Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
On Thu, 2009-07-16 at 11:52 -0400, Dan Goodman wrote:
Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
You can skip this if you don't want to read more. But it gives what I think is a good example from PC history about how this has bitten other vendors.
I don't accept that this is comparable. Someone 'joe-six-pack' buying a PC more than a decade ago to selecting an alternative Operating System. We need to be realistic, *zero* non-technical users wake up in the morning and think "I'll try an alternative Operating System today".
If that is true, Linux will never reach the average PC user.
Ok. The only way LINUX will reach the "average" computer user is if it comes preinstalled on their hardware. In which case it isn't an "alternative" Operating System, it is "what was installed".
That is pretty much true of any technical product or gadget, I'll grant you that.
They do go buy PCs. If you even know what an "Operating System" is you are in a small minority and at least a PC Jockey.
Some move on, some don't...you don't have to be technical to want to try new technologies.
Yes, you do. Non technical people try out new *products*: TVs, MP3 players, game consoles. An Operating System just is not equivalent in the marketplace to those things.
To the extent that that is true, that implies that neither Linux or any distro has successfully reached the product stage. And it is my belief that one of the things that prevents this from happening is the relative lack of engagement of the end-user with the "personalization" of their configuration - that is, the ability to easily change options, features, etc., without having things break on them for doing so. Which is one of the reasons why I rail against the idea of "thinking for the user" instead of letting the user make the choices that fit for their HW, work style, etc.
Most continue in the same vein out of habit, but some who aren't technical are changing at any point in time.
I don't think so. Some non-technical users come to LINUX because they are frustrated, but they do so primarily by having a technical user present [advocate?] an alternative and take them there.
To the extent that the advocate path is the primary path for new adoptions, that should be all the more reason to stringently try to avoid some of new users' past frustrations with machines that come loaded with "everything", and that can be improved by turning off things that they can only do via seeking out further technical assistance. Yes, they might overlook some great new feature, but the other hand, they will have an optimized base and an easy way to experiment with what they want.
I think there is a vocal minority of 'minimalists' who don't like the direction of the modern desktop, but they'd dislike other current distributions for the exact same reasons. They wouldn't like OS/X or Windows Vista/7.
How about the idea that there is a group that may be less than 50%, but that is significant, that feels that modern desktop features should be options, rather than forcibly included, and who believe that both minimal and futuristic configurations should be supportable and selectable?
They are "supportable and selectable"; with the possible exception of KDE4. I don't know anything about KDE and haven't used it in years. But from the outside KDE4 looks to me like an issue for the KDE user community. KDE cut a new release and distributions followed suite; which is the entirely expected and reasonable thing for distributions to do.
That issue has been flogged to death, but that can lead to new releases being pushed out too early if distros just blindly accept dev's recommendations that code is ready for prime time.
And as an aside, it seems funny to me that KDE4 seemed to try to go out of its way to not provide certain Windows-like features on the desktop, such as a taskbar equivalent and the ability to place icons on the desktop, features that were originally rejected but later added as a configurable overlay on the base vision of the developers? It seems to me that a certain vocal minority of devs seems to believe that they can and must provide a better high end graphics experience than Brand X and Brand $, but at that same time, they reject some of the common user-control features that those companies have adopted to meet the needs and desires of their customers?
If your talking about "KDE devs" when you say "vocal minority of devs seems" please say "KDE devs". Otherwise I don't know if you are still in the context of the previous paragraph about KDE [which I don't see as a distribution issue] or speaking in general.
For the most part, I was talking in a general way, but based on some specific issues I have seen. But Beagle (and Mono) represent a somewhat special case, in that many users don't want desktop indexing, even though there are many others that do. And there are users that would prefer to avoid Mono and it's big brother down the street. I think it belongs in the distro, I just don't think it belongs turned on as a default.
Some of them see adding modern features as "emulating" those [despised] platforms [which it isn't].
No, that is a straw man argument -- many of us see them as just unwanted and unneeded bloatware, at least for certain usages. And hence should be easy to turn off, even if they do meet the needs of 51% or more of the users.
It is easy to turn them off, or at least to turn Beagle off. The same goes for Avahi and other services. Trivially easy. Disabling them is even well documented in the case of Beagle.
KDE4 is a KDE problem.
I have no issues with their choices I just disagree that their wishes should hobble the experience and usability for everyone else.
So you think that providing an option to make a browser the default, and the ability to turn off the paperclip assistant just by clicking on it and selecting an option, have hobbled the experience and usablility of Firefox, IE and M$ Office for everyone else?
For everything I've seen mentioned [aside from KDE4] this is ALREADY and equivalently simple way to disable the mentioned service.
You seem to carve the world up into those who agree with your position, and the "few" who disagree are the wrong-headed vocal minority who wish to harm the rest of the community because they won't try the new
Good gosh. You take it from "vocal minority" to "wrong-headed vocal minority" Surely you didn't think that those you characterized as a "vocal minority" were correct in their thinking, did you? and disagreement to an intent to "harm the rest of the community". That is just bogus. I never mentioned, anywhere, anyone "intent". OK, allow me to substitute "who have the effect" instead of "who have
I see a fair number of people posting that either that wasn't available at some point in time, that it didn't work, or that it was overly complicated. In particular, in my mind, if it was going to be turned on by default, it should not have required any kind of technical bulletin to turn it off. A simple help topic instructing you to run something like chkconfig should have been all that was required, and it should have been easy to find in the package itself. It is my understanding that that was not the case then, and still isn't. If I am wrong, I will stand corrected...but that is not what I hear most people saying was their beagle experience. the intent" of harming the community by not accepting these "advances" as being on by default.
I stated what I believe would be the outcome of that direction. Are you unable to discern the difference between those two statements?
And I disagree with your basic premise that leaving new features off by default would in all cases be of harm to a distro, that it would prevent users from benefitting and the distro from progressing.
No wonder you refuse to entertain any suggestion that these features could, and should, be selectable by users...
THEY ARE "selectable by users". This is/was a discussion as to the optimal *default* state of those features.
My whole point was that they should both be selectable and off in most cases by default. And the selectability should not require resorting to outside sources of information.
that allowing them easy on-off would ruin the experience for everyone else.
THEY ARE EASY TO TURN OFF, RIGHT NOW.
chkconfig avahi-daemon off [for example]
Does that work for beagle?
Having auto-configuration off by default is pretty pointless; especially since it has zero effect on the presence of manual configurations in 99.999% of situations. The same goes for every other feature mentioned [KDE4 isn't a "feature", it is a platform].
A straw man...it is user experience type of features, not basic system operations features, that I am talking about. No one has had any significant issues with HW detection and configuration by the system, when it works properly, so of course that type of feature would be a good candidate to be turned on automatically. But beagle, the subject of this thread, isn't such a clearcut improvement for every user, nor is it unobtrusive to all of those who don't need it.
It is easy to keep knocking down suggestions for change, by characterizing them as being unnecessary, but you have failed to show why they would do any harm for anyone, and why they couldn't and shouldn't be provided, even if only a minority ends up using them?
Options are provided. With the exception of KDE4 [maybe?] which is a problem for the KDE community releasing [maybe?] a release before it was ready.
After all, I am not asking for features that would add weeks or months to development.
In line behind all the other features that wouldn't add weeks or months.
But something as fundamental as turning an app on or off shouldn't be lumped in as just one of "all the other features"...it deserves to be a first-class feature as it is fundamental to users' experiences.
This is the issue I'd like to hear your opinions on...not how you think the user community is divided up, but why a simple toggle with the default being off, shouldn't be the standard for ALL features that are not truly essential to operation.
Toggles are provided for almost everything mention in this thread.
To the extent that they are, and are self-contained and easily discoverable within the package, I have no issues. But I was responding with a principle about whether to turn things on by default, and using what I had read were other people's difficulties with beagle, as a counter-example to this principle. And I still say that unless a feature benefits the majority and harms none, and unless it can be turned off and on without bad side-effects, and without the need to search elsewhere for how to do it, the feature should not be on by default. That is the entirety of my point. That, and the fact that I think beagle failed in that it harmed some (due to excessive slowness) and could not be turned off without a general knowledge search. Notice: This communication, including attachments, may contain confidential or proprietary information to be conveyed solely for the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, or if you otherwise received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and promptly delete this e-mail, including attachments, without reading or saving them in any manner. The unauthorized use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this e-mail, including attachments, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org