Fwd: Re: Application duplication (was: Re: cdbakeoven)

[Waldo Bastian]

On Saturday 20 April 2002 04:54 am, Marc Mutz wrote:
> Sorry, I have to disagree.
>
> Free software is also about choice.
> Unix and particularly Linux have always been about choice. Forcing one
> program on the user is just what Windows does. Let the user decide what she
> wants to use. There's improvement possible in the way that the different
> programs doing essentially one task are presented to the user, but "fixing"
> this by throwing away the choice is the wrong way. Many people really hate
> windows because it doesn't let them do what they want to do.
>
> I understand that the "power user" can always go to apps.kde.org and fetch
> another package. But the fact is that most people don't bother, nonetheless
> they explore their new system thoroughly. They try various screensavers and
> stick with the one they like best. They try various browsers and stick with
> the one they like best (or use them interchangeably). Forcing a particular
> selection of apps without intersection in functionality just dumbs users
> down to the point of accepting what they are presented.
>
> Another point is: You _can't_ really steer free software developers. Some
> try it, some even succeed. But KDE has always been a project where there
> was _no_ steering at the top level. I think we agree that it should stay
> like this. But that means that you simply cannot prevent the random
> developer from writing the 20th irc frontend. If you want to persuade
> developers to work on the included apps, then probably the 20th irc
> forntend will not be written. But it's questionable at best whether the
> particular developer then stays with KDE.
>
> I agree that having four CD burning programs in the distribution is ugly.
> But that's an extreme and they're there to fight for the favour of the
> users, AFAIU. One or two will win. Keep them. The rest goes back to where
> they came from. There will never be new, groundbreaking concepts developed
> if there is no prospect of inclusion into KDE proper.
>
> A good example is the treemap widget. It now more or less vegetates outside
> of KDE CVS and no-one makes use of it. There are many scenarios where such
> a intuitive visualization tool could come in handy (not the least of which
> is Konqueror), but because it was decided that it's not going to be in
> KDElibs, since it was considered too special, these use cases are not
> exploited. This serves as an example of the fact that if an app isn't in
> KDE CVS, it's never going to accumulate more than a tiny share of users.
>
> To summarize:
> - - Reducing choice dumbs down the user to the state of consumers.
> - - If you lift the barrier for inclusion into KDE CVS, we will loose
>   developers. But we need _more_ of them, not less.
>
> Marc

I couldn't have said it better.

Cheers,
Waldo
-- 
bastian at kde.org  |   SuSE Labs KDE Developer  |  bastian at suse.com