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Free software scares normal people

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Re: Free software scares normal people

#441

Post by sfRattan »

Andrex wrote: post #321
sfRattan wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GNOME 3+ developers put themselves in the inevitable (and unenviable) position of defending every decision to death because they limited the user's ability to make many, many decisions that were possible in previous versions . There's nothing wrong with an opinionated desktop environment or even an opinionated Linux distribution. But, prior to GNOME 3, the project was highly configurable. Now it is not. When people s…

Ideally you'd want to add selectable options for users in a way that's sustainable long-term and not just panic-adding things all over the place because of user demands. That's how you get the Handbrake situation that OP article is complaining about. Gnome 3 was a big update and adding options, which does happen, is not free. There were changes from Gnome 2 and 3 and adding some options "back" from Gnome 2 is really…

> That the Gnome team has different priorities from other DEs, one of them being "keep the design consistent and sustainable," is completely valid and preferred by many users like myself.

A new design metaphor can be "completely valid" and simultaneously an aggravating rug pull if it is pitched as a new numbered version of an existing program---especially an existing desktop environment that many people use daily---rather than as a new program.

> Gnome 3 was a big update and adding options, which does happen, is not free. There were changes from Gnome 2 and 3 and adding some options "back" from Gnome 2 is really asking for that feature to be rewritten from scratch (not all the time, but a lot of the time).

If the "next version" of a software project is really a near-total rewrite, such that many-to-most features from the previous version must be rewritten from scratch, then you should start a new project and pick a new name if you do not want your current users comparing the new version to the previous version. Whether or not those users appreciate the cost of feature rewrites to the developers' satisfaction, they already have working software with a long list of features and a version number one lower.

KDE had a similar problem moving from 3.5 to 4 (also a major rewrite), but the initial wave of complaints had more to do with instability and heavy resource use because they didn't abandon the desktop metaphor entirely. They also explicitly had a roadmap of building back in many of 3.5's features as time went on, which made it a less radical transition.

It's all ancient history at this point, at least on software timescales. But the Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 transition is up there with Python 2.7 to Python 3 as an example of how not to manage or implement a major change to a widely used piece of software.

The funniest thing to me is I used to think of Gnome 3 as a effort toward Apple-esque design which wasn't as well put together as MacOS... But now, even though Gnome today is still not up to the consistency of 2011 MacOS, it is more consistent than 2025 MacOS because Apple has been driving drunk on desktop software design for a decade and a half.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#442

Post by imtringued »

lamontcg wrote: post #103
zer00eyz wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UI != icons. UI and UX are for all intents lost arts. No one is sitting on the other side of a 2 way mirror any more and watching people use their app... This is how we get UI's that work but suck to use. This is how we allow dark patterns to flourish. You can and will happily do things your users/customers hate if it makes a dent in the bottom of the eye and you dont have to face their criticisms directly.

> UI and UX are for all intents lost arts. No one is sitting on the other side of a 2 way mirror any more and watching people use their app... Which is also why UI/UX on open source projects are generally going to suck. There's certainly no money to pay for that kind of experiment. And if you include telemetry, people lose their goddamn minds, assuming the open source author isn't morally against it to begin with. Th…

You actually skipped over the most important part:

> You can and will happily do things your users/customers hate if ... you dont have to face their criticisms directly.

A lot of software developers can't take criticism well when it comes to their pet projects. The entire FreeCAD community, for instance, is based entirely around the idea that FreeCAD is fine and the people criticising it are wrong and have an axe to grind, when that is exactly backwards.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#443

Post by rglullis »

If there is one thing I believe that will come out of the whole AI bubble, is this: we will interact with applications though natural language and the "graphical UI" will be mostly about visual feedback of what operation is happening. The challenge for open source projects will be to define whether they will assume that their application will rely on some external LLM that will (hopefully) be good enough or if they will have to distill/train a specific model that can be smart enough to interact with the application tools.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#444

Post by a96 »

test6554 wrote: post #383

It’s a bit like obscuring the less-used functions on a TV remote with tape. It’s like creating a new tv controller with fewer options.

Putting fewer buttons on a controller just means that all the necessary features are in a menu or require several clicks which mean that you have to know what state the receiver is in and if it's lagging. Which is all much worse than if there was a button per feature.

(The usual problem with remotes happens to be that they tend to have buttons that nobody has ever used or wanted and which don't even do anything. And there's still menus and state. And the one button that has to be pushed for every feature is the one that dies first.)

Re: Free software scares normal people

#445

Post by imtringued »

LegionMammal978 wrote: post #195
nerdponx wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't fall into the trap of responding to the user's request to do Y a certain way. They are asking you to implement Y, and they think they know how it should be implemented, but really they would be happy with Y no matter how you did it. https://xyproblem.info/

On the other hand, I've not uncommonly seen this idea misused: Alice asks for Y, Bob says that it's an XY problem and that Alice really wants to solve a more general problem X with solution Z, Alice says that Z doesn't work for her due to some detail of her problem, Bob browbeats Alice over "If you think Z won't work, then you're wrong, end of story", and everyone argues back and forth over Z instead of coming up wit…

I've seen this too. Explicitly talking about something being an XY problem is a red flag, because the goal is usually to dismiss you with a canned answer that doesn't help you.

The point of XY problems isn't to call people out on supposedly bad behaviour, it's to push them in the right direction and provide more context.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#446

Post by e40 »

gspencley wrote: post #98

A lot of this type of stuff boils down to what you're used to. My wife is not particularly tech savvy. She is a Linux user, however. When we started a new business, we needed certain applications that only run on Windows and since she would be at the brick and mortar location full time, I figured we could multi-purpose a new laptop for her and have her switch to Windows. She hated it and begged for us to get a dedica…

I too was a Windows power user. Never thought I could use macOS. It was painful to start, but ultimately it was far better than what I had on Windows. You just have to put in the work. I did this conversion after I was 50.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#447

Post by a96 »

victor22 wrote: post #253

I'd be scared too if I see a check box for iPod support, I mean, when was this software less updated, the 80's?

I know that's just an asshole comment, but for facts ipod came out in 2001 and was still sold three years ago. I'd rather never see it mentioned anywhere, but it's a perfectly valid target for a transcoder to offer.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#449

Post by skydhash »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #401
marcus_holmes wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met the occasional person like this, sure. But only ever in really large organisations where they can hide, and only a minority. The huge majority of devs want to understand the business and develop high quality software for it. In one business I worked for, the devs knew more about the actual working of the business than most of the non-IT staff. One of the devs I worked with was routinely pulled into high-le…

The mistake is in trying to understand the business case. There is nothing to understand! The business case is the aggregate of what people actually do. There is no proper procedure that's actually followed at the ground level. Workflows are emergent and in constant flux. In this environment, the role of a dev should not be to build internal products, but to deliver internal hacks and ad-hoc solutios, maintain them,…

It would be nice if the computers could be that nice to work. It’s a completely dumb machine that needs everything spelled out. Humans are very flexible. To get flexibility out of a computer require great effort.

The main reason you want a computer is cheap emulation (cad, daw,…) or fast (and reliable) automation. Both requires great deal of specifications to get right.

Re: Free software scares normal people

#450

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

palata wrote: post #428
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…

Just for the record: as a developer, I have done a ton of free software contributions. I pretty much didn't get anything from it, except people complaining or asking me to do even more for them, for free . I don't know if that qualifies as "getting ripped off", but it's not exactly paying me either.

I can relate, but artists get treated even worse. It seems to be a thing with creatives. Musicians also get ripped off a lot, as do writers.

Developers seem to have a product that people can actually attach a value to, but art and music; not so much. They seem to be in different Venn circles.

In all of it, we do stuff because of the love of the craft. One of the deeper satisfactions, for me, is when folks appreciate my work (payment is almost irrelevant; except for "keeping score"). It's pretty infuriating, to have someone treat my work as if it is a cheap commodity. There's a famous Star Trek scene, where Scotty and his crew are being disciplined for a bar fight with some Klingons[0], and Scotty throws the first punch. I can relate.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rsZfcz3h1s

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