[KLUG Advocacy] A user leaves....

[Adam Williams]

>...but I wonder, from his narrative, if he was ever really "here".

Of course, it is important to decide where "here" is.  I wonder if the
real here concerns using Linux or some other OS, or is really about
using the computer as a tool (and thus wanting the most powerful and
efficient tool so long as it isn't truly hard to use) or simply
possessing a computer and diddling around with it.  There may be alot of
distance between "here" and "there".

> .....
> Personal computing, BY DEFINITION, is the antithesis of this. One
> old mainframer I know defines a personal computer as "A machine that 
> can be turned off and no one else will care". In that sense, most
> of the machines here are not personal computers.

I really like this definition.  Goes to the heart of the matter and
avoids all the semantic crap.

>I believe the author of the article has had almost exclusive exposure 
>to personal computers, and he writes very much from that point of view.

Seems clear enough that the above it true.  And that puts him solidly in
the majority.  It is an unfortunate fact that in this age of ubiquitous
networks that most people have such a limited concept of "computer"

>In the M$/Wintel world, product shopping, re-installing, and rebooting
>is EXACTLY what you do! If you want to install a product, WHY NOT reboot
>your PC? See the above definition... if no one cares, why should the
>user? It is simply another step in the installation process!
>The same thinking applies to the OS itself. Did you make a mistake in-
>stalling things, or leave something out? No problem, just wipe it 
>all out and reinstall, right? This was the thinking with DOS 3.1, when
>re-installing was a 5 minute proposition without a lot of choices. I
>will surely agree that this mentality has persisted for far too long.
>I know that reinstalling my (one) MS platform here takes almost a full
>work day, and I've also been told (by a third-degree blackbelt M$ guru)
>that if I ever want to hear anything but MIDI from my soundcard again,
>I would have to reinstall, from scratch. Don't beleive me? Do the re-
>search HE did, then come back and tell me a better way, this checks
>out completely.
>But I digress; the mentality persists. In a closed-source, binary-only 
>proprietary world, you have no choice BUT to product shop. If something 
>doesn't meet your needs, there's no source to hack, no compiler options 
>to modify, and so on. It's either all there, or it's not, and if it's 
>not, you have to move on.

But he'd make the argument that the vast majority of people wouldn't
know the first thing of what to do with a compiler and some source
code.  So what benefit is the concept of "Open Source" to them?

>The Registry and install wizards are engineered to minimize the know-
>ledge level of the users, and in general the system is dumbed-down 
>enough to work as a consumer product. Sure, some drivers come along 
>a bit faster at first, since the commercial manufacturers are all 
>working to contract, but once something has satisfied economic market 
>demand, development stops, often with only a fraction of the flexi-
>bility and utility of the underlying system being used well.
 
>The product hopping takes on what I sense are rather crazy propor-
>tions. I know people who have dumped fairly stable configurations 
>because one app didn't have some feature set, but it was available 
>on some OTHER OS, with a particular upgrade level, so they "just" 
>re-installed (and sometimes had to purchase) EVERYTHING to get that 
>feature. Someone pointed this out to me last month, and I felt like 
>I was looking at the mosaic plate my daughter made in summer camp... 
>that was some EXPENSIVE little plate!  Well, that was some EXPENSIVE 
>toolbar! this guy had to go buy a new OS, a new office suite, and a 
>different video card to really use this right.  I was amazed.
 
>Overall, a lot of what's been said here, and what he wrote, is indi-
>cative of this mentality... a consumer mentality... short attention 
>span, unwillingness to really stick with something long enough to 
>learn a number of things well, and some fairly glaring blind spots, 
>which persisted due to lack of interaction with others (how many 
>LUG meetings did he attend, or even seek out?), and simple ignorance.

I wondered this myself.  He mentioned getting help via the 'net,  but no
mention of groups / persons.  I think one day on the KLUG list could
have solved some of his chief frustrations (if he'd sit on one
installation long enough to be helped).
 
>There are also some interesting hints that this fellow is NOT 
>quite as foolish as this might show him to be. He makes some 
>fleeting reference to "the house server" (not a dignified gentle-
>man in a morning coat, either), and the existence of IPCop hints 
>at the home network. I don't think a lot of "Joe Six-pack" types 
>are that connected, so this guy knows more that he explicitly lets 
>on. So I wonder how deeply he is into this stuff. He says he's coming
>back to Linux again, and even has a target distro to start with for 
>next time. Doesn't seem terribly mainstream to me.

I know several people (and I don't think they are from an exotic sample)
who have home networks, firewall, etc... but are just "into it" far
enough to be totally lost and bewildered.  But they don't want to the
any time to actually understand 'this is how TCP/IP works'.  So I don't
know if the presence of ipCop, etc... lends any real clues to his level
of computing/network proficiency.

>The point is not that whether I'm "offended" or "angry" about this
>article, but that I believe he has much more limited (and different)
>expectations and requirements about what he wants to get out of his 
>interaction with computing and software. I think he looks upon this
>stuff as much more of an appliance that I (or "we") do. If he's a
>Dentist, I sure hope he doesn't adopt that attitude about teeth,
>gums, drills, or fillings.
>Now, does he represent a more mainstream attitude toward computing
>that I (or "we") do? I think so. Does this also mean that his observa-
>tions about Linux are correct? I do **NOT** think so! I believe most
>of what he is saying does NOT apply to current distros, nor is his 
>exposure to any one (current) distro deep enough to be a really good
>critic. I think a lot of his problems would be solved by learning a
>little, and sticking with one distro a bit more. I also believe that 
>this is EXACTLY the kind of person that benefits, perhaps more than
>any other, from LUG support. He's one reason we're here!

Yep.

>I would like to know when/if/who will write a reply (not really a 
>rebuttal) to this article....

I posted here because I figured he's already got 100+ replies by now (it
was posted on Slashdot after all).  And his comments about open source
meanies (my paraphrase) doesn't leave me thinking he is going to be very
receptive to any indication he overlooked some obvious solutions.