The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story (catb.org)
The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story (catb.org)
Posted Feb 27, 2004 12:37 UTC (Fri) by mwh (guest, #582)Parent article: The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story (catb.org)
Hey, I just posted this to Ars Technica's forum! Let's post it here too...
I think the various rants and counter rants are slightly missing the point.
Configuration is always a major pain in the ass. It's been a long time since I've used it, but I don't recall setting up Windows networking being something you do for fun.
The goal is to not have to do configuration. Get an iBook. Select "Automatic" from the location menu. Plug the ethernet cable in. Access the 'net. That's user friendly. The crime is writing software that has to be configured before it's usable.
Unfortunately, printing is a hard area to make it go away in. Rendevous?
Posted Feb 27, 2004 21:02 UTC (Fri)
by mmarq (guest, #2332)
[Link]
Right... thats the common user point of view. But it can also be the opposite to the best solution to a programming problem point of view... and the principal concern of the Open Source developer paradigma is the technical solution for the problem, not ist interface... Example: 2)... find a spooler and driver interface mechanism that could 3)... find several interfaces for different raster engines, 4)... created the user interface that users could use to install
" Get an iBook. Select "Automatic" from the location menu. Plug the ethernet cable in. Access the 'net. That's user friendly "The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story (catb.org)
Problem: 1)...find a way to print over the internet, well integrated in
WAN areas, to the point that networked printers alone could
replace the old fax infrastructure.
Solution:- IPP was created
work with the new protocol
Solution:- CUPS and Fomatic were created
filters etc.
Solution:- Ghostscript was improved and others print tools were created.
and configure this superior printing mechanism.
Solution:- PrintDrake is getting excelent
So i could not see how could have been possible to start with nº 4) and get to a good nº 1.
Its obviously "insane" to even "sketch" define 4) if you dont have a clue of how 1) is going to be... at least is very obvious to me, and i'm not really a programmer , or at lest i dont consider myself one.