Developerfests vs Installfests

[Christopher Browne]

On 6/29/06, Jason Spiro <jasonspiro4-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 6/29/06, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > One of the reasons why many of us came to Linux is that it was created
> > by programmers for programmers, rather than being designed by morons
> > for morons.  I see no reason to apologize for that; it wasn't a
> > mistake.
>
> Are you saying Linux should be made harder to use so non-experts won't
> get the benefits of Linux and will be forced to use Windows or MacOS
> instead?? :-)

I think there's a place for ignoring non-experts, at certain times...
<http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/03/msg02288.html>

Quoting selectively:

Executive Summary
=================

	1. Stupid Users are Bad.
	2. Stupid Users are Bad for Debian.
		therefore:
	3. Stupid Users should be ignored.

"Many people still complain that Debian is difficult, if not impossible, to
install and I poo on them. If they can't persevere the mountain, they
should not enjoy the fruits of the valley beyond it. "

"It is my hope that Debian maintainers read this and realize that a
larger base of users isn't necessarily a good thing. I believe that Debian
has found a niche with the advanced Linux user who doesn't have the time
to maintain trivial packages but doesn't want to lose the robustness of
CLIs but always have the option of customizing what they wish. A base of
users who would rather not download and recompile 'awk' but still have the
option to download apache source, recompile it, and integrate it as the
binary package would have. And finally, an excellent base of
self-supporting users who appreciate Debian for the advantages it gives
them and the way it keeps those annoying newbies out."

Debian came into existence, grew, and continues to grow due to its
"niche" of the "advanced Linux user who doesn't have the time to
maintain trivial packages."

If you get 5000 users, each of whom maintain two or three packages,
that makes for a POWERFUL system, which is what Debian is.

The considerable automation of package management means that people
aren't forced to do a lot of maintenance work to keep up to date; they
maybe have to resolve issues with the few packages that they
themselves are responsible for.

It has, of late, been getting more and more difficult to get major new
releases of Debian released; this hasn't been hurting my systems that
pluck from the code as I wish.

This doesn't represent an argument that someone else couldn't put
together some friendly front end to make a Debian-based distribution
that *can* be usable by "clueless users."  That is, after all, what
Ubuntu and Knoppix have done, in slightly different ways, and I
daresay I found it convenient last week when I installed Ubuntu on a
new laptop; I didn't have to bother with making many decisions.  It is
simply an argument against letting the ignorant make decisions about
Debian.

> The security holes of Windows (which allowed Blaster, Code Red, and
> lots of spyware) affect the companies we deal with and work at, and
> affect our friends and relatives too. Indirectly, they affect us all.

Sure.

But demanding that everything be made user-friendly without regard to
the consequences leads to the risk of plenty of the same things
happening all over again.

Microsoft shoved systems out on the basis that the marketing people
made wild promises about what was only vaguely available.  Do the same
thing to Linux, and the same sorts of problems can recur.
-- 
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linux.html
Oddly enough, this is completely standard behaviour for shells. This
is a roundabout way of saying `don't use combined chains of `&&'s and
`||'s unless you think Gödel's theorem is for sissies'.
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