Free software scares normal people

Post by uticus » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:35 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #101

ageitgey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that everyone wants a different 20% of the functionality. I'm not disagreeing with your basic take, but I think this part is a little more subtle. I'd argue that 80% of users (by raw user count) do want roughly the same 20% of functionality, most of the time. The problem in FOSS is that average user in the FOSS ecosystem is not remotely close to the profile of that 80%. The average FOSS user is part…

There's a good report/study about the complexity of Microsoft Word floating around somewhere. It was something like: - almost everybody only uses about 20% of the features of Word - everybody's 20% is different, but - ~80% of the 20% is common to most users. - on the other hand, the remaining 20% of the 20% is widely distributed and covers basically all of the product. So if you made a version of Word with 16% of its…

Post by WD-42 » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:36 PM UTC

renewiltord wrote: post #126

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graphic designers and artists get ripped off, all the time ; frequently, by nerds, who tend to do so, in a manner that insults the value of the artist's work. It's difficult to get those kinds of creatives to donate their time (trust me on this, I'm always trying). I'm an ex-artist, and I'm a nerd. I can definitively say that creating good designs, is at least as difficult as creating good software, but seldom makes…

Most fields just don’t have the same culture of collaborative everyone-wins that software does. Artists don’t produce CC art in anywhere close to the same influence as engineers produce software. This is probably due to some kind of compounding effect available in software that isn’t available in graphics. Software people love writing software to a degree where they’ll just give it away. You just won’t find artists d…

Post by BinaryIgor » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:45 PM UTC

dayvid wrote: post #14

squeedles wrote: post #10

Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one. Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I j…

The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/20 use case for normal/majority or users or would risk hurting their workflow to make it easier for others

Post by meanfield » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:51 PM UTC

Post by smallstepforman » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:53 PM UTC

nickdothutton wrote: post #144

Some TV remotes or air conditioner remotes now have a "boomer flap" which when engaged, hides 90% of all the buttons. The scanner software I use has something similar, novice mode and expert mode.