On Oct 24, 2005, at 12:26, Randomthots wrote:
Howard Coles Jr. wrote:
So, is this it? When your arguments for RPM are proven substandard
you cower behind programmers' thousands of hours? If that's your
mentality you are no better than MS!
I translate your attitude, "you should just take what we give you and
be happy you have it."
In the first place, I don't work for Sun and I'm not involved in the
project in any substantial way. I am a "simple end user" who is
incapable of programming my way out of a paper bag.
No, I contend that it was those same programmers who created
the original installer in the first place and spoiled us with their
excellence. The fact is that there was NO excuse for going RPM and
hundreds if not thousands of OOo customers want an installer. People
running non-RPM based distributions do not want to be treated like
second class citizens, especially debian, or its derivitives, users
considering they may well be one fourth the population of Linux
users. The question now on the table is this: Are OOo folks going
to listen to their customers or, are they going to shove what they
want down the customers throat?
How exactly is offering a completely free download "shov[ing] what
they want down the customer's throat?" If you don't like it, don't use
it.
And, pray tell, how exactly are you a "customer" in the first place?
You paid how much for OOo? That's right! NOTHING!!!!
Let me tell you a story:
Last spring I decided -- in conjunction with a Linux class I was
taking -- to dive in head first and use Linux exclusively. This was
basically a test of the "ready for the desktop" rhetoric I was
continually hearing. One of the Windows programs for which I needed to
find a FLOSS equivalent was Microsoft Money, which I've been using
every day for about 13 years.
The best I could find was Gnucash, which IMNSHO blows as a
Quicken/MSMoney replacement. But I used it for that semester and at
the end I inquired on their mailing list as to how I could transfer my
files back to Money. I also gave a list of reasons why I didn't like
the program and what usability changes I felt needed to be made if the
program were to gain wide acceptance, particularly among Windows
refugees.
I was promptly called a whiny child and basically told to go pound
sand. I got some very nasty comments direct from the developers (God,
what a bunch of prima donnas). Keep in mind I was talking about
day-to-day usability, not an installation procedure that you had to
deal with once every few months or so.
I learned my lesson. This is open-source; basically you take what you
can get and you either like it or you fix it yourself. In any case
there's no point in whining about it.
--
Rod
Over the last few years I have seen quite a change in linux for the
desktop. The awareness of user interface issues among programmers is
increasing. Many still don't get it, they write for themselves and if
it is good
enough for them that is it. The most popular projects seem to have some
idea of enduser needs and how
to write an interface that doesn't create barriers to use.
One thing that I have found is that quite often, it is not what you
say, but how you say it. Many times there may be over reaction, that
cannot be helped, but trying to avoid it doesn't hurt and may get them
to listen to you and evaluate what you have to say.
As to the rpm's only, rpm is the dominant packaging scheme at this
time, particularly among the 'corporate' versions of linux such as Red
Hat and Novell/SuSe. Trying to package for multiple packaging schemes
would require a lot of work just to keep things coordinated and synced.
There are mechanisms to deal with foreign packages in most packaging
systems so it is not unreasonable
to distribute rpm's and let the users of other packaging schemes deal
with it or wait for someone more cluefull
to do it and make the converted packages available.
If those who think that dealing with the foreign package issue is
tough, try using a Mac and OS X. We still don't have a released version
of 2.0, just a hard to find beta and that in only a few languages!
I use OOo on Macs with OSX 10.39 and 10.4.x, x86's using both AMD
(Kubuntu) and Intel processors (PaPix), and AMD-64 running Knottix in
the 64 bit mode and an iBook (G3) running Kubuntu.
Ross Bernheim
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