4 ms·

You are a technical user and most of those products are aimed at technical users so that's fine - even in the proprietary world I don't expect a tech app to be

You are a technical user and most of those products are aimed at technical users so that's fine - even in the proprietary world I don't expect a tech app to be easy to use. However here we're talking about a chat client - something that should be easy to use by anyone, including your grandma. And so far, GNU and similar free software projects have failed to ship anything usable by a non-technical user. Finally, GCC or GIMP doesn't fail because not many people use it whereas a chat client fades into irrelevance if nobody uses it, so even the tech people will abandon it. Take a look at Mozilla - despite being free and open source they nailed their UX. Go to https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/new/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/new/ and notice how there's no mention of "open source" nor "mailing list" nor "./configure && make". Instead there's a list of reasons an average user would like to use it and a download button that gives you a ready to use binary.

remir 9y ago
Voilà. I think a big problem in software dev is that technical people struggle to think like non-technical people. They can't put themselves in the shoes of their grandma or "Joe Six Pack". I mean, just look at the download page for Spotify on Linux. "repository signing keys", "keyserver", "sudo apt-get". I can see a non-technical person thinking: "WTF is that? Where's the installer? Where's the DMG file?" I remember an argument with someone on IRC about Linux and the person actually said that everybody should learn commands and those who don't are simply lazy and dumb. This mentality is problematic and toxic for the cause of FOSS.
_delirium 9y ago
Yeah I think that's true, but doesn't have much to do with what the grandparent was complaining about, which is that he/she think the FSF focuses too much on software freedom. Imo what you talk about is true of any software made by technical people who are mostly making it for themselves in their free time, and is seen regardless of the devs' opinion on software licensing. You find it in GNU software, in BSD software, and even in the Windows shareware/freeware scene. More or less, stuff made by power users for power users.

remir 9y ago

Voilà. I think a big problem in software dev is that technical people struggle to think like non-technical people. They can't put themselves in the shoes of their grandma or "Joe Six Pack". I mean, just look at the download page for Spotify on Linux. "repository signing keys", "keyserver", "sudo apt-get". I can see a non-technical person thinking: "WTF is that? Where's the installer? Where's the DMG file?" I remember an argument with someone on IRC about Linux and the person actually said that everybody should learn commands and those who don't are simply lazy and dumb. This mentality is problematic and toxic for the cause of FOSS.

_delirium 9y ago

Yeah I think that's true, but doesn't have much to do with what the grandparent was complaining about, which is that he/she think the FSF focuses too much on software freedom. Imo what you talk about is true of any software made by technical people who are mostly making it for themselves in their free time, and is seen regardless of the devs' opinion on software licensing. You find it in GNU software, in BSD software, and even in the Windows shareware/freeware scene. More or less, stuff made by power users for power users.