/tech/ - Technology★

Microsoft and Apple have massive quality control departments that do the work of streamlining and polishing interfaces. The free software community is proof that programming guys and user experience guys are two mutually exclusive positions. This is the case even in large companies. The difference is the free software model lets lower standards slip by with the exception of the Linux Kernel "benevolent dictator for life" model or BSD. GNUs development model is largely modeled on socialism. The Linux kernel itself and BSD are not.

>>>/r/choosingbeggars

>>961114

t. aspiring low level koder with no understanding of UX

It's called "Ubuntu".

>>961107 (OP)

The "Linux is Not Windows" essay addresses this issue well. If you don't have time to read the whole thing, at least read points 4 thru 6.

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

>>961126

I read through most of it, including "4 thru 6" and have the general idea of that author. My initial concern is that you can be private but not anonymous in the current situation. Imagine wearing a burka. It's private. It hides your identity. But you stand out in the crowd and attract a lot of attention on why do you keep insisting on hiding your identity. I want everybody to wear burkas so I won't stand out - if everybody gets on board and uses GNU/Linux, Tor, I2P, Firejail and so on, we will actually become truly anonymous.

if they want a new gui interface with more sparkle and lensflare they can write it themselves.

linux doesn't need to spoonfeed niggers thots and faggots

>>961150

This, except Gnome is already there and doing just that.

>>961124

It's an African word! Fitting.

>>961107 (OP)

What do we gain from making software access-able to the average person? I would say very little. People should stop wasting their time on this. If anything we should be working on alienating average users.

It's not wrong to develop free software to make it easy to use. The question is for what reason do you do it? If the matter is simply "to have bigger adoption numbers" then this implies that the masses will move away from free software as soon as they are attracted by other non-free software that can offer greater convenience or greater capabilities.

Personally, I believe in personal responsibility, that users should take responsibility by investing into the free software that they want to see. In order for this to happen, users need to be convinced that freedom is important and that investment into freedom is the most sensible long term way for living.

>>961187

bigger adoption numbers may have its own merit, if the world even has rules anymore, tech giants will adapt to the demand

>>961183

>What do we gain from making software access-able to the average person

The more popular Linux is, the more developers will go to it, and the more everything (see: hardware and drivers and other software) supports Linux.

>>961212

>muh Linux

What we need is a hardware-independent driver plugin system which works across systems and architectures. That way the stupid companies only have to write one driver, and your devices will work forever, but good luck getting most manufacturers on board, as they seem to prefer the planned obsolescence that constant Windows driver model refreshes give them. Most don't even provide drivers for Linux or other OS's anyway, those are left up to the particular project to worry about.

Computers as a whole have always been fragmented with many different ways to bring them up and provide device drivers, and there was much hope with OpenFirmware but barely anybody uses it any more. Sad!

>>961234

That't literally what Windows Plug 'n Play concept was originally. But you're a LARPer so you wouldn't know that

>>961126

>6000 words of excuses for why Linux doesn't need to improve and it's everyone else that's wrong

>>961238

Nice strawman. It's an essay about why Linux is not Windows and it shouldn't try to be a Windows clone. Improvements are not a bad thing, trying to clone Windows for the sake of being Windows is not worth it.

>>961238

Yes, we surely need more improvements like systemd and Gnome/GTK.

>We are going to increase the speed at which we do releases of new major versions of Gtk (ie: Gtk 4, Gtk 5, Gtk 6…). We want to target a new major release every two years.

>The new release of Gtk is going to be fully parallel-installable with the old one. Gtk 4 and Gtk 3 will install alongside each other in exactly the same way as Gtk 2 and Gtk 3 --- separate library name, separate pkg-config name, separate header directory. You will be able to have a system that has development headers and libraries installed for each of Gtk 2, 3, 4 and 5, if you want to do that.

>Meanwhile, Gtk 4.0 will not be the final stable API of what we would call “Gtk 4”. Each 6 months, the new release (Gtk 4.2, Gtk 4.4, Gtk 4.6) will break API and ABI vs. the release that came before it.

>We will, of course, bump the soname with each new incompatible release --- you will be able to run Gtk 4.0 apps alongside Gtk 4.2 and 4.4 apps, but you won’t be able to build them on the same system

I don't think I will be able to handle all this improvement.

>>961243

>someone releases shitty piece of ass software

>"SEE THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WANT TO IMPROVE"

>>961247

t. Gnome dev

>shitty piece of ass software gets adopted by everyone

>shitlib 1.14.5

>Release notes:

>shit is deprecated, use crap instead, it still does the exactly the same thing, but we somehow managed to improve it

>Why shouldn't we make free software so easy to use, comparable to Apple products for example?

>Why don't we ship desktop environments with pre-compiled icons and customizations that actually looks good?

>IMPROVEMENTS ARE GOOD, LOOK AT MY VERSION NUMBER

>INTRODUCING GNOME 3.28 WITH SYSTEMD 239

>>961140

I want everyone to put a rope round the politicians necks and to fix the shit hole I live in but you don't see me pretending I can make it happen.

You're not anonymous, you never will be anonymous and you never have been anonymous. It doesn't matter what you do or how you do it there is always a paper trail, always. Welcome to reality cunt.

>>961187

Some Software could do with being more user friendly because it's GUI is designed by the coder more often than not. I do a lot of testing for these kind of things and my first comment is usually "Where's the help section/tool tips?" People assume you know what they know, so you open a program and everything is laid out how they like it and know how to work it. If I'm not them I don't know what the icons mean, I need to play around them them to find what I want or I need to look up online tutorials when I may not have internet access. Simple tool tips aren't difficult to implement but go a long way to improving newbie experiences.

This sort of shit is near universal. It's a flaw in the OSS model and it won't ever be fixed. It's just one of the sacrifices you make to use it.

>>961234

Universal driver system sounds like a good way to stagnate hardware. If you have to fit this same tiny mold what happens when you need something beyond it's scope?

It's about pride, really. Except for some really specific examples of artistic software, the general idea is that, in order to improve the usability of software, you need to listen to the UX guys. UX guys are generally artists and not engineers, like the people actually coding the program, and thus are usually looked down upon, because artistic fields are a meme. The main dofference is Microsoft and Apple actually put their engineers on a leash, and forced them to submit to their UX overlords, so while some things in their stuff may not make much sense from a programmer perspective, it does from a user one. Programmers are only good at interfacing with other programmers, and sometimes not even that, so that's why libre libraries have good API, while libre GUI suck.

>>961267

Yeah M$ and Apple offer great experiences. Clearly the "artists" lmao who run those corporations are doing a great job.

>>961270

t. 2% market share

Because freedoms only makes sense for people understanding its value. If the niggercattle can't trade their eye candy and gaymes for freedom, they simply don't deserve it.

>>961379

And that, in turn, means the niggercattle get mad that you're still free and they come after your freedoms, much like they are right now.

>Why shouldn't we

>Why don't we

>Why don't we

You best get to work.

When you say "free software," you mean GNU and C software. This software sucks for two main reasons: lack of design and using C or C++. These are not free software problems, but UNIX software problems. Proprietary UNIX like System V had all these same problems, and it sucked even more because they couldn't find enough users to fix their software for free. There is some free software out there that doesn't follow the UNIX "design" philosophy, so it doesn't suck.

High quality projects like Multics, PL/I, Ada, and Lisp machines had a whole list of requirements before they started on the design.

https://multicians.org/fjcc1.html

http://www.adahome.com/History/Steelman/steelman.htm

UNIX software isn't made this way. UNIX is based on the "philosophy" of pushing the problems onto the user. UNIX weenies produce shit software that's full of bugs and doesn't work and get the users to fix it. Unlike quality software where the value is derived from the design and implementation and inherent to the software itself, the value of UNIX is derived from the user's programs and by making programs hard to port from UNIX to another OS unless it's a UNIX clone, exactly like JavaScript. The value of JavaScript isn't because it's a good language, but only because it runs on the browser and websites use it.

C and C++ require much more work and have more bugs. These people have no time to work on "pre-compiled icons and customizations that actually looks good" or "GUIs for advanced anonymization software" when they have buffer overflows, segfaults, memory leaks, null-terminated strings, array decay, broken preprocessors, autoconfs, makefiles, and panics to deal with. With a more productive language, they could get those problems out of the way and have time to work on making it more usable.

    BTW, The very concept of providing a "free" version of
    U*** (so that, presumably, all the more people may
    choke on their own emeses) is SO utterly antisocial and
    disgusting that FSF is just about up there with the
    National Security Council, the Carnegie Fdn. for the
    Advancement of Teaching, the Trilateral Commission, and
    <fill in your favorite source of conspiratorial action
    here>.

    The price of U*** should be very high indeed...

This has indeed puzzled me about FSF.  Here is an
organization with incredibly lofty (IMHO misguided, but
lofty) political ideals, and apparently no technological or
engineering ideals whatsoever.  

It's as if there were a shite cartel charging high prices for
shite, and a counter-culture grassroots movement agitating
that shite should be free.

For those who want shite, I guess it matters.

>Why shouldn't we make free software so easy to use, comparable to Apple products for example? Why don't we ship desktop environments with pre-compiled icons and customizations that actually looks good?

What's "good enough" for you may not be "good enough" for the other Joes out there.

I can use a Libreboot laptop for little things like running old games, browsing, talking to friends, and reading stuff. I don't care enough to upgrade at this point to something more powerful, because there isn't a portable solution that is 100% Free Software capable yet.

Coreboot doesn't count.

>>961333

100% marketing and sales to thank for that.

>>961383

This is the only response OP should have gotten.

>>961107 (OP)

Because writing UI is boring and hard and I don't want to do it. If you want to make ui for my shitty applications, go ahead.

>>961262

OpenFirmware was written in Forth as were the drivers, if you want to expand it you can.

>>961553

>usenet

<he doesn't know what email is

lol