Want to hear something interesting? The often made claim that “there are no distinctions between developers and users” is at worst a lie and at best misinformation. What it actually means is that if you really don’t like something about a program you have the code and can change it yourself. What the implication though is that if you have an issue with a program you can contribute these thoughts to the developers and be taken seriously – which pretty much is never the case. The reality of the matter is that unless you are willing to actually code the fix yourself it simply wont get done and even then you have no guarantee of it actually being included. On average you have more chance of being listened to by closed source developers as their success is financially linked with your usage.
Sure if you can make the thing crash then that’s clearly a bug and the bugtracker can take care of it. What I actually mean is what if the program fundamentally doesn’t do what you need or essential functionality is missing? What then? All the talk of ‘community developed’ falls flat once the realisation kicks in that unless you are going to code it yourself it’s simply not going to get done. Obviously if someone is working for free they don’t have to listen to you, but it’s not really honest to promote it as an alternative to the proprietary market if there is no actual movement to compete. You cannot choose “scratching your own itch” and “if you don’t like it don’t use it” as an answer if you also want to choose “quality, useful software”
Take Ubuntu for example. If our interested user (say, myself) was to try it out and decide it was not suitable but was keen on the whole ‘open’ thing then the first port of call would be to say so on the forums. I tried this and aside from the inherent defensiveness of the community to criticism (which is a whole other post) I was repeatedly told ‘the developers don’t read these forums’. After much more investigation it was made clear that Ubuntu was only the packager and hardly wrote anything, instead getting everything from ‘upstream’. I realised what I wanted to get involved in was largely usability concerns with the Gnome desktop (this was circa 2004 btw) and after searching various borderline-dead mailing-lists I came to the startling realisation: There is virtually zero dialogue between the developers and the users. I had always just assumed there were places where vibrant debates between users and developers were taking place but despite half a decade of searching I’ve only found a few isolated cases in a few random places. There are occasional efforts to reach out, such as the 100 papercuts thing but they are generally one-offs at best, rarely significant and tend to be the exception that proves the rule.
But what about Ubuntu Brainstorm you say? When I asked a senior member of the Ubuntu design team about this I got the following reply:
“Forum contributors, if they see a response from a developer, may be reassured or inspired to contribute elsewhere. But that’s an intangible benefit, and unattractive for that reason. That’s why you get told “The developers don’t read these forums”. That’s why Brainstorm acts mainly as a honeypot drawing noise away from the bug tracker. And that’s why it’s gradually getting more difficult to report a bug about Ubuntu. We *need* to erect those barriers, so that we have time left in the day to improve the software.”
That is they are actually making efforts to erect barriers between the creators and the users as apparently there is no time to listen to them. The very fact that no efforts are made to find out what your users think and what problems they are having is disturbing enough, actively putting roadblocks in their path is just madness. After all the only people who make it through this trial-by-fire are going to be the most tenacious pro-Linux advocates. Of course they think everything’s hunky dory and dispute what I say, it’s the very definition of selection bias – the unhappy people all left a long time ago.
Virtually every other FOSS project follows the same model. They release it and then you can either submit ‘bugs’ or get ‘support’. Try it. Google your favorite FOSS project and see if you can find a link to something even vaguely related to user feedback. Then check to see if it’s actually being used. Then go to a random closed source projects site and check if they have any way to give feedback – and post your results!
I actually wrote a long post outlining the necessity of user feedback and how it is important to know how your software is being viewed by your users. The idea was basically a three tier system staffed by recruited volunteers (who largely do not necessarily have to know anything about programming). The first, public facing, level simply take and log user concerns, issues and the like. This way you would have some hard numbers to questions like ‘Why do people discontinue the use of this software’. The second level would look for trends (or would be alerted by level 1) in problems and aim to address the core issues that keep coming up sending a detailed report to level 3 who would create proposals for the core developers based on the discovered issues as without such a system there is absolutely no (remotely scientific) way to know what people think of your creation.
Unfortunately since the developers don’t read the forums it was ignored, but so it goes.
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Kerberos
[...] Users and Developers in FOSS Want to hear something interesting? The often made claim that “there are no distinctions between developers and users” is at worst a lie and at best misinformation. What it actually means is that if you really don’t like something about a program you have the code and can change it yourself. What the implication though is that if you have an issue with a program you can contribute these thoughts to the developers and be taken seriously — which pretty much is never the case. The reality of the matter is that unless you are willing to actually code the fix yourself it simply wont get done and even then you have no guarantee of it actually being included. On average you have more chance of being listened to by closed source developers as their success is financially linked with your usage. [...]
Spot on.
One thing I would add, is that I think there is one group who gets usability improvements into the system and that would be corporate clients (ie. paying customers)
As the latest Distrowatch Weekly pointed to a few cases where developers have treated feature-requesting users rather rudely in the bug trackers, some of those debates were so weird that, assuming no malevolence (power tripping, ego pumping, etc.) on the part of the developer, I can only assume that the paying corporate clients were requesting those features, that, to an “ordinary” user, were misfeatures/bugs.
I would only suggest that “feature-requesting” is a complex path unto itself.
What feature? Given a sizable amount of random voices, those features would amount to a colossal set of complexity that would be no better than the already often-misguided feature priority list included in some applications.
Further still, I’ve been hunting for an “ordinary” user for a long time. If an individual’s time spent computing in a task oriented environment, what percentage is hobby level and what percent is more specialized? Is it subject to the Pareto principle?
Again, if we simply yield to diversity we are _no_ better off than we currently are.
Various individuals have differing needs. We need extremely effective task based software targeted at specific skill levels for people of different backgrounds.
Task based computing is a complex system. No one-app-to-rule-them-all will suffice.
Focused and contextual application development might help to get the proper voices heard _and_ the outside-of-the-target voices ignored.
I stand corrected :-)
The issue clearly is quite complex.
Forgot to add that the idea you outlined sounded quite good.
Now here’s hoping some company/distribution would actually execute it.
There’s the problem, who is the target audience? Who is the software designed _for_?
Look at Gimp. It’s too complex for your casual users as evidenced by it’s removal from the stock Ubuntu install yet it’s woefully inadequate for graphics professionals. Who is it aimed at? Who do they envisage using it, and what for?
“If you do not know to which port you are sailing, no winds are favourable.”
If they defined their userbase then the people in the defined group would be able to give feedback, and as I touched upon you’d base decisions on the popularity of the request. For example if someone suggested ‘Layer Groups’ as an addition to Gimp I can bet you there would be a groundswell of support for it.
Ultimately though there is no ‘feedback community’ so it would never happen.
Lately there seems to a be a lot of posts about usability of free software (here and there) so I hope a ‘feedback community’ is an idea whose time has come.
Usability is a blind pig without heeding the words Kerberos posted.
The simple act of pressing an interface button radically changes with (1) Mouse, (2) Accessibility issues, (3) Tablet, (4) Capacitive Touch, (5) Dimensions of contextual interface, etc.
I think Kerberos nails it. It’s a huge step forward for us.
I see Krita _finally_ making strides. They are removing features and focusing in on a very specific audience. They are researching that audience using people that fit the demographic. See http://blog.cberger.net/2010/02/27/krita-meeting-2010-%E2%80%93-day-1-2/ http://blog.cberger.net/2010/03/02/the-difficult-choice-of-removing-features/
For me, it is a tremendous step forward.
Without people like you and everyone else stepping up and suggesting “Wait a minute… isn’t this pointless without an audience?”, we won’t make strides in the right direction.
Audience gives clear outlines as to what is a priority, what is valuable, what is useful, what streamlines, what clutters, etc.
It is utterly fantastic to see more and more people discussing it. Please keep doing so.
I would also like to highlight the value of three comments from Havoc Pennington from 2006.
http://www.mail-archive.com/desktop-devel-list@gnome.org/msg04377.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/desktop-devel-list@gnome.org/msg04387.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/desktop-devel-list@gnome.org/msg04403.html
Heh, I really should remember my jwz (http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html)
Thanks for the Havoc-links, they were quite enlightening.
Wow. Fantastic link.
That is precisely why I’d love to see you and people like you gather here. Without that link-in-passing, I may never have known of jwz or his most on-point posting.
Terrific.
“If you do not know to which port you are sail ing, no winds are favourable.”
I cannot stress how much this comment sums up and distills the core issue here.
And dare I say that the frustrations you cite in your post _may_ be circumvented with the application of this design principle.
It frames the complaints. It frames the praise. It gives a much clearer picture on how to deal with opinion that traditionally was discarded in the name of a bikeshed, a difference of opinion, etc.
I would also add that Brainstorm is a bloody dead path.
Without demographics and some modelling, what is the value in a blind vote up / vote down system? A democratic application / design path? Seriously?
Ask yourself how valuable those specific needs-based computing is. Think of all the CADs, the photo editors, the vinyl cutting software, the legal profession time trackers, the engineering specialty software, etc.
Now imagine how important it is subjected to a random smattering of voices? 5%? 2%? 1%? 0.1%?
Now ask yourself how important those types of fundamentally critical task based applications are to a particular audience? How much do _those_ types of specialty audience-centric applications matter to the uptake factor of a platform?
Quite a lot I’d imagine.
In a recent interview RMS did point out that CAD, for instance, is one area where free software solutions are sorely lacking.
I’d encourage you and any other anonymous commenters to register here.
We need more thinking like yours.
Thanks for stopping by.
There is one thing to keep in mind: many developers in FOSS are really scratching their own itch.
That means they have at least implicit understanding own the direction the projection should go and sometimes lack motivation to listen to user feedback.
AFAIU it is a bit like this, you start with a small tool which solves your itch, but then there are other ppl having their own ideas/patches, you might want to include and there is the problem. Either you stay focussed and keep things simple or you start adding those features, but where to stop then?
So, some developers just decide to ignore those requests and user feed back to keep their focus and we should not put blame on them so easily.
The question of whether or not Libre culture can extend past Scratch-An-Itch was talked about by Professor Michael Terry (http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/about/features/2005/terry) I believe. He cited a few studies that showed that there were elevated instances of satisfaction on the part of the developers knowing that their work was valued and useful. So on that front, I believe there is hope.
“Either you stay focussed and keep things simple or you start adding those features, but where to stop then?
So, some developers just decide to ignore those requests and user feedback to keep their focus and we should not put blame on them so easily.”
I don’t blame anyone developing at all. I sympathize with them.
Why shouldn’t they!? They are logical and intelligent folks. So when you present them with paradoxical information, why wouldn’t they simply become immobile?
This is precisely the point. Properly framing and contextualizing the core audience helps to define needs. From those needs you define priorities. From those needs you can also define what doesn’t belong in a project.
It also allows you to do it with insight, understanding, and grace.
It might genuinely allow us to exceed the unfortunate and frustrating situation Kerberos cites in this post. It is inevitably frustrating for _all_ parties involved.
My point was not that everything is Scratching-An-Itch style. But there are really great tools that just evolved this way. For sure, their developer like it when those tools are used. I guess that is why they released them as FOSS in the first place, but they may not want to go in specific directions. I think we completely agree on this.
Maybe we should discuss this in the context of a great example. When Donald Knuth wanted to write about the Art of Computer Programming, he felt he had to built TeX first. Unfortunately, TeX did not satisfy everything that many users wanted in the long run, but Knuth just declared TeX finished. Today we are using eTeX to overcome those limitations.
I think Knuth had his vision fulfilled with TeX and he did not care very much for forums, user feedback, usenet postings, etc.
So Knuth was not very much along the lines of what Kerberos would want a developer too be, I guess.
Warning: I have simplified the facts a bit in the example, but I hope it is ok for the discussion.
I suppose the question would then be “Would TeX have benefited from such an iterative / feedback process of design?”
It is an open ended question, but I can’t help but think that it is entirely possible, given a number of focused bright minds, that it would be.
To draw another analogy, if we look to the top of the top high end industrial applications such as Nuke, Maya, etc., the designs are constantly informed by the field. As such, it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of success.
Sometimes it’s a singular vision like that that is capable of making a really great product. Sometimes too much user feedback is, in fact, fatal to a project.
But I think those are rare cases. There is a type of singularity of vision that has a relatively broad audience in mind; one that has identified a specific group of people for whom a product is targeted. And with this properly described vision and a talented enough programmer/designer, great things can happen, even (or especially) when feedback is ignored.
But if someone is designing for an audience of one, then for the result to appeal to enough people to, say, be included by default in a distribution is highly unlikely.
Particularly when we are talking about ostensibly creating products for people, feedback is vital. Even if the intended audience is small, it is still larger than that one developer or team of developers.
Oh please, stop – free software developers are users and they do a better job of serving users than any Wall Street pleasing hell hole/sweat shop ever will. How can you compare the tremendous diversity of free software to the user hostile desert of non free software and conclude that users stand a better chance of getting what they want from the non free world? Perhaps I’m just not creative, but there is very little that I think of that someone has not already written and shared. Despite a clear monetary advantage to writing new features, there’s a clearer advantage to selling the same old stuff unmodified in the one size fits no one model that prevails with non free software. What makes you think that you can’t hire someone to make the feature you like if it does not already exist in free software? Believe it or not, there are actually bug bounties, fellowships and lots of other ways to get things done that the user community wants. If you don’t want to pay someone directly, you can become an associate member of the Free Software Foundation and your dues will fund many high priority projects. I’m sorry that you have not found developers willing to help you implement your wishes but there’s a lot bad attitude above that might be a turn off to the people you want to help you.
If you want some perspective, call the Microsoft support line one day and tell them you would like simple and common feature, like E16 style virtual desktops and pagers. For the low price of $50 an hour and hours of your life spent on hold, they will be happy to tell you they won’t ever do that for you, that you had better not try to add it yourself and that if you do that you may never share your changes with anyone. If people had freedom with Windows, a decade later it might become what GNU/Linux is today. First there’s years worth of malice to remove, spyware and technical sabotage of rivals that might never be undone. Once that’s cleaned up, developers could turn to fixing things and making it nice. There is so much that’s broken in the non free software world that it would be more efficient to take anything of merit out than it would be to port all of the cool features and programs lacking back in.
“How can you compare the tremendous diversity of free software to the user hostile desert of non free software and conclude that users stand a better chance of getting what they want from the non free world?”
I don’t know if there was a direct comparison here, and if there is one implied, I don’t feel it is the guts of the issue.
“free software developers are users and they do a better job of serving users than any Wall Street pleasing hell hole/sweat shop ever will.”
I’d completely agree with you on that front. But that doesn’t mean that we should accept that as a benchmark.
How can we exceed that model? How can we deliver to the diversity of needs more greatly without erupting in a volcano of flames and bikeshedding or float off into the dusty annals of decade old bug reports?
I’m betting the _starting point_ to some of those issues has something to do with defining context and scope.
I think Havoc Pennington hit the nail on the head with that one.
Instead of trying to create one desktop to fit them all, some form of a ‘modular’ desktop that is *easily*, uh, customizable for different audiences is the ticket (and I mean more customizable than just ‘rearranging panels’) Otherwise you just end up with an interface made by developers mostly for developers (lacking focus and some might say, the present situation)
This reminds me of the origins of X-Window, it was meant to define *mechanism*, not policy. That approach should be brought upwards to the desktop…but not even Havoc knew the answer to that one.
(perhaps lots more work on fd.org and then a concerted effort to define *most* of the different audiences (greatest coverage with fewest numbers would be a start) Sure we would have Ubuntu College Student ed. and Ubuntu Housewife ed. and Ubuntu Accountant ed. but if the underlying mechanisms are sound then the maintenance work shouldn’t be a barrier. Ookay…I’ll stop rambling now)
And yet again forgot to add this gem from jwz http://www.jwz.org/doc/linux.html. The point is the *last* paragraph.
I said there was no dialogue between users and developers and issued the challenge that if I was wrong that you should furnish me with examples to prove so. Instead you just regurgitated a bunch of FOSS talking points.
“Despite a clear monetary advantage to writing new features, there’s a clearer advantage to selling the same old stuff unmodified in the one size fits no one model that prevails with non free software. What makes you think that you can’t hire someone to make the feature you like if it does not already exist in free software?”
If you sell the same old stuff constantly someone else comes and eats your lunch and it’s the foundation of capitalism. The road is littered with the corpses of companies that sat on their laurels and even now Microsoft is suffering that fate (and took a large hit with ‘more of the same’ Vista).
As for hiring someone, that’s a laugh. I can put down ~£600 for Photoshop (or buy a cheap second hand license if I was really stingy) – or – pay several million pounds over several years to get the features I would require added to Gimp. Hmmmm, tough one.
As for hiring someone or even writing the code yourself, there is still one problem remaining.
Getting your code accepted.
Code contributions, no matter how good they are, sometimes just don’t get accepted because the project developer(s) doesn’t like the feature or, in the worst cases (thankfully rare, I hope), the contributor.
So in the best case the “layer groups”-feature you paid someone to write (properly) for Gimp will be happily accepted.
In the worst case it never will be because of some seemingly insensible reason.
Then you will have the patch but no-one else unless you decide to fork the whole of gimp and pay for its maintenance (yeah, right)
I think this post gets at what, imho, is the root of the biggest problem holding back the FLOSS world right now, namely that we haven’t found an effective way to integrate non-developers into the open source environment.
Or to put it another way, nobody has figured out how to allow non-developers to contribute in meaningful ways.
Once that problem is solved, I think we’ll begin to see huge strides in FLOSS w/r/t everyday users and the desktop environment.
So the main problem would be the definition of the audience. I’m not sure you are right, I’m not sure you’re wrong. OpenOffice is clearly an alternative to M$ Office suite. The audience is very clear here, if I want to write a paper I need this software. But OpenOffice is still a bloody mess, and I can’t use it. I prefer Word ! And word for Mac when I’m on a Mac !
The Gnome Desktop is quite a mess too to me. And there is no need for any audience targeting. You talk to desktop users. You want to have a panel, icons, windows and a file browser. Still, Nautilus still let icons overlaps, the file browser has strange tabs features that nobody use.
I think the more fundamental problem is that a FOSS developer don’t code for you or for me or for your mother, but for it’s own needs and satisfaction. for HIM. Free Software developing is an _egocentric_ process where the developer codes for it’s own pleasure, and I *insist* on this point (yes, coding is pretty and relaxing cool to me).
In my opinion, Free Software is a great opportunity to learn by yourself computer science. That’s a jewel in our pay-and-buy world. But don’t make any mistake here : FOSS are not Mother Teresa’s contribution to the world.
“The Gnome Desktop is quite a mess too to me. And there is no need for any audience targeting. You talk to desktop users. You want to have a panel, icons, windows and a file browser.”
Really? Are those things that we _must_ have? Are you certain?
What about removing traditional scrollbars? The iPhone did that.
What about changing the entire format of the traditional workspace? The iPad did that.
Are you willing to accept that your view is unyielding and that art and design doesn’t evolve with the paradigms of the culture? Are these sorts of changes not destined to spread further as the mental models evolve?
Are you willing to be adamant and suggest that people aren’t doing productive and creative things on an iPad or iPhone?
I certainly wouldn’t.
“Still, Nautilus still let icons overlaps, the file browser has strange tabs features that nobody use.”
Who is nobody? Seems to me you just made a vast oversimplification here again.
I’m not suggesting for a second that all is perfect here.
I’m suggesting rather that we _should_ indeed focus on audience. Who are they? What are they trying to do? How can we get them there in an emotionally compelling fashion?
I’m _precisely_ suggesting we _do_ need to think about audience for the “desktop”, whatever that is evolving into.
“That’s a jewel in our pay-and-buy world. But don’t make any mistake here : FOSS are not Mother Teresa’s contribution to the world.”
While the purpose of a single contribution may be just as you suggested, is it also not significant that the side-offshoots of those contributions are used in very culturally relevant ways?
Does the high level cryptography provided by someone’s selfish personal project not aid someone in a culture where their freedom of speech is limited, for example?
“What about removing traditional scrollbars? The iPhone did that.”
True.
But can the iPhone replace a whole computer? Could you write this whole article with an iPhone? It’s just a phone, with pretty useless apps on it. The iPhone doesn’t question the obvious need for a large screen with a desktop window.
“What about changing the entire format of the traditional workspace? The iPad did that.”
Ok, and that is what GNOME Shell is trying to do. In my opinion, they have already failed. We (geeks) are going to try it. And say : “oh, this sucks, I can’t perform daily tasks efficiently with this”. That is so obvious ! Common sense, once again.
“I’m suggesting rather that we _should_ indeed focus on audience. Who are they? What are they trying to do? How can we get them there in an emotionally compelling fashion?”
yes, it’s a good idea, but not the major problem. Because, I repeat, targeting the audience of dekstop softwares is a nonsense : they want to use there desktop efficiently, with no bugs, with icons that don’t overlaps !
The iPad is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of the iPhone.
I’d like you to seriously try and temper your discussions with logic and thinking.
Citing _one_ particular example of questionable design does not extend to all design. Is this clear? Further still, citing *your* particular thoughts on a design is one matter. Attempting to extend your thoughts on a design pattern to include *everyone* or any other superlative / absolutist view isn’t productive.
You are guessing.
“yes, it’s a good idea, but not the major problem. Because, I repeat, targeting the audience of dekstop softwares is a nonsense : they want to use there desktop efficiently, with no bugs, with icons that don’t overlaps!”
Think about what you are typing sir.
Watch how this unfolds. Define “they”.
What you will find as you engage the real world of art and design principles is that your definitions of things is indeed biased. At some point, the universal truths that govern your world may be subject to contradictory information.
I saw on your blog that you really question those definitions of art, necessity, what is clean, clear, what should be and what should not … And you’re doing it well. Congratulation.
But I’m not a philosopher, even if I like to practice, to question the definitions. I’m a programmer. My main goal is to think like a basic user does, to put my thoughts away, to think as he would think when he grab it’s keyboard and stares in front of the screen. Then, I start to code. I put things in my program, I retrieve others, and always, I’m trying to think as a basic desktop user (if I program a desktop software of course).
I’m not guessing. I’m pointing a (fragil, temporary) truth.
Desktop users (you, me , your parents, friends, whoever !) want to use their computer efficiently. And if you don’t know what they want exactly, you do know what they don’t want: to loose their time understanding a complex UI.
That’s my mainline. If you doubt I’m right, question the people around you. Ask them: “what do you want from your computer when you plug it on?”. I’ve done this. With various people around me. In various softwares development. Because it’s my job, my role.
I’ve questioned my family, my friends, my colleagues, my teachers … all of them just are human beings. As M. Shuttleworth said. I’ve nothing to ad to this.
Once again, I’m not telling you’re wrong. I’m just saying that we should more care about making what’s needed now _good_ before thinking about other “revolutionary” ideas such as GNOME Shell.
Can you understand this ?
“I’m a programmer. My main goal is to think like a basic user does, to put my thoughts away, to think as he would think when he grab it’s keyboard and stares in front of the screen.”
I fear that your attitudes and opinions are _precisely_ the thinking that is holding us back.
You are making assumption. You are letting your own _personal_ and _subjective_ view skew your perspective.
While that might sound radical, consider the following examples.
Does religion play into need? If you value your religion enough, does it influence your choices and desire in terms of designed objects?
http://www.uigarden.net/english/global-market-global-emotion-global-design
Time is another relative thing. There is a growing body of research to suggest that language has an impact on it. Does a right to left language alter your perspective of paradigms? Should a progress bar go from left to right or top to bottom?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11487292
With only two simple examples, I wonder if you are comfortable knowing all of this knowledge you so adamantly believe in.
You have already been conclusively proven wrong on your guess about science as Mr. Schaefer has illustrated below. Could you be wrong about other things too?
What does that tell us about how effectively you are performing “your job” and “your role”?
“But OpenOffice is still a bloody mess, and I can’t use it. I prefer Word ! And word for Mac when I’m on a Mac !”
I think you mistake being accustomed with usability. I used StarOffice back in the days (1998 or so) and never touched Word at all and I found Word an unusable mess, when I had to use it later.
Designwise there are some very clear lines in the OpenOffice interface that are superior to Microsoft Office, for instance the dialogs to change object sizes, printing, etc. Yes, the MS Office 2008 UI for Mac is really nice, but isn’t it just, what KOffice has had for years?
Other then that: FOSS is much more than just the playground for computer science students. Major scientific enterprises wouldn’t be possible without FOSS. This is not only about replacing MS Office or Windows: there are things like Matlab or SPSS which are extremely expensive, but necessary tools for scientists, which have more than equal open source alternatives in GNU Octave and GNU R.
Let me finish, with another thought on this: would the Internet be what it is today, without FOSS? I doubt!
“Major scientific enterprises wouldn’t be possible without FOSS”
That is just untrue. Do you think they would just sit down and do nothing if they had no opensource softs? They would (and do) pay to obtain closed-source softs. Research has a lot of money, the problem isn’t here.
“Let me finish, with another thought on this: would the Internet be what it is today, without FOSS? I doubt!”
Clearly no. But that’s not the article point. it’s about targeting audience.
“Do you think they would just sit down and do nothing if they had no opensource softs? They would (and do) pay to obtain closed-source softs. Research has a lot of money, the problem isn’t here.”
That is not the case in my personal experience or that I have ever heard of. But I am only a scientist for about ten years now. So I guess you know this much better than me.
To be quite clear. There is no problem buying a Windows PC or Microsoft Office, but special scientific software is sometimes very expensive and not all researchers have that money to their disposition.
I am quite keen to hear what your experience is that lead you to this statement.
OK, I admit I was wrong about science. You need FOSS, and I talked without knowing.
Still, I think we should focus on the main point of the topic : developers & users’ feedback in the FOSS development.
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