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FOSS Is Not Free if It's Not Free From Complexity
Posted by
Hemos
on Tue May 02, 2006 08:28 AM
from the pomp-and-circumstance dept.
from the pomp-and-circumstance dept.
A reader writes:"This article argues that freedom from complexity is an essential part of the first FOSS freedom - the freedom to run a program. Freedom to run means nothing if the exercise of such right excludes people who do not possess high technical knowledge or advanced skills sets. Without the guarantee of "ease of use", the freedom to run FOSS for most users is a hollow promise. " (My own bias ensues here): I think that there are some valuable points in here; what good is a good if it cannot be used, but OTOH this argument seems simplistic.
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Simplistic? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Simplistic? (Score:3, Interesting)
What the fuck is a FOSS?
... seriously, though, part of the complexity comes from using your own terms and vocabulary that the average software user wouldn't understand.
Free. (Score:4, Informative)
That's true, you have to know your audience and simple terms are always better. "Free software" is a better term than FOSS, despite the ambiguity. Everyone likes "free," even if they don't understand what that means for software. Everyone knows what "distribution" is, though they might not have the foggiest idea where free software comes from. Though it's a mouthfull, everyone knows what "image manipulation" and "text editing" are all about. This is an advantage free software has over commercial software, where brand recognition is so important the user is forced to remember company names and three letter file extensions in order to start and use programs. Most free software advocates do take advantage of this fact.
It's not really an issue here. The author is addressing the technical community, which knows what free and open software is. He wants people to continue to port software to Windoze. I dissagree with his opinion [slashdot.org], but that's another matter. I doubt Linux newbies are going to find their way to this essay.
Re:Simplistic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Simplistic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Computers, on the other hand, allow the user to run multiple applications, enter text, perform searches, communicate with a global network, burn writable media, etc. A web browser alone has about twenty times more options than a car. They are not simple machines, and the people who have been selling them as such have been lying through their teeth.
You can either have a simple interface, or a full feature set. You can't have both. Google's Search, for example, is so simple because you can take one operation. That's all. I give them some words, it gives me back what it thinks I mean. Anything more complex (searching within a certain site, searching page titles) uses cryptic search keys that most users are unaware of. Even more advanced operations like searching by change date, are not provided at all. Desktop software provides many, many more options, and it has to because the software provides that much functionality. But it also requires people to learn for a change. I'm all for simplifying interfaces as much as possible, but there's a certain amount of complexity inherent in a task.
Freedom isn't free (Score:5, Insightful)
My Linux boxes are free in the sense that I can hire anyone I want to help me with them, or I can get a book from O'Reilly Media, and do it myself.
Freedom doesn't mean that no effort/expense is required. It only means that the effort won't be artificially impeded.
Re:Freedom isn't free (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact... (Score:4, Insightful)
Freedom comes with responsibility. A free people can only remain so if they watch their government. If one is to be free to walk the streets, one must be able to protect oneself. When one is free to learn, one must take care to educate oneself.
Therefore, freedom comes with the exercise of effort (vigilance, skill, exercise, study) and cannot be exercised without it.
If one does not watch, the power of government will increase. If one cannot defend oneself, he will be afraid to go out at night or rely on the police to protect him. If one is not educated, anyone can tell him anything, and he will believe it.
Convenience is not a "freedom".
Re:Simplistic? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that the human organism has two modes of learning. Babies tend to learn by blind repetition and obedience; older children and adults tend to think more in terms of abstract concepts and underlying reasons. This makes sense from a survival point of view: it's more important for a toddler not to fall off a cliff / get eaten by a bear / drown &c., than to understand why not.
It seems that some adults are simply frightened of computers, and this is triggering a change in their behaviour around computers. The Eternal N00b is reduced to the status of a three-year-old playing near a pit of deadly vipers. The computer's error messages are interpreted akin to the strident warnings barked out by a nearby adult. The E.N. learns nothing about the way computers work, only that certain courses of action are proscribed. A real child probably would eventually come to understand what is so dangerous about the snakes, or leave them alone altogether. In fear born of ignorance, the Eternal N00b never understands computers or software, only learns by rote what not to do; and so will remain evermore a n00b.
Author seems confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Usability is not specifically an F/OSS problem - it is a software problem. There's a lot of crap software out there, that the vast majority of people never see (because it costs money). However, many people do see free / oss as it's (generally) availalbe free of charge.
I do take the authors point that for a user to effectively maintain their freedom, free software must be usable.
Re:Author seems confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
Complexity, difficulty of use, difficulty of modification, and difficulty of extension are promoted (thought not consciously) by the GPL and other licensing methods because people have determined that support, training, continued access to modifictions, and fee based extensions are how you make money off them.
Re:Author seems confused. (Score:5, Informative)
And imho even underdocumented stuff is easier to live with than commercial software designed to perpetuate one vendor's marketshare. (shuddering recalling the good old commercial/invasive shareware installation and usage days).
I do not see how creating difficult to use software can make you competitive in the long run. Competition just "gets inspired" by your project, copies some code, adds documentation and eats you alive.
Re:Author seems confused. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Author seems confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
He's Not Confused (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't agree with his argument but it's not because he's confused
Re:Office is key (Score:3, Interesting)
While I can agree with email and browsing, I always wonder if Office apps are ever used that much in the home. I can see it being a factor in somebody's decisio
You seem confused. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Author seems confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
This has resulted in a system which has solid technical underpinnings, and yet has become more and more usable over time.
Today's Linux systems, for example, are far easier to install and use than they were just a few years ago, and that curve continues to improve for the end-user.
Re:Author seems confused. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Complexity of use is definitely complexity here. Like good programmers, a lot of the people working on FOSS are trying to build in flexibility. This means a boatload of options, most of which are cryptic techno-speak for interoperability. Instead of tucking all of the options out of the way of people who won't understand them, much FOSS even requires that you deal with these settings before the software will even work. The author is using complexity from a user perspective, which is a more specific gripe than just complaining about usability, which is broader.
2) I agree that it is a problem with software in general, but FOSS is particularly bad in this regard. Paid software companies that want to have a popular product will hire people who might not be coding experts, but understand usability for their target audience to come in and help create the result. They also end up hiring people who can translate between these folks and the devs so they don't kill each other. One outstanding criticism of FOSS is that most projects exclude those without a coding skillset even if they can bring other skillsets to the table that would improve the project. This means that people who have insights regarding usability often get excluded from influencing development.
I do want to point out that a vast majority of FOSS is just fine because the target audience is very technology savvy folks. The problem here is when FOSS evangalists run around asking why people are still installing Windows when this great other OS is available for free. Even if FOSS were to bridge that last usability gap to the non-technical user, there are other obstacles which bar the way, but this last gap is a requirement for use by the general public.
Re:Author seems confused. (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you're saying is: You get what you pay for?
Isn't this the "Unix Philosophy" anyway? (Score:5, Informative)
Not again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Has this guy ever installed Windows XP on a new bare computer? I don't think so... The first thing I have to do is to go and hunt for the diverse drivers for nearly every device that it has. Graphics, sound, wireless,....
Linux often supports everything out of the box, and what is not supported is, ehm... simply not supported because the specs of the devices are not available and thus the developpers that want to develop the drivers have to resort to reverse-engineering.
Sure, application installation is "harder" in a Linux environment, because it doesn't follow the "double-click-on-that-icon-and-press-next-next-nex t-finish" or even worse "insert-cd-and-automatically-run-a-program-that-mi ght-damage-your-computer" (see Sony Rootkit on Audio CD's...)
If we want it that easy, we have only one way to go, and that is the Apple way: drag an application in the "Application" folder and that is all you got to do for installation. The Windows way is actually not what you want...
Re:Not again... (Score:3, Informative)
Installing Windows XP from scratch on a freshly formatted hard drive is nigh hands off; every now and then, Dell puts
Re:Not again... (Score:2)
XP does not require a driver hunt. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now there are cases where there are newer drivers that I could go get should I need them but they are not required.
The big difference between installing Linux versus XP?
If I need drivers they most likely exist for XP.
Re:XP does not require a driver hunt. (Score:3, Informative)
This is not a Linux problem. Please talk to your hardware vendor and ask where their Linux drivers are on their website.
Re:Not again... (Score:4, Insightful)
Umm Windows is hard to install (well, not really) and Linux is easy to install, but if it turns out to be hard to install, then it's someone else's fault! Oh, and Linux applications are harder to install because Windows applications are easy to install, but that's a good thing because sometimes people do bad things, (even though they could also do bad things on Linux, they would just be harder to install, and it would be someone else's fault anyway). So, anyway, if you want easy, then you need to use a Mac(ignoring that the discussion is about the need for FOSS software to be more user-friendly).
So, in summary: If someone suggests that FOSS needs to be more user friendly, then the answer is that Windows sucks and if you want useability, go buy a Mac.
Re:Not again... (Score:3, Insightful)
The lack of a stable binary interface for drivers. The main reason is strictly philosophical but it drives me nuts.
Why should I constantly have to get new drivers when I upgrade Linux? Often I have to rec
Free to pay (Score:2)
MOD STORY INSIGHTFUL (Score:2, Interesting)
All too often, the people "open sourcing" their software are the same ones who have this elitist attitude of "if you don't have enough time to gather reams of knowledge, don't bother hoping to und
Re:MOD STORY INSIGHTFUL (Score:5, Insightful)
I always like the whole Photoshop vs GIMP discussion. People take a lot of courses learning Photoshop. Then when you start a discussion that GIMP is a great tool they always complain that it's design isn't intuitive and that Photoshop is "better". Yet they spend hours learning how to use Photoshop. If they spend the same time learning GIMP there wouldn't be a problem.
Re:MOD STORY UNSIGHTFUL (Score:3, Insightful)
Photoshop I have seldom used, so I know little about that. But I have used the Gimp too often. It always has something that makes me start screaming at my monitor, and that is a very bad sign for any program.
It does not matter that photoshop is hard to l
lawn or ms code? (Score:2)
ObPython (Score:5, Funny)
Alan: Hello.
Noel: Hello.
Alan: Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynaecologist. And this week on 'How to do it' we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.
Jackie: Hello, Alan.
Alan: Hello, Jackie.
Jackie: Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again.
Alan: Thanks, Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well here we are. You blow there and you move your fingers up and down here.
Noel: Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we'll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So, until next week, cheerio.
Alan: Bye.
Jackie: Bye.
On the mark (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally, I'd be a little put off by what amounts to an opinion piece bya lawyer on open source, but there are good points:
Current FOSS operating systems (OS) are targeted mainly at geeks, hackers and other technically skilled developers and users. While there have been some progress in making the installation and use of FOSS OSes like Ubuntu easier and simpler, they still do not have the "click-click-click" ease of installation of popular proprietary OSes like Windows XP or Mac OS X. In addition, even after one successfully installs a FOSS OS on a computer, a user will typically have to deal with issues like lack of drivers, incompatibility with third party devices or difficulty in installing new programs or software packages. A normal user wants everything to work out-of-the-box [emphasis mine]. This is especially true in developing countries where a computer costs more than a month's salary. Since a computer is a major purchase, it's usefulness and usability should be present at the moment a user turns on his or her computer. People are not interested in (in fact, most are adverse to) messing around with, tinkering or hacking a program - the second, third and fourth software freedoms.
It goes back to the whole idea of Linux as an everyday operating system. Anyone who is not a geek, i.e. most of the population, is not going to adopt something that isn't easy to operate. I mean, there's no reason to make a Windows-like GUI for Linux unless you want people to actually think of Linux as an alternative to Windows. And while you might impress the average user with a Windows-like look and feel, unless it's just as easy to use out of the box as their Windows PC is now, there will be no great swell of converts.
I've said it before: Linux's popularity depends on what it wants to be. If it wants to be the OS of geeks and hackers and multi-million dollar corporations, so be it. If Linux (or any of its derivatives) wish to compete against Windows for market share, there has to be a shift in thinking, away from kernel-centric, gizmos-and-gadgets way of thinking to the "what would a user want to do" mindset.
Re:On the mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is "that easy to use" or "works out of the box" that eveybody says Windows has? I've never been able to see it, and don't know a user that is able to install Windows (not a lot of people) and not able to install an easy Linux distro.
"Works out of the box" is even the worse possible description of Windows, since it is useless out of the box.
Training Wheels (Score:2)
The article's not stupid, just free from logic. (Score:2, Insightful)
The entire article hinges on this point:
Depends how you define "free" (Score:3)
The missing point (Score:3, Insightful)
For example; I work for a semi-large dental office. 3 offices, 100+ employees. Each and everyone of those employees benefit from OSS, even if they don't know it. From the spam being kept out of their mail boxes, to email being delivered all together, to the IM network, not to mention the file server. I won't even go into how the phones are handled.
I am the only one ( on the payroll ) that knows how any of this works, and that benefits at least 100+ people ( not to mention the secondary effects of such a setup ). That's the true power of opensource software.
I call bollocks. (Score:4, Insightful)
But to call Blender non-free 'cause it's a complex piece of software? That's a very stupid thing to say.
OMG NO DIGG (Score:4, Insightful)
No more blog entries please.
And anyway, there is already a "FOSS OS that is as easy to install and use as any proprietary OS", it's called OpenSUSE. It's the easiest thing I've ever used in my life, though it was bloaty and I eventually got sick of it and came back to Slackware.
sigh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Math is too hard! Until the mathematicians make it more usable, it will never gain acceptance in the Real World(TM).
Here's my summary of TFA:
"Somebody needs to do everything for me, including all of my thinking."
Move alone everyone. There is nothing to see here.
Re:sigh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Many of you don't understand the point of the article. Of course, somethings are going to hard.
The question is whether or not the user is wasting effort getting past YOUR (the developer's) CRUFT-- or whether they are spending effort efficiently focusing on THEIR PROBLEMS.
For example...
If installing a piece of software means having to edit a ridiculous xml config file, many people just aren't going to do it, and for good reason.
Note to developer's: xml was NOT meant to be editted by hand. You have great tools at your disposal to automate the manipulation of xml for your users. USE THEM! Don't make people guess and struggle with config files because you are are not willing to either make SANE "out of the box" default configs or are too lazy to provide a basic wizard to make things easy.
Re:sigh... (Score:3, Insightful)
While undeniably funny, this is decidedly not insightful. First, math is hard, and thus the widespread use of calculators and computers to m
Just because you're free to doesn't mean you can.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think this author has a strange meaning of the word "free". "Free" has nothing to do with the credentials of the user - if they want to use the software they're free to learn how to.
Ease of Use and Quality Software are Mutually... (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Today, I consider quality software to be very flexible and to allow for extensive CLI interfaces as well as highly intricate GUI interfaces. Think of combining tools like KDE Konsole, Enlightenment 0.7 Desktop, GNU Screen, LVM, and Xen virtualization.
2. When I was a new PC user (circa 1994) I considered quality software to be exclusively GUI based, object oriented (even though I didn't really know what that meant at the time), statically linked binaries (just a single executable with everything built in and no lib dependencies or "DLL Hell"), and everything had to be a metaphor to real world objects.
3. Mr. Middle Management considers quality software to be what all other Mr. Middle Managers use. Regardless of whether the program actually works well or works at all, if all the others have it, then he's got to have it too.
4. Mr. Joe User believes that quality software is something that "just works" from his point of view. It might be the most inefficient, spyware-ridden piece of crap, but if it allows him to do task X with little or no effort, then it's "quality" as far as he's concerned and he doesn't want to know about better ways even if they will help him save money, and get the most out of his computer.
So the problem isn't with FOSS. The problem lies with the users. Unless you're willing to work harder to get the most out of your computing experience, you will probably shy away from FOSS. Besides, who says that FOSS is primarily trying to get more mindshare? FOSS doesn't exist to be popular. It exists to do a job and do it well. In many cases, doing a job well is something that only professionals and hobbyists can do. (Ugh, I hate the term "hobbyist" because it belittles the importance of these advanced users) And this will never change.
Re:How does this benefit the community? (Score:2)
Re:Agree on principle. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. The SuSE RPM database is excellent, and with online repositories you don't need to carry around CDs.
For example, Snes9x is part of SuSE: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxpackages/prof
Need to get roms?
You can install the easy-to-install Limewire RPM from Limewire's site (installing me "click on the 'download' link", and then press the "Install in YaST" link on the embedded RPM browser that shows up in your web browser. Limewire's icon will show up under the "Internet" category in your KDE menu.
How is this not far easier than on Windows?
All you have to do is go to YaST, search for "SNES", and install it. No hunting out which-is-the-right file, no worrying about stuff you can't install;
It's all managed by RPM, via GUI, and all the packages you could ever want are avaliable. The worst thing you'll ever have to do is learn to add an additional RPM source, and there are step-by-step screenshot guides that show you how to do that. These guides are generally easier to use than the step-by-step guides which show you how to install a wireless router, or a printer (on Windows; printing on SUSE is dead easy).
It's not a problem with FOSS; ease of use is up to the distro makers. I don't expect Gentoo or Slackware to be easy for noobs; that's not why they are there. Use Mandrake or SuSE (especially SuSE). I've converted my relatives to SuSE, and they don't mind a bit.
Re:Calling out Troll Keith Russell. (Score:3, Interesting)
I said that Trustworthy Computing was a response to security failures, not that TC was "about" security. TC was really about marketing and stalling for time until Longhorn.