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt*  
>> http://www.troubleshooters.**com/
>> Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance
>>
>
> Not the same situation, Steve.  In both examples, fixing my friend's
> skateboard "bugs" result in a feature of his skateboarding that gives me
> something I can use.  :-)
>
> If I report a bug in a piece of software, fairly obviously it's something
> I use but is broken.  When the bug is squashed, then I and everyone else
> has something they can use.
>
>
>
> --
> Ken
>
> Mac OS X 10.8.5
> Firefox 24.0
> Thunderbird 17.0.8
> LibreOffice 4.1.1.2
>
>


-- 
Ernesto Posse

Modelling and Analysis in Software Engineering
School of Computing
Queen's University - Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/26/13 1:25 PM, John Coppens wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:53:35 -0600
Ken Springer  wrote:


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org,
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by
fixing the bug?


Many, if not most projects include a 'THANKS' file in their packages with
the names of people who collaborated in the project. Not all include bug
reporters, which is fine by me if the report results in an improved version
of the free program. That's more than thanks enough for me.


Same here.  I don't care about a public thanks, just squash the bug(s).  :-)


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Jean-Marc Lasgouttes


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

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Liviu Andronic

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org 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: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Wolfgang Keller

 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: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Bruce Pourciau


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

2013-10-25 Thread David L. Johnson


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

2013-10-25 Thread John O'Gorman


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

2013-10-25 Thread Bryan Baldwin


  
  
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

2013-10-25 Thread Steve Litt

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. 

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 guys
have to put up with scheduling the

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Jean-Marc Lasgouttes


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

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Liviu Andronic

On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes
lasgout...@lyx.org 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: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Wolfgang Keller

 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: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Bruce Pourciau


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

2013-10-25 Thread David L. Johnson


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

2013-10-25 Thread John O'Gorman


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

2013-10-25 Thread Bryan Baldwin


  
  
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

2013-10-25 Thread Steve Litt

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. 

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 guys
have to put up with scheduling the

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Jean-Marc Lasgouttes


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

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Liviu Andronic

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: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Wolfgang Keller

> 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: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-25 Thread Bruce Pourciau

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

2013-10-25 Thread David L. Johnson


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

2013-10-25 Thread John O'Gorman


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

2013-10-25 Thread Bryan Baldwin


  
  
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

2013-10-25 Thread Steve Litt

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

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Jürgen Spitzmüller

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

 Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


 Not sure how you feel, so no reply.


He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.

The difference between commercial software and open source projects is that
the former produces software for the market and gets money for a living
of it (which results in some obligations towards the paying users), while
the latter produce software for themselves (the open source group, while
non-active users can use the software as a benefit). I devote my (rare)
free time to LyX development to get a good product for myself. Nothing
else. Of course I listen to users wishes (and I think people on this list
can acknowledge that all of us do), but I only take them up if I find
them interesting enough to devote my (spare) free time or if I need the
feature myself. I think nobody can expect more from me.

This is how I came into LyX development, as a complete programming novice:
I wanted some things to change, and no one took it up, so I did myself.

So if you think that we want LyX to be commercially widespread or
successful, you misunderstood us (and the whole open source movement).
Everybody certainly has individual motives, but for many developers
(including me), success does not mean rule the world or kick out
program X from the market (I do not care at all for this kind of goal),
but: attract more developers, make the application as YOU want it, have
fun, learn something.

So if you think LyX is not the right tool for you, use something else. I
could not care less, really.

Jürgen

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Wed, 23 Oct 2013 18:31:48 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

On 10/23/13 2:31 PM, Richard Talley wrote:
Interesting comments. I too have found small vendors to be much more
helpful. Often the developers help with or even do all of the tech
support at small vendors. And they actually read my emails, instead
of replying with canned responses.

Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses
me off.

If it pisses you off, then as Vincent van Ravesteijn said, don't use
it. Use proprietary software, with their official support channels
(often for limited time or costing money) full of script-reading ignos
escalating to other script reading ignos.

Earlier in this thread someone implied that some Open Source projects
are unprofessional. Well yeah, surprise surprise, Open Source isn't
most developers' profession: It doesn't pay the rent. You want
professional, go to those who make their money by charging you for
software. If you want good software with excellent support for those who
know how to ask questions and behave on a mailing list, stay with Open
Source.

It's funny. In February 2008 I got royally pissed at what I considered
bad support from the LyX community, so I started designing a
book-writing software alternative to LyX, using VimOutliner, LaTeX, and
a few other things. There's a long, rich tradition in free software that
if you don't like their support or their progress adding features, you
fork their project. But you know what never occurred to me? Going with
Page Plus, Microsoft Publisher, or InDesign. Here are just a few
reasons these alternatives never occurred to me:

* http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

* http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/200104.htm#_editors_desk

* http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-continues-to-fail-716222/

*http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240185097/Microsofts-Windows-81-update-fails-to-deliver

There's something that doesn't make sense to me: Why does someone go on
the mailing list of an Open Source project and diss Open Source? I diss
Windows all the time, but I don't do it on ##windows. I diss Apple all
the time, but I don't do it in Apple User Groups. I diss OpenOffice all
the time, but not on an OpenOffice mailing list.

Another puzzler: someone has a problem with a single LaTeX package,
generalizes it to all Open Source (except LyX), and then somehow turns
that into why people give up on open source software, as if there's
some kind of mass exodus from Open Source. How does THAT work? My
observation is that Open Source is gaining mindshare and usage pretty
much continuously.

I leave you with one more article I often think of when reading threads
like this:

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/23/news/mn-37472

SteveT

Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Ernesto Posse

You do seem to have very strong opinions about open-source, and demand very
high standards. Would you care to tell us how many open-source projects
have you created or at least been an active developer in?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
 trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.

 I do have some free software installed, some open source, some not. But
 I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not so much from the
 open source software in the way of bug fixes.


 On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

 You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
 developed by *volunteers*, do you?


 On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
 mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

 I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some
 technical
 manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't
 make me
 deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

 LyX really came through for me.

 Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
 KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent.
 Looks good!

 Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks
 good,
 under development for seven years.

 Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's
 name
 without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal
 with this.

 Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The
 moderncv
 class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
 explained in
 the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
 documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

 Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes
 this:
 'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the
 examples
 directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi,
 ps or pdf.'

 The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
 exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained.
 Seven years
 of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

 I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how
 open source
 works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
 documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document
 NOW, not
 work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

 Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have
 the time
 to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to
 make the
 time to explain how to use it.

 (Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
 documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
 generally.)

 -- Rich


 To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as
 in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in
 general.

 I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states
 his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


 When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got
 into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

 I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving
 back to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?

 There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some
 quick comments, and leave it at that.

 1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the
 software is buggy, or some features just don't work.

 2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do,
 and I did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even
 assigned to anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for
 awhile, but the assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as
 minor.  Well...  They aren't minor to me!!  If the developers
 don't/won't fix it, then:

  a.  Why would I use the program?
  b.  Why would I recommend the program?

 The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
 commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
 some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by
 not fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a
 business, with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you
 spend a lot of time finding work arounds.

 3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken

Re: why people give up on open source software

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.

Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.

I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post, and
mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply
news://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org where
we think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the
community as a whole.

Regarding my reply to Vincent's, Not professional ? Right, don't use it
then., it's simply an issue with text only based communication, where
there are multiple ways of interpreting what has been written.
Regardless of the native language of the writer.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as Well,
OK, don't use it. Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole, go f**k
off! Or, the feeling behind the words could be something in between.
With such a short reply, and no indicators such as smilies to let me
know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know how Vincent feels with
his reply.

Years ago, I saw flame wars get started over comments this simple.

The difference between commercial software and open source projects is
that the former produces software for the market and gets money for a
living of it (which results in some obligations towards the paying
users), while the latter produce software for themselves (the open
source group, while non-active users can use the software as a benefit).
I devote my (rare) free time to LyX development to get a good product
for myself. Nothing else. Of course I listen to users wishes (and I
think people on this list can acknowledge that all of us do), but I
only take them up if I find them interesting enough to devote my (spare)
free time or if I need the feature myself. I think nobody can expect
more from me.

Agreed, but there is the cross over segment of program developers. This
group develops the software, but then charges for help and assistance.
I may be wrong, but I think Red Hat/Fedora used to do this, and may
still do it. I purchased, yes purchased, a copy of Red Had 9 from a
long gone computer retail company to try it out. Ended up not using Red
Hat for reasons not related to this discussion.

This group is obviously trying to make money from the FOSS software.

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed. Then the bugs just sit there,
never getting fixed. If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs. This is the non
professional attitude I'm talking about. Even worse are the developers
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial product.

It isn't the software that isn't or couldn't be professional, it's the
attitudes of developers who indicate they wish to be professional, but
they are not in this area.

This is how I came into LyX development, as a complete programming
novice: I wanted some things to change, and no one took it up, so I did
myself.

So if you think that we want LyX to be commercially widespread or
successful, you misunderstood us (and the whole open source movement).
Everybody certainly has individual motives, but for many developers
(including me), success does not mean rule the world or kick out
program X from the market (I do not care at all for this kind of
goal), but: attract more developers, make the application as YOU want
it, have fun, learn something.

Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were
not LyX specific.

As an observation only, any FOSS developer group may not want to have
the impression the goal is to be a commercial level project, but there
is no way you can control how others see the software package as word
of mouth comments are passed from one person to another.

So it's possible that the impression of Group A is the desire to be at
this level, but that is not the intent of the members of Group A.

So if you think LyX is not the right tool for you, use something else. I
could not care less, really.

But, you do care, otherwise you would not have replied. G

Returning to Vincent's reply, Not professional ? Right, don't use it
then., not using a particular FOSS program is exactly why I'm going to
try LyX and on this list. It's also why I'm trying Scrivener
(commercial software and paid for. :-) ), which to me/for me is darned
near perfect for organizing your research and then getting something on
paper. As I said, I think at this moment, the odds are 99% in favor I
will not use Scrivener

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Jean-Marc Lasgouttes


24/10/2013 15:59, Ken Springer:

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there,
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the non
professional attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial
product.


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is 
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches, 
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and 
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug 
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10 
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them, 
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For 
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a 
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.


That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in 
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important 
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get 
fixed.


About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that regression is a 
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like OMG LYX IS 
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG is not likely to get much attention.


That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us 
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.


JMarc

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Vincent van Ravesteijn

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.

Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post, and
mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply news://news.gmane.org:119/**CAKh=**
ax83KK2GzK7uRwhnLUo2NBaixxV6JV**DVYvswTeJYF3Frhw@mail.gmail.**comhttp://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.comand
my reply news://
news.gmane.org:119/**l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.orghttp://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.orgwhere
we think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the
community as a whole.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as Well,
OK, don't use it. Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole, go f**k off!
Or, the feeling behind the words could be something in between. With such
a short reply, and no indicators such as smilies to let me know the emotion
behind the comment, I don't know how Vincent feels with his reply.

It was this part that made me a bit angry indeed:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do

We do our best, but it's just not possible to be professional when there is
only a handful contibutors who need to find some spare time to maintain a
project like LyX.

Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were not
LyX specific.

A lof of the general comments also do apply to LyX, so it feels a bit as
being critized, even though you say they are not LyX specific.

Last remark: Welcome to LyX as a new user ;

Vincent

Re: why people give up on open source software

 there are
  problems with the business that need addressing.
3.  You become the user who never offers anything that fixes or 
identifies
 an issue with the product.

As George Bernard Shaw said, Reasonable people adapt themselves to the 
world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All 
progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.



Another puzzler: someone has a problem with a single LaTeX package,
generalizes it to all Open Source (except LyX), and then somehow turns
that into why people give up on open source software, as if there's
some kind of mass exodus from Open Source. How does THAT work? My
observation is that Open Source is gaining mindshare and usage pretty
much continuously.


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.



I leave you with one more article I often think of when reading threads
like this:

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/23/news/mn-37472


I'm not surprised.  The only way to resolve this, IMO, is to get the 
ordinary/average user to leave what they know and are familiar with to 
move to something different.  Where you move has to provide something 
better than where you are coming from.  If it doesn't, it won't happen.


Those that move will be the people who just want to use the programs, 
not write and fix them.  And that's where I have ended up.  I want to 
use the software, not write and fix.  I'm more than happy to file a 
bug/report an issue if:


1.  The reporting system is easy to use.
	2.  I'm made to feel the time and effort I put into the reporting is 
appreciated.

3.  The issue is resolved so I can use the program.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Walter van Holst

On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:
 I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
 management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
 everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
 luck with it.

A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.

Regards,

 Walter

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Richard Talley

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. 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. 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. (Noting that Apple OSes
are based on FOSS and they contribute in important ways to the community;
who would have guessed 25 years ago that Apple would achieve the apparently
impossible - a Unix-style operating system usable by the average person?)

That said, there are two attitudes common in the open source community that
are orthogonal.

The first is that free (in Stallman's senses) and open software is just
better, intrinsically, philosophically and politically. It should take over
the world. The bazaar is better than the cathedral.

But when people complain about how impenetrable, geeky and poorly
documented much of FOSS is, it's often thrown back in their faces (we're
all volunteers, we scratch our own itches, learn about your computer, learn
to code and contribute).

FOSS is wonderful, at times. FOSS is terrible, at times (sometimes the same
time it's wonderful).

Proprietary software is wonderful, at times. It's terrible, at times
(sometimes the same time it's wonderful).

A lot of human technology is old (controlled fire goes back before H.
sapiens!) and we've learned lots of ways to control and cope. Digital
computer technology is less than a century old and we're still in the early
learning phase of controlling and coping with it.

I divide software organizations, not into FOSS vs. proprietary, but into
apathetic or hostile to criticism vs. receptive and listening. This list
provides a lot of patient handholding that is atypical (perhaps that has
something to do with the fact that it's a community of people who write,
for whatever purpose). I appreciate it very much.

-- Rich

Getting Support: was: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:32:55 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online,
 offline, commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For
 software these days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went
 back through all my forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky
 to find 10% of them have had answers to my questions.

I changed the subject line because the old subject line infuriated me...

Getting support is difficult, but luckily there are things you can do
to make solution more likely. Certainly the first step if you're
asking for tech support is to read this and live by it:

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Speaking for myself, when somebody majorly violates the tenants of the
preceding link, I never provide an answer, even if I know the answer by
heart. Life's too short, I'm too busy, and answering questions doesn't
pay the rent, so I have no need to be nice to the vast hoards of
unthinkers.

Next, and this is very pertinent to the LyX list, when submitting an
example of a bug, submit a minimal example. I mean continue to remove
things until anything else you remove makes the symptom disappear. This
accomplishes two things:

1) It probably solves your problem without help. If you can flip a
   symptom on and off by adding or removing one sentence, you're
   probably in a position to understand the mechanism of the problem.
2) It makes it much easier for anyone responding to you to reproduce
   your problem, and to quickly understand what's going on, and either
   tell you the answer or tell you where to look next.

Sometimes, when submitting a Minimum Example for a problem that seems
to be a LaTeX problem (actually my misuse of LaTeX would be more
accurate), I'll go so far as to code it in LaTeX, not LyX, and then
post the question. This rules out LyX, making it easier for the list
inhabitants to 1) Know whether the solution is within their area of
expertise, and 2) Rule out LyX right away. LyX-List inhabitants are
nice enough that they'll answer LaTeX questions, even though
technically LaTeX is not their product.

Having been on the LyX-Users list since 2001, I've seen a lot of help
requests come with giant LyX files. Does the submitter really expect
*me* to carve up his gigantic document in order to make a Minimum
Example? Well, that's not going to happen, because if it's too much
work for the guy who needs a solution, it's certainly too much work for
me.

Next, if you have an error message, put it in a search engine. You
might find a lot of valuable information.

I've found that the guy who answers a lot of questions for others gets
a lot of detailed and devoted help when he needs it. I've found this on
the LyX list the past 12 years. I help newbies with layouts and light
LaTeX and the like, and then the *big brains* on the list help me when I
have a showstopper problem. Pay it forward, and you'll get lots of
support.

Sometimes you post a concise symptom description and minimal example
and do everything right, and you know *someone* on the list has info,
but you're met with deafening silence. It's time for the patented,
can't miss, Steve Litt Answer-Getting Method (SLAGM). What you do is
make some sort of kludge to fix your symptom. For instance, with LyX it
might be to change your View-PDF (ps2pdf) so that it runs some sort of
awk script that copies your LyX file to a dummy, modifies the dummy, and
compiles *that*. You then get on the list and brag about your kludge,
except you don't call it a kludge, you call it a solution, and in a
subdued, low key way you make it obvious that you think you've displayed
cleverness in the solution. In less than 24 hours, all those people who
didn't have the time to answer your question will leapfrog each other
telling you how stupid your solution is, and providing better
solutions. You mix and match those better solutions to make your real
solution for yourself. Or, if nobody responds, or if people respond
hey man, that's a cool solution, then you actually use your kludge on
an ongoing basis. Either way, you have it solved, and you know your
solution is the best available.

And please, please, *PLEASE*, when your problem is finally solved, end
the thread with the solution, and mark the subject SOLVED, so other
people can benefit from what you learned. It costs nothing to do, and
makes the world a better place to live.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Liviu Andronic

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 7:35 PM, Walter van Holst
walter.van.ho...@xs4all.nl wrote:
 On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:
 I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
 management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
 everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
 luck with it.

 A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
 CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.

With some luck (and some work) we will get something similar to
Scrivener in LyX. Rob has worked quite some time on this, and this
year we had a GSoC student polishing the code. And there seems to be
some developer interest. Fingers crossed.

Liviu

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Andrew Parsloe




On 25/10/2013 3:32 a.m., Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches,
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them,
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.

That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get
fixed.

About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that regression is a
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like OMG LYX IS
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG is not likely to get much attention.

That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.

JMarc



I like this, last paragraph especially. Thank you.

Andrew

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Bryan Baldwin


  
  
On 10/25/2013 05:32 AM, Ken Springer
  wrote:
  

snip

We know your argument. Seriously, We've heard it everywhere all the
time...end-less-ly. Everybody wishes that their software was robust
with magic documentation and free specialists that will fix your
problem or tell you what to do on demand. It doesn't always work out
that way, though. Tough.

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.

If there is something that you want to see happen in free software,
and the developers who are working for free (or paid by someone else
to work on it contrary to your interests) aren't doing it, or aren't
doing it fast enough to suit you, and you cannot or will not do it
yourself, you still have recourse. It works similarly to, but not
quite the same as, the proprietary model.

Pay someone to do it for you. Then you'll have someone obligated to
put up with your whinging.

That is not us.

-- 
  
  



0xCCE82347.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys


signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: why people give up on open source software

On 10/24/13 9:03 AM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.

Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software
and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.

I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post,
and mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply

news://news.gmane.org:119/__CAKh=__ax83KK2GzK7uRwhnLUo2NBaixxV6JV__DVYvswTeJYF3Frhw@mail.gmail.__com

http://news.gmane.org:119/CAKh=ax83kk2gzk7urwhnluo2nbaixxv6jvdvyvswtejyf3f...@mail.gmail.com
and my reply news://news.gmane.org:119/__l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org
http://news.gmane.org:119/l49pp7$t0u$1...@ger.gmane.org where we
think we made it clear our comments do not apply to LyX, but the
community as a whole.

Regarding my reply to Vincent's, Not professional ? Right, don't
use it then., it's simply an issue with text only based
communication, where there are multiple ways of interpreting what
has been written. Regardless of the native language of the writer.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as
Well, OK, don't use it. Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole,
go f**k off! Or, the feeling behind the words could be something
in between. With such a short reply, and no indicators such as
smilies to let me know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know
how Vincent feels with his reply.

It was this part that made me a bit angry indeed:

I've learned over the years, if I read something that sets me off,
it's best not to reply right away. The odds are very good I've
misunderstood it. G

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do

We do our best, but it's just not possible to be professional when there
is only a handful contibutors who need to find some spare time to
maintain a project like LyX.

I would contend the opposite. Maybe you would get less done, but doing
less and doing it right the first time is usually a better road to
travel. In the long run, I've had fewer problems with that approach.

Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were
not LyX specific.
A lof of the general comments also do apply to LyX, so it feels a bit
as being critized, even though you say they are not LyX specific.

I can only speak for myself... Since I've to even get further than step
1 of the tutorial, I don't know enough about LyX to be able to say
anything specific. Except I have trouble typing an uppercase X in LyX!
LOL

Last remark: Welcome to LyX as a new user ;

Thanks, Vincent. I'll likely just be a lurker for quite awhile. Most,
if not all, of the subjects currently being discussed are over my head,
I usually don't have a clue what people are talking about. But after I
get Scrivener under some control, I'll catch up.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But I 
did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
program for a platform now long gone.


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
fixing the bug?


On 10/24/13 7:57 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do seem to have very strong opinions about open-source, and demand
very high standards. Would you care to tell us how many open-source
projects have you created or at least been an active developer in?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.

I do have some free software installed, some open source, some
not. But I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not
so much from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

 I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to
produce some
 technical
 manuals quickly that looked good to management and that
didn't
 make me
 deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

 LyX really came through for me.

 Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I
used the
 KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of
intent.
 Looks good!

 Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available.
ModernCV looks
 good,
 under development for seven years.

 Except it won't accept last names much longer than the
author's name
 without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks
to deal
 with this.

 Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example
says, 'The
 moderncv
 class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
 explained in
 the preamble of this document; for more information
look at the
 documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

 Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and
includes
 this:
 'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look
in the
 examples
 directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled
into dvi,
 ps or pdf.'

 The example LyX file points to documentation that
doesn't actually
 exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is
explained.
 Seven years
 of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can
use.

 I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself',
'That's how
 open source
 works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
 documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a
document
 NOW, not
 work on the documentation for the tool to produce the
document.

 Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If
you have
 the time
 to produce something that you expect people to use, you
need to
 make the
 time to explain how to use it.

 (Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is
richly
 documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
 generally.)

 -- Rich


 To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to
LyX, but as
 in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source
community in
 general.

 I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he
clearly states
 his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


 When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have
spent.  I got
 into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

 I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly
moving
 back to

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/24/13 11:35 AM, Walter van Holst wrote:

On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:

I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
luck with it.


A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.


I wish I had known about this program, I would have tried it.  May 
still, as I've downloaded the Mac and Windows versions.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/24/13 5:13 PM, Bryan Baldwin wrote:

On 10/25/2013 05:32 AM, Ken Springer wrote:

snip

We know your argument. Seriously, We've heard it everywhere all the
time...end-less-ly. Everybody wishes that their software was robust with
magic documentation and free specialists that will fix your problem or
tell you what to do on demand. It doesn't always work out that way,
though. Tough.

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.

If there is something that you want to see happen in free software, and
the developers who are working for free (or paid by someone else to work
on it contrary to your interests) aren't doing it, or aren't doing it
fast enough to suit you, and you cannot or will not do it yourself, you
still have recourse. It works similarly to, but not quite the same as,
the proprietary model.

Pay someone to do it for you. Then you'll have someone obligated to put
up with your whinging.

That is not us.


This is all the time I have for this reply.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/24/13 12:55 PM, Richard Talley wrote:




On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 10:32 AM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto: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. 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. 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. (Noting that Apple OSes are based on FOSS and they contribute in
important ways to the community; who would have guessed 25 years ago
that Apple would achieve the apparently impossible - a Unix-style
operating system usable by the average person?)


Your experience with other computer users mirrors mine!  And then, when 
something goes wrong, who do they call?  Me.  When I tell them they need 
to learn more, I get the old I don't have the time speech.  We all 
have 24 hours in a day, it's how we choose to spend them.  You can spend 
the time learning how to avoid the bad things, or ultimately spend more 
time dealing with problems a little at a time.


Having the computer just work is why I bought this Mac.  So tired of 
that little yellow shield in Windows telling me there were updates and 
bug fixes waiting.


And as you noted, LyX got out of your way.  That's the way all software 
should work.  You don't expect to have to work on your car, your TV, 
whatever in order to use it.  But you do have to take the time to learn 
to drive and operate your car, TV, whatever.


We are past the days of the Model T and no power tools.


That said, there are two attitudes common in the open source community
that are orthogonal.

The first is that free (in Stallman's senses) and open software is just
better, intrinsically, philosophically and politically. It should take
over the world. The bazaar is better than the cathedral.

But when people complain about how impenetrable, geeky and poorly
documented much of FOSS is, it's often thrown back in their faces (we're
all volunteers, we scratch our own itches, learn about your computer,
learn to code and contribute).


Exactly.  Those responses aren't exactly customer friendly, are they. 
Which is why my respect for the efforts of some has dropped.  In another 
open source program list, I've had people tell me since the program is 
free, that's good enough.  It's not.  Not in computer programs, car 
repair, or anything.  Have some pride in your work.  I'd rather pay for 
something that works than have to fix something that's free.  And I 
have.  I think I've mentioned that somewhere.



FOSS is wonderful, at times. FOSS is terrible, at times (sometimes the
same time it's wonderful).

Proprietary software is wonderful, at times. It's terrible, at times
(sometimes the same time it's wonderful).


True in both cases.


A lot of human technology is old (controlled fire goes back before H.
sapiens!) and we've learned lots of ways to control and cope. Digital
computer technology is less than a century old and we're still in the
early learning phase of controlling and coping with it.

I divide software organizations, not into FOSS vs. proprietary, but into
apathetic or hostile to criticism

Re: why people give up on open source software


On 10/24/13 8:32 AM, Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:

24/10/2013 15:59, Ken Springer:

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there,
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the non
professional attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial
product.


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches,
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them,
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.

That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get
fixed.

About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that regression is a
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like OMG LYX IS
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG is not likely to get much attention.

That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.


Just a question, does viable equate something that will be successful in 
the long run?



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Bryan Baldwin


  
  
On 10/25/2013 01:29 PM, Ken Springer
  wrote:

On
  10/24/13 5:13 PM, Bryan Baldwin wrote:
  
  On 10/25/2013 05:32 AM, Ken Springer
wrote:


snip


We know your argument. Seriously, We've heard it everywhere all
the

time...end-less-ly. Everybody wishes that their software was
robust with

magic documentation and free specialists that will fix your
problem or

tell you what to do on demand. It doesn't always work out that
way,

though. Tough.


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.


If there is something that you want to see happen in free
software, and

the developers who are working for free (or paid by someone else
to work

on it contrary to your interests) aren't doing it, or aren't
doing it

fast enough to suit you, and you cannot or will not do it
yourself, you

still have recourse. It works similarly to, but not quite the
same as,

the proprietary model.


Pay someone to do it for you. Then you'll have someone obligated
to put

up with your whinging.


That is not us.

  
  
  This is all the time I have for this reply.
  


Which is the same amount of time you have to do anything other than
to tell others what to do, as if they needed your advice.

-- 
  
  



0xCCE82347.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys


signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: Getting Support: was: why people give up on open source software


On 10/24/13 1:27 PM, Steve Litt wrote:

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:32:55 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:


Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online,
offline, commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For
software these days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went
back through all my forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky
to find 10% of them have had answers to my questions.


I changed the subject line because the old subject line infuriated me...


Fortunately, changing the subject line doesn't break the threading for 
me.  G



Getting support is difficult, but luckily there are things you can do
to make solution more likely. Certainly the first step if you're
asking for tech support is to read this and live by it:

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


Skimmed and bookmarked.  Just getting so far behind...


Speaking for myself, when somebody majorly violates the tenants of the
preceding link, I never provide an answer, even if I know the answer by
heart. Life's too short, I'm too busy, and answering questions doesn't
pay the rent, so I have no need to be nice to the vast hoards of
unthinkers.

Next, and this is very pertinent to the LyX list, when submitting an
example of a bug, submit a minimal example. I mean continue to remove
things until anything else you remove makes the symptom disappear. This
accomplishes two things:

1) It probably solves your problem without help. If you can flip a
symptom on and off by adding or removing one sentence, you're
probably in a position to understand the mechanism of the problem.
2) It makes it much easier for anyone responding to you to reproduce
your problem, and to quickly understand what's going on, and either
tell you the answer or tell you where to look next.


I've been in the fixit maintenance fields all my life.  This is just 
basic troubleshooting.  One thing I learned is many, if not most, people 
needing a fix of some kind didn't know enough about the subject to ask 
the right questions, or even describe the problem.  Just had a 
discussion elsewhere and the words image, copy, and backup were used 
interchangeably causing confusion.


I've also learned, sometimes what should be the obvious solution isn't 
the solution.  And something you just don't believe is the cause, turns 
out to be the cause.


I would contend the same problem exists with computer and software 
users.  They don't know enough about what they are using to be able to 
ask intelligent and clear questions.  :-(



Sometimes, when submitting a Minimum Example for a problem that seems
to be a LaTeX problem (actually my misuse of LaTeX would be more
accurate), I'll go so far as to code it in LaTeX, not LyX, and then
post the question. This rules out LyX, making it easier for the list
inhabitants to 1) Know whether the solution is within their area of
expertise, and 2) Rule out LyX right away. LyX-List inhabitants are
nice enough that they'll answer LaTeX questions, even though
technically LaTeX is not their product.


At this point, I couldn't code anything in LaTeX if our lives depended 
on it!LOL


But, that's the thing.  I want to use this tool called LyX, and by 
extension LaTeX, and others.  Not build it.



Having been on the LyX-Users list since 2001, I've seen a lot of help
requests come with giant LyX files. Does the submitter really expect
*me* to carve up his gigantic document in order to make a Minimum
Example? Well, that's not going to happen, because if it's too much
work for the guy who needs a solution, it's certainly too much work for
me.

Next, if you have an error message, put it in a search engine. You
might find a lot of valuable information.


A common suggestion, but not always the right answer when there is 
nothing specific to work from.  One, if the user doesn't know anything 
about what he/she's doing, how are they supposed to be able to do an 
adequate search of the web?  Two, some people like me, often just never 
seem to use the correct terms.  I can look, sometimes seemingly forever, 
for X in a search.  I tell one of my sisters what I'm looking for, and 
even though she knows little to nothing about what I'm looking for, in a 
few minutes she's got the answer(s).  Bugs the devil out of me.



I've found that the guy who answers a lot of questions for others gets
a lot of detailed and devoted help when he needs it. I've found this on
the LyX list the past 12 years. I help newbies with layouts and light
LaTeX and the like, and then the *big brains* on the list help me when I
have a showstopper problem. Pay it forward, and you'll get lots of
support.

Sometimes you post a concise symptom description and minimal example
and do everything right, and you know *someone* on the list has info,
but you're met with deafening silence. It's time for the patented,
can't miss, Steve Litt Answer-Getting Method (SLAGM). What you do is
make some sort of kludge to fix your symptom. For

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Jürgen Spitzmüller

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

 Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.


 Not sure how you feel, so no reply.


He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.

The difference between commercial software and open source projects is that
the former produces software for the market and gets money for a living
of it (which results in some obligations towards the paying users), while
the latter produce software for themselves (the open source group, while
non-active users can use the software as a benefit). I devote my (rare)
free time to LyX development to get a good product for myself. Nothing
else. Of course I listen to users wishes (and I think people on this list
can acknowledge that all of us do), but I only take them up if I find
them interesting enough to devote my (spare) free time or if I need the
feature myself. I think nobody can expect more from me.

This is how I came into LyX development, as a complete programming novice:
I wanted some things to change, and no one took it up, so I did myself.

So if you think that we want LyX to be commercially widespread or
successful, you misunderstood us (and the whole open source movement).
Everybody certainly has individual motives, but for many developers
(including me), success does not mean rule the world or kick out
program X from the market (I do not care at all for this kind of goal),
but: attract more developers, make the application as YOU want it, have
fun, learn something.

So if you think LyX is not the right tool for you, use something else. I
could not care less, really.

Jürgen

Re: why people give up on open source software

On Wed, 23 Oct 2013 18:31:48 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Most of the time, you can't get help from the big guys, really pisses
me off.

* http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

* http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200104/200104.htm#_editors_desk

* http://www.zdnet.com/windows-8-continues-to-fail-716222/

*http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240185097/Microsofts-Windows-81-update-fails-to-deliver

I leave you with one more article I often think of when reading threads
like this:

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/23/news/mn-37472

SteveT

Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Ernesto Posse

You do seem to have very strong opinions about open-source, and demand very
high standards. Would you care to tell us how many open-source projects
have you created or at least been an active developer in?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
 trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.

 I do have some free software installed, some open source, some not. But
 I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not so much from the
 open source software in the way of bug fixes.


 On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

 You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
 developed by *volunteers*, do you?


 On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
 mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

 I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to produce some
 technical
 manuals quickly that looked good to management and that didn't
 make me
 deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

 LyX really came through for me.

 Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I used the
 KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of intent.
 Looks good!

 Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available. ModernCV looks
 good,
 under development for seven years.

 Except it won't accept last names much longer than the author's
 name
 without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks to deal
 with this.

 Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example says, 'The
 moderncv
 class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
 explained in
 the preamble of this document; for more information look at the
 documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

 Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and includes
 this:
 'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look in the
 examples
 directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled into dvi,
 ps or pdf.'

 The example LyX file points to documentation that doesn't actually
 exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is explained.
 Seven years
 of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can use.

 I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself', 'That's how
 open source
 works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
 documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a document
 NOW, not
 work on the documentation for the tool to produce the document.

 Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If you have
 the time
 to produce something that you expect people to use, you need to
 make the
 time to explain how to use it.

 (Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is richly
 documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
 generally.)

 -- Rich


 To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to LyX, but as
 in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source community in
 general.

 I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he clearly states
 his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


 When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have spent.  I got
 into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

 I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly moving
 back to commercial software.  A fair question is, why?

 There's no universal answer to the question.  I'll just do some
 quick comments, and leave it at that.

 1.  Web pages make claims as to the abilities to do a job.  But the
 software is buggy, or some features just don't work.

 2.  Some pages ask you to become involved, and file bugs.  You do,
 and I did.  But, after a year and a half, the bugs are not even
 assigned to anyone, much less fixed.  One bug was assigned for
 awhile, but the assignment has been removed.  Both are classed as
 minor.  Well...  They aren't minor to me!!  If the developers
 don't/won't fix it, then:

  a.  Why would I use the program?
  b.  Why would I recommend the program?

 The program I filed the bugs with is one that wishes to take on a
 commercial program in the marketplace.  And they add new features,
 some of which are inevitable buggy.  But the attitude exhibited by
 not fixing existing bugs is very unprofessional.  If you are a
 business, with competition, you want tools that work, not tools you
 spend a lot of time finding work arounds.

 3.  When the new version comes out, and the developers have broken

Re: why people give up on open source software

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.

Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

Years ago, I saw flame wars get started over comments this simple.

This group is obviously trying to make money from the FOSS software.

It isn't the software that isn't or couldn't be professional, it's the
attitudes of developers who indicate they wish to be professional, but
they are not in this area.

This is how I came into LyX development, as a complete programming
novice: I wanted some things to change, and no one took it up, so I did
myself.

Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were
not LyX specific.

So it's possible that the impression of Group A is the desire to be at
this level, but that is not the intent of the members of Group A.

So if you think LyX is not the right tool for you, use something else. I
could not care less, really.

But, you do care, otherwise you would not have replied. G

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Jean-Marc Lasgouttes


24/10/2013 15:59, Ken Springer:

There is also the segment of the open source area where they actively
ask you to file bugs that can be fixed.  Then the bugs just sit there,
never getting fixed.  If you aren't going to actively fix the bugs, then
don't ask for help in identifying those bugs.  This is the non
professional attitude I'm talking about.  Even worse are the developers
who say this and also say they want to compete against a commercial
product.


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is 
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches, 
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and 
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug 
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10 
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them, 
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For 
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a 
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.


That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in 
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important 
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get 
fixed.


About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that regression is a 
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like OMG LYX IS 
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG is not likely to get much attention.


That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us 
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.


JMarc

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Vincent van Ravesteijn

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.

Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as Well,
OK, don't use it. Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole, go f**k off!
Or, the feeling behind the words could be something in between. With such
a short reply, and no indicators such as smilies to let me know the emotion
behind the comment, I don't know how Vincent feels with his reply.

It was this part that made me a bit angry indeed:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do

We do our best, but it's just not possible to be professional when there is
only a handful contibutors who need to find some spare time to maintain a
project like LyX.

Just to be clear, Rich and I have indicated our general comments were not
LyX specific.

A lof of the general comments also do apply to LyX, so it feels a bit as
being critized, even though you say they are not LyX specific.

Last remark: Welcome to LyX as a new user ;

Vincent

Re: why people give up on open source software

 there are
  problems with the business that need addressing.
3.  You become the user who never offers anything that fixes or 
identifies
 an issue with the product.

As George Bernard Shaw said, Reasonable people adapt themselves to the 
world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All 
progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.



Another puzzler: someone has a problem with a single LaTeX package,
generalizes it to all Open Source (except LyX), and then somehow turns
that into why people give up on open source software, as if there's
some kind of mass exodus from Open Source. How does THAT work? My
observation is that Open Source is gaining mindshare and usage pretty
much continuously.


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.



I leave you with one more article I often think of when reading threads
like this:

http://articles.latimes.com/2001/aug/23/news/mn-37472


I'm not surprised.  The only way to resolve this, IMO, is to get the 
ordinary/average user to leave what they know and are familiar with to 
move to something different.  Where you move has to provide something 
better than where you are coming from.  If it doesn't, it won't happen.


Those that move will be the people who just want to use the programs, 
not write and fix them.  And that's where I have ended up.  I want to 
use the software, not write and fix.  I'm more than happy to file a 
bug/report an issue if:


1.  The reporting system is easy to use.
	2.  I'm made to feel the time and effort I put into the reporting is 
appreciated.

3.  The issue is resolved so I can use the program.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Walter van Holst

On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:
 I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
 management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
 everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
 luck with it.

A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.

Regards,

 Walter

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Richard Talley

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. 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. 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. (Noting that Apple OSes
are based on FOSS and they contribute in important ways to the community;
who would have guessed 25 years ago that Apple would achieve the apparently
impossible - a Unix-style operating system usable by the average person?)

That said, there are two attitudes common in the open source community that
are orthogonal.

The first is that free (in Stallman's senses) and open software is just
better, intrinsically, philosophically and politically. It should take over
the world. The bazaar is better than the cathedral.

But when people complain about how impenetrable, geeky and poorly
documented much of FOSS is, it's often thrown back in their faces (we're
all volunteers, we scratch our own itches, learn about your computer, learn
to code and contribute).

FOSS is wonderful, at times. FOSS is terrible, at times (sometimes the same
time it's wonderful).

Proprietary software is wonderful, at times. It's terrible, at times
(sometimes the same time it's wonderful).

A lot of human technology is old (controlled fire goes back before H.
sapiens!) and we've learned lots of ways to control and cope. Digital
computer technology is less than a century old and we're still in the early
learning phase of controlling and coping with it.

I divide software organizations, not into FOSS vs. proprietary, but into
apathetic or hostile to criticism vs. receptive and listening. This list
provides a lot of patient handholding that is atypical (perhaps that has
something to do with the fact that it's a community of people who write,
for whatever purpose). I appreciate it very much.

-- Rich

Getting Support: was: why people give up on open source software

On Thu, 24 Oct 2013 10:32:55 -0600
Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 Product support, customer service, in general, sucks.  Online,
 offline, commercial, open source, just about everywhere.  For
 software these days, you are supposed to join a forum.  If I went
 back through all my forum posts asking for help, I think I'd be lucky
 to find 10% of them have had answers to my questions.

I changed the subject line because the old subject line infuriated me...

Getting support is difficult, but luckily there are things you can do
to make solution more likely. Certainly the first step if you're
asking for tech support is to read this and live by it:

http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Speaking for myself, when somebody majorly violates the tenants of the
preceding link, I never provide an answer, even if I know the answer by
heart. Life's too short, I'm too busy, and answering questions doesn't
pay the rent, so I have no need to be nice to the vast hoards of
unthinkers.

Next, and this is very pertinent to the LyX list, when submitting an
example of a bug, submit a minimal example. I mean continue to remove
things until anything else you remove makes the symptom disappear. This
accomplishes two things:

1) It probably solves your problem without help. If you can flip a
   symptom on and off by adding or removing one sentence, you're
   probably in a position to understand the mechanism of the problem.
2) It makes it much easier for anyone responding to you to reproduce
   your problem, and to quickly understand what's going on, and either
   tell you the answer or tell you where to look next.

Sometimes, when submitting a Minimum Example for a problem that seems
to be a LaTeX problem (actually my misuse of LaTeX would be more
accurate), I'll go so far as to code it in LaTeX, not LyX, and then
post the question. This rules out LyX, making it easier for the list
inhabitants to 1) Know whether the solution is within their area of
expertise, and 2) Rule out LyX right away. LyX-List inhabitants are
nice enough that they'll answer LaTeX questions, even though
technically LaTeX is not their product.

Having been on the LyX-Users list since 2001, I've seen a lot of help
requests come with giant LyX files. Does the submitter really expect
*me* to carve up his gigantic document in order to make a Minimum
Example? Well, that's not going to happen, because if it's too much
work for the guy who needs a solution, it's certainly too much work for
me.

Next, if you have an error message, put it in a search engine. You
might find a lot of valuable information.

I've found that the guy who answers a lot of questions for others gets
a lot of detailed and devoted help when he needs it. I've found this on
the LyX list the past 12 years. I help newbies with layouts and light
LaTeX and the like, and then the *big brains* on the list help me when I
have a showstopper problem. Pay it forward, and you'll get lots of
support.

Sometimes you post a concise symptom description and minimal example
and do everything right, and you know *someone* on the list has info,
but you're met with deafening silence. It's time for the patented,
can't miss, Steve Litt Answer-Getting Method (SLAGM). What you do is
make some sort of kludge to fix your symptom. For instance, with LyX it
might be to change your View-PDF (ps2pdf) so that it runs some sort of
awk script that copies your LyX file to a dummy, modifies the dummy, and
compiles *that*. You then get on the list and brag about your kludge,
except you don't call it a kludge, you call it a solution, and in a
subdued, low key way you make it obvious that you think you've displayed
cleverness in the solution. In less than 24 hours, all those people who
didn't have the time to answer your question will leapfrog each other
telling you how stupid your solution is, and providing better
solutions. You mix and match those better solutions to make your real
solution for yourself. Or, if nobody responds, or if people respond
hey man, that's a cool solution, then you actually use your kludge on
an ongoing basis. Either way, you have it solved, and you know your
solution is the best available.

And please, please, *PLEASE*, when your problem is finally solved, end
the thread with the solution, and mark the subject SOLVED, so other
people can benefit from what you learned. It costs nothing to do, and
makes the world a better place to live.

Thanks,

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Liviu Andronic

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 7:35 PM, Walter van Holst
walter.van.ho...@xs4all.nl wrote:
 On 24/10/2013 07:32, Richard Talley wrote:
 I've read good things about Scrivener. It's more a 'book project
 management' program than a word processor. I know some people use it for
 everything until it's time to print, then they export to LaTeX. Good
 luck with it.

 A somewhat close analog to Scrivener is CeltX. I prefer Scrivener over
 CeltX, but if FOSS is a principle, I'd recommend looking into CeltX.

With some luck (and some work) we will get something similar to
Scrivener in LyX. Rob has worked quite some time on this, and this
year we had a GSoC student polishing the code. And there seems to be
some developer interest. Fingers crossed.

Liviu

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Andrew Parsloe




On 25/10/2013 3:32 a.m., Jean-Marc Lasgouttes wrote:


I cannot speak for other free (as in freedom) software, but the deal is
simple: programmers do what they can and scratch their own itches,
either because they need a feature or they want to implement it, and
users do what they want and scratch their own itches by sending bug
reports. Their is nothing more in the implied contract. We do have 10
years old bugs in LyX; it is not only because we do not care about them,
but many of them require work that is difficult to get right. For
example, we will have one of these 10-year-old bugs fixed due to a
Google Summer of Code project, and I can say I am very happy about that.

That said, I have to admit that there are bugs I have no interest in
fixing. The magic of open source is that, if the bug is important
enough, it should annoy one of the developers and it will eventually get
fixed.

About the way bugs are labeled, I can tell you that regression is a
very important term for us. We do not let such bugs linger too long.
In the opposite, a bug accompanied by a comment like OMG LYX IS
WORTHLESS DUE TO THIS BUG is not likely to get much attention.

That's how it works. We don't owe you anything, you don't owe us
anything either, but by some mystery the ecosystem is viable.

JMarc



I like this, last paragraph especially. Thank you.

Andrew

Re: why people give up on open source software

2013-10-24 Thread Bryan Baldwin


  
  
On 10/25/2013 05:32 AM, Ken Springer
  wrote:
  

snip

We know your argument. Seriously, We've heard it everywhere all the
time...end-less-ly. Everybody wishes that their software was robust
with magic documentation and free specialists that will fix your
problem or tell you what to do on demand. It doesn't always work out
that way, though. Tough.

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.

If there is something that you want to see happen in free software,
and the developers who are working for free (or paid by someone else
to work on it contrary to your interests) aren't doing it, or aren't
doing it fast enough to suit you, and you cannot or will not do it
yourself, you still have recourse. It works similarly to, but not
quite the same as, the proprietary model.

Pay someone to do it for you. Then you'll have someone obligated to
put up with your whinging.

That is not us.

-- 
  
  



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Re: why people give up on open source software

On 10/24/13 9:03 AM, Vincent van Ravesteijn wrote:

On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:59 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

Hi, Jürgen,

Interspersed reply...

On 10/24/13 1:01 AM, Jürgen Spitzmüller wrote:

2013/10/24 Ken Springe

Not professional ? Right, don't use it then.

Not sure how you feel, so no reply.

He's serious, and so am I: if you want professional software
and think
LyX is not professional (or if it does not fit your needs for other
reasons), don't use it. Sine ira et studio. That's a perfectly sane
decision.

I'm afraid both you and Vincent misunderstood Rich's original post,
and mine, and possibly missed Rich's reply

news://news.gmane.org:119/__CAKh=__ax83KK2GzK7uRwhnLUo2NBaixxV6JV__DVYvswTeJYF3Frhw@mail.gmail.__com

Regarding my reply to Vincent's, Not professional ? Right, don't
use it then., it's simply an issue with text only based
communication, where there are multiple ways of interpreting what
has been written. Regardless of the native language of the writer.

I could have read his reply as being light hearted, friendly, as
Well, OK, don't use it. Or I could have read it as OK, A$$hole,
go f**k off! Or, the feeling behind the words could be something
in between. With such a short reply, and no indicators such as
smilies to let me know the emotion behind the comment, I don't know
how Vincent feels with his reply.

It was this part that made me a bit angry indeed:

I've learned over the years, if I read something that sets me off,
it's best not to reply right away. The odds are very good I've
misunderstood it. G

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do

We do our best, but it's just not possible to be professional when there
is only a handful contibutors who need to find some spare time to
maintain a project like LyX.

Last remark: Welcome to LyX as a new user ;

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 17.0.8
LibreOffice 4.1.1.2

Re: why people give up on open source software

I'm not a programmer, learned many years ago that is not for me.  But I 
did contribute, for free, to writing the help files of a commercial 
program for a platform now long gone.


But, as I wrote in news://news.gmane.org:119/l4bi37$vh$1...@ger.gmane.org, 
if I help by reporting bugs I find in a program, assuming that reporting 
is requested by developers, shouldn't there be some thanks shown by 
fixing the bug?


On 10/24/13 7:57 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do seem to have very strong opinions about open-source, and demand
very high standards. Would you care to tell us how many open-source
projects have you created or at least been an active developer in?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:41 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

I do, but that's no excuse for being nonprofessional in what you are
trying to do.  Adding features while ignoring bugs is nonprofessional.

I do have some free software installed, some open source, some
not. But I get updates and bug fixes from the free software, not
so much from the open source software in the way of bug fixes.


On 10/23/13 10:50 AM, Ernesto Posse wrote:

You do understand that a lot of open-source software, including
LyX, is
developed by *volunteers*, do you?


On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:33 PM, Ken Springer snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com
mailto:snowsh...@q.com mailto:snowsh...@q.com wrote:

 On 10/22/13 10:19 PM, Richard Talley wrote:

 I originally picked up on LyX because I needed to
produce some
 technical
 manuals quickly that looked good to management and that
didn't
 make me
 deal with the WYSIWYG nightmares of Word and its ilk.

 LyX really came through for me.

 Now I'm helping a friend apply to graduate school. I
used the
 KOMA-script v. 2 letter class to typeset his letter of
intent.
 Looks good!

 Now on to the résumé. Let's see what's available.
ModernCV looks
 good,
 under development for seven years.

 Except it won't accept last names much longer than the
author's name
 without hyphenation. Searching produces lot's of hacks
to deal
 with this.

 Run the example that comes with LyX. Note in example
says, 'The
 moderncv
 class offers lots of customization possibilities; some are
 explained in
 the preamble of this document; for more information
look at the
 documentation of the LaTeX-package moderncv.'

 Yeah, right. The README for moderncv is very short and
includes
 this:
 'Until a decent manual is written, you can always look
in the
 examples
 directory for some examples. Documents can be compiled
into dvi,
 ps or pdf.'

 The example LyX file points to documentation that
doesn't actually
 exist. There is no 'more information'. Nothing is
explained.
 Seven years
 of development and there's nothing that Aunt Tillie can
use.

 I know what I'm going to hear, 'Do it yourself',
'That's how
 open source
 works'. I agree. Perhaps I'll find the time to work on the
 documentation. In the meantime, I need to produce a
document
 NOW, not
 work on the documentation for the tool to produce the
document.

 Lesson: Please don't point to ghost documentation. If
you have
 the time
 to produce something that you expect people to use, you
need to
 make the
 time to explain how to use it.

 (Disclaimer: this doesn't apply to LyX itself, which is
richly
 documented. Just to accessories to LyX and to open source
 generally.)

 -- Rich


 To all, what I'm about to write doesn't specifically to
LyX, but as
 in Rich's disclaimer, it applies to the open source
community in
 general.

 I totally understand Rich's frustrations, although he
clearly states
 his comments about the ModernCV site do not apply to LyX.


 When I bought this Mac, it was more than I should have
spent.  I got
 into the open source programs, and encouraged others to do so.

 I no longer encourage others to use it.  Myself, I'm slowly
moving
 back to

Re: why people give up on open source software