[KLUG Advocacy] A User Leaving

[Robert G. Brown]

>Being somewhat busy at work, I wanted to get involved with this thread
>but I chose not to.  I wanted to state some gut feelings.
Understandle. It's best to sometimes let things lie, other notions
well up. THere's no rush to answer, or to judge.

>Gut feeling 1)  CHANGE IS F'n HARD for the average user.  If you move
>one menu or put some field 1 over, users will....
{complex wording I didn't understand :) removed}
>....who have certain
>tendencies toward the desire for no changes what-so-ever.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe. OK, I agree. But I'm not even sure that matters. Um..
I have a couple of responses to this, and I'm curious about something....
Responses:
1. There's change, Change, and CHANGE. A lot of it is ** OS INDEPENDENT**,
   the change Dirk talks about above... it's going to happen no matter
   what... sooner or later, and it's change to the application, not the
   Window Manager, not the OS, not the file system, or any other damn 
   thing. EXPECT that many users are going to hate it, because they have
   (like it or not, for better or worse) devolped a certain rhythm, an
   intuitive feel, for the application the way it is... they've memorized,
   no.. INTERNALIZED the number of tabs needed to get from here to there,
   and the change that's been introdiced just upset that... so now they 
   have to UNLEARN their old stuff, and RELEARN the new way to get that
   rhythm, that sense of being tuned to the app...back, and all the while
   remain productive. 

2. There's something more to it than what we've touched upon, some element
   that makes this change fundamentally different from others.  For example,
   I can think of a user interface that changes all the time, and is in
   fact  available on the market in many different forms, all at once. We
   don't think much of switching from one of these interfaces to another,
   and a lot of people relish the experience, even though the consequences
   of making a mistake are a lot more serious than anything that you can
   do with a workstation.

   People have insecurities, fears and maybe other things between their
   ears that stop them from being the least bit flexible with user inter-
   faces on computers, but on the other user interface I was talking 
   about above (cars, if you hadn't guessed)? No problem! Crazy!!

Question:
   Perhaps this (or something similar) is a good way to explain this?
   Maybe this is related to the overall attitude people have toward
   computers?.....
   I'd like to encourage you to write about this.... [???]

>Gut feeling 2)  I can empathize with this guy very much.  I made 1 point
>about how in gnome v. kde, kde will give you an hourglass ....
I feel his pain, and yours. At the same time, I have the feeling that a
good deal of this is so unneseesary. The arrogance and nastiness you got
for a response ain't exactly what I can call the best spirit of free
software, that's for sure.

So what can we do about that? I'm not so sure? How many of these stories
do we have, compared to the number of positive outcomes? I beleives those
numbers speak for themeselves. Doesn't make each bad one easier to live
with, but maybe there's consolation in the big picture, and we can all
do better...

>Gut Feeling 3)  Most open source software comes from people tinkering
>and doing it for the love of it.  'Most' open source programmers want to
>get what they want done, done.....
I don't see this and doing the grunt work that you discuss as being 
mutually exclusive. I can tell you that several things prompt me to go
from the copying of previous solutions to writing my own, but it often
ain't glory, I'll tell ya that. Often a lot of little bits and pieces
of gruntwork make for a glorious result. It's neat when you can recognize
that; it's sometimes slow in coming. Perhaps this is what is happening
in a lot of places, to a lot of developers.

>They are not so interested in making understandable graphical configuration
>tools for complicated services and configurations.  Only programmers that 
>get salaries for performing such tasks do so (for the most part).  
With all due respect, NONSENSE!!
Oh, OK... most of them won't. In fact, over 95% of them won't. 
Maybe more.
But it's going to float someone's boat, maybe a few someones. They're
going to make the next step, the step you think they won't. That, to
a great degree, is how and why this approach to software development
continues to succeed.

>I tried with relative lack of success to get my Father to use Linux for
>a desktop....
There's always the next Window Manager, the next release, the next 
generation. Your father will give you another chance at making this
"sale", when and if you have more to show him. We can't win all the
battles, and that has to be acccepted, too. There will be another
day.....

>Gut Feeling 4)  Linux on the desktop has it's best chance in the
>corporate setting where CFO's like the savings and IT personnel are
>there every day to solve issues that would have to be solved at the
>command line....
Perhaps, I'd like to know where and how you form this point of view.
I'm not so sure, as I've seen other results. This is why some showcase
applications, like Boogies, are important. What we've seen there is 
that with very minimal support and NO command line, Linuc can do 
quite well indeed.  

>Gut Feeling 5)  Our best chance at the home Sally Someuser desktop is
>with the user who uses it at work and finds they like it....
Probably. I think this is happening, and I think that 2nd and 3rd tier
companies are where it can flourish, particularly in tough times. I see
it happening in the big corporates, but unless things get the blessing
of top management, with persistance, any change like this can be fright-
fully slow. However, this says more about the organizations than it 
does about the merits of Linux, for better or worse.

>Let me end my rant by saying I hope you guys know I'm on your side.  I
>like Linux on my desktop and my wife likes her win98 and my dad likes
>linux on a server he does not use and 2000,98,XP on his other three
>machines.  I'm OK with that.  
I think that's understoood. This is a constructive thread, IMO.

>The community will not succeed at some of these conversions unless 
>mindsets change dramatically.  
That someone rained on the writers parade is undestandable. That we can't
herd cats is also farily clear. Please indicate what mindsets have to
change, and how.

>I truly can empathize with the writers position.
When I read the article, I did, a lot more than now. IMOL this doesn't
call for empathy as much as it does understanding, on our part. If we
need to modify our mindsets (as a community), and gain thereby, then
we need to take a look at that, and choose accordingly.

						Regards,
						---> RGB <---