Open-Source Software and "The Luxury of Ignorance"

Bootsy Collins writes "Using the recent experience of trying to configure CUPS on his home network, Eric Raymond has written an interesting new screed on poor design of user interfaces in general, and configuration interfaces in particular, in open source software, entitled The Luxury of Ignorance. A sample quote: 'This kind of fecklessness is endemic in open-source land. And it's what's keeping Microsoft in business -- because by Goddess, they may write crappy insecure overpriced shoddy software, but on this one issue their half-assed semi-competent best is an order of magnitude better than we usually manage.'"

In related news

[prostoalex (308614)]

JWZ was trying to get video to play on his box [jwz.org]. More than a year old, but still a good guide to interface design.

Re:In related news

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

A similar diatribe to ESR's could be written on trying to burn a backup DVD under RH9. Gave up; I just FTP my backup over to my Lose2003 box, where the driver worky-worky.

Here's all he actually says

[JoshuaDFranklin (147726)]

Here's all he actually says (it's at the end):

So, if you are out there writing GUI apps for Linux or BSD or whatever, here are some questions you need to be asking yourself:

1. What does my software look like to a non-technical user who has never seen it before?
2. Is there any screen in my GUI that is a dead end, without giving guidance further into the system?
3. The requirement that end-users read documentation is a sign of UI design failure. Is my UI design a failure?
4. For technical tasks that do require documentation, do they fail to mention critical defaults?
5. And, most importantly of all...do I allow my users the precious luxury of ignorance?

Re:Here's all he actually says

[DRue (152413)]

We'll never get to this point if every time two people disagree they split the project. Project forks are good to an extent - but I think that we lose a lot more than we gain because of it. At least MS has a meeting and decides how to continue - we, the OSS community, just get pissed off and branch.

Re:Here's all he actually says

[tc (93768)]

Or just split the difference, keep everyone happy, and decide to do both proposals. Hence leading to configuration boxes from hell adorned with approximately seven thousand checkboxes.

Re:Here's all he actually says

[ratsnapple tea (686697)]

Programmers should definitely code with these questions in mind, but I think it's even more important to recruit people who are skilled in UI design so they can knock some sense into the coders every once in a while. Coders can't, and shouldn't, be expected to always focus on usability--for most engineers it's not their area of expertise. Likewise, UI people shouldn't be expected to have to code just to get a feature implemented the Right Way.

There's plenty of graphic designers and UI experts in the employ of Apple and Microsoft who probably couldn't code their way out of an infinite loop. I don't know that the same can be said of most open source projects.

yours

Re:Here's all he actually says

[wibs (696528)]

Every year on slashdot people say it'll be Linux's big year. Yes, that means next year people will say it too. It's partly because of this thinking like yours, that you need to be l33t to even touch the machine, that linux's big year hasn't happened yet. You follow "What is a non-technical user doing with Linux anyway?" with "I like to think of Linux as a sort of technical boot camp." So which is it? Is Linux the end-all of nerdom, or is it just an educational experience on the way to... what?

The point is that a better UI isn't something that should be frowned on. Christ, I feel stupid for even having to say that.

Re:Here's all he actually says

[uncleFester (29998)]

1 What is a non-technical user doing with Linux anyway? They need to crawl before they can walk.

well, if you LATFA, you see as the second sentence...

It has proved a textbook lesson in why nontechnical people run screaming from Unix.

IOW, if you want to even think of competing with the windows world at the desktop level, you actually have to reduce to the brain-dead level of explanation, support or general UI practice.

Even technical non-unix people struggle (a manager at work, skilled with Novell (stop laughing) is struggling a bit to learn linux.. and deadrat at that). if semi-competent people have some semi-major with what we, the unix-versed, understand (but may still be tasked by on occasion) how can we ever seriously expect Linux to prove its superiority at the joe-schmoe level?

-'fester (aix/tru64/hpux/linux geek.. that's in paying order, mind you :)

Re:Here's all he actually says

[MinutiaeMan (681498)]

"What is a non-technical user doing with Linux anyway? They need to crawl before they can walk."

I hope you're not one of those same people who's predicting that 2004 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop... Face it, most computer users (myself included, sometimes) have no interest in learning the nuts and bolts of the system and every application that comes with it. Until Linux embraces those kinds of people, it's always going to remain a niche OS and never be widely accepted in turn.

Re:Here's all he actually says

[SYFer (617415)]

This post (and its parent), albeit humorous enough, go straight to the underlying problem with Linux at present: a wilfull disdain for the non-savvy user. "Joe Sixpack" should be embraced rather than disdained (figuratively, of course).

This is the underlying problem with the interface issue discussed in this thread and it is why M$ continues to prevail in spite of a generally inferior core product.

When *X finally evolves from an exclusive clique into a user-focused OS for the people (not merely the nerds) it will truly prevail. Currently, IMO, its the percieved pricing ("free" as in beer) and general non-Microsoftness of Linux that drives it at all. The user experience and level of effort required to achieve proficiency is generally thought to be a big negative at ground level.

Not neccessarily true

[KingOfBLASH (620432)]

That's not necessarily true. Mandrake [mandrakelinux.com] set up CUPS and just about everything else I've needed with no problems at all. It's all about what you're doing. For some programs under some distros you need to be a programmer to install and / or set them up. Under other distros, and with other programs, it can be a breeze. (Just look at how well Knoppix does!)

Re:Not neccessarily true

[s4m7 (519684)]

The fact that he mentions using Fedora core kind of discredits his whole argument against the "open source community" and the "CUPS Team" when what he is really denouncing is his linux vendor. It's been kind of an understanding for a long time that it was for the OSS community to build, and for the Commercial distro vendors to "clean up" for Joe and Jane End-User. It's a shame that he never makes that clear, and I'm sure if I were on the CUPS team I would be a little offended at the way ESR is explaining away his^H^H^H aunt tillie's failure to read the dox, search the list, and otherwise be completely "luxuriously" ignorant. Go buy windows. OSS isn't really a fair proposition if you don't have something to contribute.... or at least meet the developer half-way.

Re:Not neccessarily true

[by Anonymous Coward]

It was easy for you because you know what the heck you're doing already. I've got over a dozen years of UNIX printing experience, and every single bozo trap that Eric mentioned is a real flaw in the CUPS design, including the Mandrake installation. I got past them because I'm a flipping expert, but for newbies they're a nightmare.

In fact, for Mandrake, did the CUPS installation mention that you have to set up xinetd by hand to run the cups-lpd daemon to even *run* the admin interface, or did Mandrake add it to the RPMS by hand themselves? It's most certainly a stage never mentioned in the source tarball nor is it included in the RPM spec file that comes with the tarball.

I built and tested it last week to try new printer drivers, and no, it's not there. And the addition of new printer drivers is pretty damned secret, too....

-1 Troll

[nmoog (701216)]

What a rant! Im going to send mod points to Eric Raymond's house by mail.

Igorance and the double edged sword

[lavalyn (649886)]

Ignorance and the user won't step out of their bounds beyond their Internet Explorer and Outlook. Unfortunately, others like Gator and BetterInternet will do it on their behalf.

In the end, a computer is more like a car than an oven, capable of great power but requiring a good deal of knowledge to use (and not run over people in the process).

Re:Igorance and the double edged sword

[el-spectre (668104)]

True, and a computer takes some skill to use. It's not fair to expect the average user to be an expert just to do some simple configuration.

Hell, I'm a half decent tech geek, and I struggle to do many config tasks even on user-friendly distros like Fedora.

Should it require significant skill to update the kernel (and know what you're doing?) ? Sure. But to install simple hardware? Hell no.

Its really interesting .....

[GNUALMAFUERTE (697061)]

How Important developers of the GNU and Open Source Movement are living the obscure land of kernel hacking and going to write some userland code. Many times, in Free Software, the underlying system, the lower level development is made by the most competent developers, and so is robust, stable, actually the best out there, but the front ends, well, they just don't have the same quality, so, for the unexperienced user, it looks like crap. I think it's time that we change this, and start showing that GNU can also be reliable on the Desktop, not only showing how fast it is, but also good end-user interfaces. It's not that i don't like KDE, GNOME, XFCE, etc,etc, they are ok, but i think that if we put the best people to work on it, they will be even better.
Linus has been talking about this recently, are we going to start seeing things like Linusorganizer, Linword??, hehe, that would be nice.

Fecklessness?!?

[crapnutassneck (243159)]

I honestly have not ever heard someone use that term outside of The Clash. I shall use it tomorrow a minimum of twice.

Thats fedora, not CUPS

[bluGill (862)]

The problem is in Fedora, not Cups. Cups works just fine, and more or less like he wants it to, if that is all you ever use. Fedora, using whatever configuration system it uses placed some unuseable stuff there.

Granted Cups could use a lot of help, but he wasn't using a Cups configurator, he was using some other configurator that can work with not only Cups, but also SMB, LPR, and a bunch of other stuff. I don't know the solution, but bashing the Cups guys won't get you any closer to it.

the user is the bridesmaid, the admin gets laid

[rdewald (229443)]

First of all, as a self-taught Linux user I am delighted that someone as talented as ESR can have a hair-pulling session doing something like setting up CUPS. I have had many an evening like this. Excruciatingly close to getting something done, something that should be simple, and instead spending hours feeling stupid and incompetent. He's right, and he's right about the fact that this is why there are countless unused Linux install discs littering desk drawers under Windows machines, tried and abandoned by people who hate Micorosft, hate Windows, who would LOVE to support an alternative, but can't make it work.

The user is the loser. There's a clubby, exclusive, snotty attitude among user's groups. The online resources are hopelessly disorganized or relentlessly dinged with ads. The vision that Stallman has of software as knowledge, rather than product, is lost among the throng of sociopaths that spout RTFM at users that ask the same questions over and over.

Well, you know why people have the same questions over and over? Because the software is obscure and the documentation is unhelpful. GNU is based on people solving their own problems and then giving other people an opportunity to use thier solutions. Documentation, at best, is an afterthought. Once you have solved a problem, there's no need to go back and explain it to yourself, any documentation that does exist arises purely from the virture of developers, not because they need it themselves.

The fact that the most useful thing you can have with this enormously powerful gem of human progress (the computer) when trying to use Linux is a printed-out HOW-TO, probably downloaded and printed from a Windows box, is more than ironic, it is shameful. The tools for providing context-sensitive help are there, they just are unused. The developers don't care about the user, they've solved thier problem by this time.

If OSS developers needed robust documentation in order to distribute their product, they would either develop it or not distribute their code. But they don't. There's no reward for the developer.

This brings me around again to the notion of licensing software developers and then making them accountable for the usability of the product. Not as an avenue for exclusion, but to build a community of developers devoted to the user, a Mr. Goodwrench sort of certification standards, that tests it's releases against naive and novice users. How you make this work I have no idea.

Red Hat should be doing this already, but they've clearly left the home user at the altar.

He's right

[blincoln (592401)]

I always try and get an open source-coding friend of mine to understand this, and it never seems to sink in.

Interface design is an incredibly important part of any software project - it's like the clothes you wear to a job interview. Sure, you *might* get the job if you wear your regular jeans and t-shirt, but if you take the time to dress up, you will create a much more favourable impression on the potential employer you are meeting.

Similarly, taking the time to make your user interface polished and intuitive is one of the best ways to end up with happy end users who tell other people how great your software is. It lets them know that you care enough about the software you create to spend a few extra hours making it look nice instead of shoving it out the door as fast as possible.

but he's right

[by Anonymous Coward]

You're all missing the point. Trying to configure CUPS does suck if you're on your own trying to figure it out. Anything with Linux is this way. I'm not a college-aged dork sitting in a dorm not getting laid with 20 other dorks playing EQ. I'm trying to figure out how to use this powerful tool, and if I have to spend 3 days studying dusty man pages to set up a frickin' printer - forget it. Takes me 10 minutes to write a script to install a queued novell printer when I click on a NAL - and then leverage that against 10,000 machines that I don't have to touch. Will Linux do this one day? I hope so.

Re:but he's right

[NormalVisual (565491)]

... if you're on your own...

(+1, Spelling/Grammar)

Yep

[The Bungi (221687)]

And then when you (humbly) send an email or post a suggestion about how to (possibly) make [insert technology] a bit more friendly, the responses tend to go like this:

• [no response. evar]
• This is different from Windoze - I know that! I don't want "Windoze" (how cute, BTW) I want to tell you that your fucking design sucks rocks!
• If you want stupid, use Windoze instead - Again, very cute. Also arrogant and stupid.
• This is how it's done in Linux - Well shiieet, of course it is. That doesn't mean it's correct.
• Did you RTFM|Google? - Well of course, for the last fucking 4 hours, just.
• The next version will have... - That's great except that if I Google for what you said about this version I see the same thing. Wow, Usenet is great, eh?
• We're not going to add that, that's stupid - Of course!
• Use [x] instead - Yeah, except that [x] has been in alpha for the past nine years.
• Check out [this page] - Fantastic. If that's not a 404 I guess I'll have to learn Japanese! Weee!
• You're welcome to ask for a refund - Wahahaha!!!

It takes a rant from ESR (who despite his pretensions doesn't know much about human interaction) to get people to do things right? Wow.

I always get a chuckle when people compare Linux to OS X or Windows in usability terms. KDE looks absolutely fantastic after I log in, but the fun stops there. If I actually want to do anything else I have to fire up vi and edit 1,000 conf files. Give me a break.

And yes, ESR is right. This is one of the things that keep Windows users in Windows and perpetuate what you folks call "monoculture". Whining about it and blaming everything on "M$" won't fix anything. Great software ultimately sucks if I can't use it.

Insightful article, but...

[salimma (115327)]

The article was insightful, and it contains some things I still did not know after wrestling with integrating CUPS, Turboprint (crappy Canon printer) and Samba, but to be fair to the CUPS developer, they did not write redhat-config-printer; Red Hat did.

CUPS and Turboprint works well, as it turns out, the problem is that printing from OOo (Linux), printing from OOo (Win) using CUPS' postscript driver, and printing from OOo (Win) to a Windows printer results in different page margins being used. Bummer. At least the fonts look identical if the same fonts are used on both ends.

And for those people with new Winprinters wondering why raw printing from Samba does not work anymore, you need to add the Windows user as a printer admin. Not documented *anywhere*.

Good Article but...

[pavera (320634)]

All in all a pretty decent article.
I agree with many of his points, if there is one thing I dislike in the *nix culture it is the elitism, and holier than thou attitude that many people in said culture have towards users. This is just one more sign of that elitism, we spend hours and hours making very good stable, well designed software, and then we demand that you read a 1500 page book to be able to use it... That's stupid, now you can say "if they don't want to learn they shouldn't be using this software" but that's dumb too... my dad is an attorney, he wants to work on cases, and do legal research and the like, thats what he's interested in, he doesn't want to spend an hour a day figuring out how to share printers/files and send emails, and he doesn't want to have to pay someone $150/hr every time he needs to add a printer to his network. My wife is a psychologist, she wants to care for her patients, and work on her book, she doesn't want to be bothered with figuring out how to configure her computer, and she shouldn't have to be... That said, the author shouldn't have been bashing the CUPS guys, the configurator in question is an inhouse product by redhat/fedora, no other distribution uses it, and the default setting of having the broadcast turned off was also a decision by redhat/fedora not the CUPS programmers (well it might have been made by the CUPS devs, but redhat/fedora had every opportunity to change that default behavior). I appreciate the article though because he is right on in critisizing the community for their lack of vision in this regard. (btw, I admin a 7000 node network, and the entire thing is controlled by linux and unix servers, there are windows nodes, but I would never run windows on the server side, and I rarely use it on the desktop either so don't count me as some MS apologist)

OSS Fanboys Can't Take Criticism

[Commykilla (107585)]

It's really easy to jump on the Anti-Microsoft bandwagon when it's time, and say "Linux is ready for the desktop, it's high-quality and easy to use, why doesn't it overtake that crap from Redmond". But, when push comes to shove and sombody points out the things that scare off non-technical users from using Linux, OSS "advocates" really seem to have a hard time accepting constructive criticism.
Look -- if it's just a hobby OS, fine, this criticism is totally baseless and cruel. But, if you all want to see your labor of love have a real shot at the desktop market, you're going to have to take criticism like that and work with it -- if it seems angry, it's because end-users get frustrated when they're promised an easy-to-use system, and they have to spend more time wrestling with configuration than actually doing what they need the OS to do.
Either take the criticism as advice and use it to add value to your software so it can be accessible to a larger audience, or accept that your OSS project is just a hobby.

MS network printer setup worse

[rduke15 (721841)]

Well, in fact, setting up a network printer in Windows is certainly not better.

You have the choice between "Local printer" and "Network printer". If you do have a network printer like an HP with a JetDirect card, the correct choice is NOT "Network printer". It is "Local printer", and later you have to add a "Standard TCP/IP port". ("Network printer" is only to add a printer shared over SMB by another computer)

So while he has a good point on a bad interface, and while it is true that for some things Windows may have a better interface, it certainly doesn't for networked printers.

So true

[bunhed (208100)]

I remember trying to get fetchmail to work. What a nightmare.

OSS developers often miss the point

[djkitsch (576853)]

It's fine to say RTFM to a spotty student who spends his entire free time in front of his Linux box, but ESR is making a valid point that no-one seems to pick up on:

Most of us don't have the time

I work from 9am to 3am every day, including weekends. I would love to run Linux, purely because Microsoft's pricing and attitudes bother me, but the last time I tried to set up Red Hat, it took me 4 days to get the system to even recognise my video card.

We're not just talking about Aunt Tillie, we're talking about Joe B. Power User, who may have the skills to work it out eventually but simply does not have the time.

Wheras, I plug my Windows XP machine (and yes, I know this is only a recent thing) into the network and Universal Plug and Play makes network printers accessible without my having to so much as touch the PC. Now that's what we want from a Linux distro, and it's not even hard to implement. Why should I have to wade through a dozen .conf files to get Linux working, only to attract abuse from the same people who encouraged me to use it in the first place?

Re:Luxury of Punditry

[hpa (7948)]

It is punditry, but it's also something that has been said quite a few times before, including by Miguel de Icaza of GNOME fame.

Really. There is a ton of OSS software with really shitty user interfaces, but anything involving fonts or printing seems to be crappy beyond belief.

Re:Luxury of Punditry

[Wavicle (181176)]

show me the code, or shut up

Have you looked for the code?

Your post tells of smacks of an attitude all too typical in open source... You believe only code gurus should criticize software. Eric may or may not be a code guru, but that argument is flat wrong. Bad interface is why Linux is taking so long to make inroads on the desktop. It's a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed and maybe *JUST MAYBE* people who write code are not the best user interface designers. Maybe users are simply not as deterministic as software.

Re:Why aren't macs more popular?

[cicho (45472)]

I don't know a general answer to your qauestion, but here's an anecdote. The first time I used a computer was in 1990, in a computer lab at a university in the US where I studied for some time. I needed to type up an essay, and I had never before so much as touched a computer keyboard.

I entered the lab. To my right, a bank of smaller, friendly-looking Mac Classics (but I didn't know what they were). Menus, icons, mice. To my left, a bank of foreboding but somehow more powerful looking IBM ATs. Green screens with text-mode commands, one of which would launch WordPerfect 5.0. I had to make a choice, and a completely uninformed choice, mind. In really had no idea what was what there.

I picked an IBM. Someone instructed me to press F3 for help and F7 to exit. I took it from there, and loved it. By the time I left, I must have known much of WordPerfect's help system by heart. I did try the Macs once or twice while there, but I went back to the IBMs every time. I wish I knew why, but I don't. Maybe theys looked more serious, more powerful. Maybe they adhered better to my uninformed mental image of what a computer was supposed to be like. Today I can list all sorts of reasons why I prefer one to the other, but it's mere rationalizing after the choice was made. I guess Macs looked too much like toys to me, while those text-mode DOS screens looked inscrutable, and hence they looked fascinating.

Re:Why aren't macs more popular?

[jocknerd (29758)]

I don't think its marketing as much as its lack of marketing by Apple. Sure, they are flooding the airwaves with iPod and iTunes commercials, but they have never run a commercial showing what OS X is capable of. Or iLife. Most people I talk to have no idea when it comes to Apple. They are amazed at how well the software is integrated together and that Microsoft Office can run on a Mac and that they can surf the internet as well. I get so tired of doing Apple's job for them. I really should send them an invoice for all of my PR work.

Re:Your ignorance answers the question

[Bull999999 (652264)]

For most people out there, price is the ONLY factor. Why do you think that stores like Wal-Mart does so well?

Re:Bah

[Bilestoad (60385)]

Congratulations on perfectly illustrating the attitude that keeps anyone from solving the problem. Congratulations to the moderator who gave you +1 Funny for doing exactly the same.

Anyone who can't use an interface you understand isn't as smart as you and therefore is not worthy of consideration. Is that it? You can see where this leads when a developer hears criticism of the UI - they designed it, so of course they understand it. Stupid users! Of course it's their fault.

And then they go and blame the same users for choosing windows...

Re:Bah

[KingOfBLASH (620432)]

Everything depends on what system you are configuring CUPS on. I'd agree with you for Mandrake Linux, but configuring CUPS under Slackware is anything but easy. I think one of the major problems is that people come out with great tools (i.e. CUPS), but they require a certain amount of effort / sophistication to use / configure, so distros like Mandrake, Suse, and Red Hat write their own configuration tools. Only problem is that because each distro is set up slightly differently, configuration tools aren't portable across distros. Perhaps what we need is a collaborative effort by the major distros to create 1 size fits all config tools.

Re:Open Letter to ESR

[DRue (152413)]

The entire nation considers your written and spoken rants both condescending and highly obnoxious.

Are you kidding me? This is precisely the thing that we need to concentrate on. If we can't be critical of ourselves - MS sure can.

Re:Open Letter to ESR

[TheWanderingHermit (513872)]

That rant, to me, sounds like another programmer who can't cope with the idea that most people do not think like programmers when it comes to understanding software, and would rather blame the user than have the strength to take an honset look at the situation and what he/she could do differently to improve it.

I know writing GUIs is a pain (I'm not a professional programmer, but I've had to do nothing but coding for 2 years), but programmers have to stop blaming the users and other people who point out things like this. It's just a denial that 95% of all people using a computer need something simple because, to them, IT IS JUST A TOOL, and they need to use it to produce a product, not to hack on and explore.

ESR has a good point -- if FOSS is going to replace closed source, or hold its own, or even continue to grow, FOSS programmers will have to get realistic in understanding how users think instead of blaming users because the programmers don't want to make the effort to understand the other side of the issue.

For the good of the FOSS community, ESR needs to speak out more, and people like the above poster need to "please shut up" and listen to other points of view, instead of hiding their head in the sand in denial.

Re:Open Letter to ESR

[fitten (521191)]

Yes... exactly his point. IF you want Linux to succeed on the desktop, you will have to one day realize that the *vast* majority of users will have little to no technical experience or expertise. Not only will they have criticisms but they will not, and have absolutely no desire to, fix such issues. Instead, they will abandon it and go find something else easier to use.

It's attitudes exactly as yours that will relegate Linux to a niche. You are not helping Linux and OSS, you are hurting it.

Re:My experience

[Brigadoon (520066)]

The problem is that not everyone can get it working. I'm a CS major and a Linux geek. Definitely not an advanced Linux user, but I know how to setup and use Gentoo, which I do, but I simply could not get CUPS to work on my system. I'm sure if I spent a good deal more time reading the documentation and playing with it, it would be easier in the future, but I, like most computer users, won't NEED to set it up more than once. I should have an easy time getting it setup and working so that I don't have to dick around with it ever again.

Re:who's we?

[jonman_d (465049)]

Uhm, I guess you've never heard of ESR before. When he talks about the open source community as, "We," he really means "we." [catb.org] He is actually doing the work.

ESR is part of the community. He's not some teenager whining that the software doesn't work - he's a respected figure pointing out a problem in hopes that it will be recognized and fixed.

Typical

[KalvinB (205500)]

With closed source the responsibility lies solely with the company to solve the problems.

With open souce, problems are just an excuse to try to force people who find problems to "join the cause" or you can just ignore any problems they find.

Here's a crazy idea members of the Open Source community such as yourself need to get through your thick skull: take responsibility for the crap you write. If you write the code, it's YOUR responsibility to fix the problems. No one else is obligated to fix a line of code and is more than free to point out the flaws.

He didn't write CUPS so why should he feel obligated to fix it? He's a USER. He didn't write the code. He didn't design the interface. As a USER he's in a position to criticize. It's what users do.

Whinning he doesn't treat you like a king and kiss your feet for blessing him with what he sees as crap, is not going to do anything to win support for the project.

This is why I choose what Open Source projects I use very carefully and rarely recommend them and never because they are Open Source.

Ben

indeed

[rebelcool (247749)]

And a sure way to guarantee malfunctioning, piss poor quality code is to come in the middle of the project with little knowledge of the surrounding project.

This is especially true if its a non-trivial piece of software. Several times new programmers have come into software packages I've been working on, don't bother to read the structural documentation or even the useful other code that serves as examples for how to improve and extend upon the existing structure.

Instead they try and do things their own way, often end up doing things redundantly or breaking something else and just otherwise fouling more than they contribute.

The best person to improve upon software is the person who designed in the first place! Or someone who's worked on it extensively enough to know the quirks, the reasoning behind non-obvious parts and knows the rest of package throughout.

Telling a user to fix a poor piece of software is incredibly frustrating and lame to those of us who, god forbid, have other things to do in our lives.

Re:Eric, we love you but...

[ErikTheRed (162431)]

You missed the point of the article. He's speaking about Open Source projects in general, and he has a very good point. I only started using Linux and other open-source software about three years ago, and I've gone through the exact same process with at least a dozen different packages. Most of this could and should be fixed on the documentation level - if someone like myself with 20+ years of computer (coding x86 and TMS9900 assembly at age 10) experience gets frustrated, there is a serious problem.

It's all well and good to put out an excellent piece of software like CUPS, but it's also important to communicate its workings (and CUPS is just an example; we could go down a list if we wanted to). Even though I have extensive coding experience, I think the best way I could contribute to Open Source is on the documentation side... if I can just figure out what I'm doing first :). Even then, the other Eric and myself can't fix everything.

Beyond that, open source developers need to develop the mindset (pun semi-intended) that their user knows either little-to-nothing for desktop applications, or basic server administration for daemons. Each piece of documentation should begin with something like "In order to comprehend this documentation, we suggest you be knowledgeable about: (shell scripting, OpenSSL CA management, installing CPAN modules, etc)." Pointing to some good references would be a bonus. Listing knowledge dependencies is every bit as important as listing library/package dependencies.

Once that's out of the way, you have to communicate everything necessary to configure and run the software. Writing documentation from a naive (in terms of program functionality) perspective is difficult and tedious, but it is doable. You just have to ask yourself "If I didn't write this, would I know what the hell I'm talking about?" after eveyr paragraph.

And that's just to be "reasonably" useable. If we really want to "take over the desktop," then we need perfectly polished wizards and other GUI tools to help those users that are are not inclined to RTFM, spend a few hours with Google, or (shudder) RTFS. The bottom line: it's wonderful to put out a really cool and useful piece of software, but the job isn't done until it's documented (daemons) and / or idiot-proof (end-user software).

I hate this answer

[Ars-Fartsica (166957)]

Come on, are you telling me when something ticks you off about a piece of code you download the tarball or cvs the code and learn the whole thing and dedicate yourself to its betterment??? I hope nothing about the kernel or Mozilla or Mysql tick you off or you are looking at six months of hard study.

no no no no no!

[mekkab (133181)]

The way to get help with your linux problems is to troll and say "Linux is teh suxx0rz because XYZ doesn't work!"

Then 4,000 penguin-fanboys will come out of the wood work, each with a distinct solution to your problem!
Now had you asked for help, they would have said "Read the man page! n00b!"

As for me, I can't really help you. I run AIX. And some other window'd operating system that allows to to remotely access my AIX boxes.

Re:no no no no no!

[lavalyn (649886)]

As for me, I can't really help you. I run AIX.

I would say you're beyond assistance there.

Re:In other news....

[liloconf (560960)]

they would have just left a note but they couldn't configure the software right....

Re:Yeah, a real surprise

[mytec (686565)]

And who are the (l)users? The persons who use a computer as a tool to get their job done? The persons who don't think of their OS as a religion? The persons who given in and try Open Source software only to find that a good deal of software isn't as usable as it could be? When they ask or comment they are thrown to the wolves.

OMG..imagine a guy who has done a good deal of visible work for the Open Source cause, points out a weakness or simply an area that needs some improvement, and the most visible and shocking comments on /. are the ones knocking the guy. Very little in the way of, "yeah things could be better...How do we fix this? How do we help?"