Coercing users is *never* a good idea [Unless they already expect perfection] [LWN.net]

Coercing users is never a good idea [Unless they already expect perfection]

Posted Jun 8, 2006 15:50 UTC (Thu) by smoogen (subscriber, #97)
In reply to: Coercing users is *never* a good idea by bjanz
Parent article: Putting a lid on USB power

The issue is that Linux will get the blame either way. The following is a real world example.

We had a user who had an external USB drive that got its power off of his laptop along with his keyboard, mouse and LED light so he could work on his red-eye flights on the plane etc. His data got corrupted on the USB drive and it was Linux's fault. Turns out that his data had been corrupted regularly on his Windows side.. but he had come to expect that as a standard Windows bug. Turns out that we had a whole class of users who had been having the same problem with their windows systems, but had found it to be a known bug for the USB drive and just took it as an oh-well. It only became a 'known problem' to central support once Linux started corrupting data.

So, if your data is corrupted on your remote USB drive in Windows because it couldnt get enough power.. well thats what 99% of the world has come to expect of Windows. If you have that happen under Linux.. it is Linux's fault because it is supposed to be better.

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