On Fri, 2003-03-28 at 23:43, Hal Vaughan wrote: --snip-- > From your earlier statements, you have talked about users doing what YOU (or > WE) want them to do. In other words, the technical computer people making > the choice for the real world users. There was an article (don't remember > the link or title, but it was on Slashdot, so it shouldn't be hard to search > for) about how relationships between developers and users are getting worse > because developers are too busy telling users what they need and how to do > things, rather than listening to users and finding out what they want and > need. > > I believe in giving people choice and empowring them. It's clear from your > statements (and you've all but said this directly in earlier posts), that you > believe in developers making the decisions and giving the end result to the > users. Personally, as a user/developper, I don't trust anyone else to make > those decisions for me. I know one thing my clients love about what I do > with them is that I listen to what they want and provide them with the type > of system (here I'm not referring to a box, but to the over all set of > programs and service I provide) that they can easily and quickly taylor to > what they want. I know developpers hate dealing with the UI and hate all the > extra work user-friendlieness requires, but, to be honest, that's why, within > the next month, my monthly fee to a client will be 4 times the fee charged by > my nearest competitor. That's why my clients are willing to pay that fee -- > because I listen, I give them the choice and empower them. While they aren't > administering a box, they can set up my system on their own and make all the > decisions about what they want to do on their own. > > On the other hand, and it's been said in this thread before (by me and > others), you make it clear you want to tell people what they want/need and > expect them to accept your decisions and like what you give them.
I think it's important to make one major distinction here, and that's the difference between writing software as a job, and writing software because you want to. If I get up in the morning, talk to a client, and that client wants a mail client that automatically attaches and/or executes viruses, turns off line wrapping, and formats all messages in useless HTML, then that's exactly what my client will get. (I'll download a copy of Outlook Express, change the name and give it to him... ;) HOWEVER, if I go home at night and I want my computer to beep at me every time I type the letter "U", I'm going to write that program the way that _I WANT_. I'm going to TELL my users what they want, because those users are ME. The fact that I'm making my program publically available doesn't mean the program is suddently not for me anymore. The wonderful thing with Linux is that it's written by people who want to scratch an itch. Every part of it is written because someone wants a particular thing, so they write a program to do it. And, generally speaking, they're nice enough to include configuration options for just about everything imaginable in the process. HOWEVER, just because they CHOOSE to be nice to users by letting them configure the program does NOT mean that the programmers should cater to a user's every whim. This is not to say that Debian should or should not have a graphical installer. This is to say that DEVELOPERS will and should decide if there is a graphical installer or not. If a developer decides that there should be a graphical installer because users demand it, that _DOES NOT MEAN_ that we're getting a graphical installer because users demand it. It means that we're getting a graphical installer because the DEVELOPER DECIDED TO WRITE IT. I apologize if any of the above sounded like a flame, as it was most certainly not intended that way. I just tend to make very liberal use of emphasis with my points. :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837
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