[sf-lug] [LINUX USER QUESTIONAIRE] Linux growth

[Edward Janne]

On Jul 30, 2009, at 6:10 PM, Rick Moen wrote:

> Quoting Edward Janne (tigakub at mac.com):
>
>> Would you help me rephrase my questions to avoid lending the
>> impression that I have a zero-sum proprietary-OS mindset? I'm not
>> entirely sure what I have said to lead you to believe that.
>
> It's sort of inherent in the underlying assumption that levels of
> "adoption of the platform" and the "user base growing fast enough"
> are significant concerns, in the first place.  (If you can't see that,
> then I'm sorry, but we're probably not going to get anywhere.)
>
> We get that from people all the time, generally leading to a polite
> "You're new here, right?" reaction. ;->  E.g.:
>
>  Newcomer:  "We all need to go out and convince all new and novice
>  computer users to use Firefox."
>
>  Us:  "Why?  How's that good for us, except in a very general sense of
>  slightly promoting W3C standards?"
>
>  Newcomer:  "Bringing in hordes of new users would help Firefox
>  development."
>
>  Us:  "Sorry, I can't see how."
>
>  Newcomer:  "It'll help the code by resulting in a great deal more bug
>  reports."
>
>  Us:  "Deluging the Firefox team with badly conceived and probably
>  useless bug reports, not to mention probably misdirected helpdesk
>  requests, would not be helping the project.  Probably a lot more
>  like hurting it severely."
>
>  Newcomer:  "More mindshare would better motivate the developers to  
> do a
>  good job."
>
>  Us:  "Again, I can't see it.  Developers are already motivated to  
> do a
>  good job.  Why would their knowledge that there are suddenly a couple
>  million more users particularly inspire them?  Doesn't make sense."
>
>  Newcomer:  "It'd result in more resources being available to the
>  coders."
>
>  Us:  "Excuse me, but how does that work?  It's not like there's some
>  fixed-size pool of money, and it's apportioned among Firefox, MSIE,
>  Opera, Safari, Konqueror, and others according to userbase share.
>  The people who get paid are typically getting paid on some other  
> basis
>  entirely, especially in the case of the open source codebases."
>
> I swear I've had that exact conversation on mailing lists and  
> newsgroups
> about a dozen times (though I might be omitting some of the obligatory
> non-sequitur arguments).
>
>
>
>> For the purposes of my paper, would you mind going into more detail
>> about how one would become a process thinker?
>
> Pretty much the same way one gets to Carnegie Hall.  (I trust you know
> the joke.)
>
>
> It helps to concentrate for a while on actually figuring out problems,
> as opposed to just asking other people for the answers -- and I'm not
> calling particular attention to the fact that you've been rather
> steadfastly doing the latter and not the former since your arrival,  
> here.
> Rather, that's my intent to squarely answer your question as posed.
>
> Often, the first step is to think to yourself "How would I determine  
> the
> answer to that question?" For example:  When I was a boy, I started
> having some seasonal allergies (to what exactly was never clear).
> People would come up and say "Do you have a cold?"
>
> For quite a while, that question bothered me in a fundamental way,  
> but I
> couldn't quite put my finger on why.  Then, one day, upon being asked
> that question, I suddenly thought: "How would I know?"
>
> In other words, having a runny nose logically means _either_ that one
> encountered an irritant (peeling an onion, whatever) _or_ is having an
> allergic attack, _or_ is coming down with a cold.  So, logically, if
> someone asks you if you have a cold, your first reaction really  
> ought to
> be:  How would one determine the answer to that question?   Is there a
> process by which one can disambiguate those possibilities, either
> zeroing in on one as the confirmed cause or managing to eliminate the
> others as candidates?  How do you know you aren't _both_ having an
> allergic reaction to (e.g.) cat dander or ragweed pollen _and_ coming
> down with a cold?
>
> It turns out, those are often extremely difficult questions to answer,
> so within reason there is often no way to properly answer the original
> question.
>
> Basically, it's a rather silly question -- which becomes obvious if  
> you
> think "process", and apparently isn't if you don't.
>
>
>
>> If Linux is a good operating system, I would think everyone would  
>> like
>> to see it more widely recognized and used, not because of mindless
>> brand loyalty, but because it can benefit society.
>
> Sure, in a very general and low-priority sense, that's possibly the
> case, except that it's rather ridiculous to suggest that Linux isn't
> "widely recognised" post-1998, and it's extremely available for use by
> people wanting it, so in general I have thousands of higher priorities
> than making sure it's "more widely recognized and used".  For that
> matter, making sure it's "used" sounds rather obnoxiously pushy:
> It will be "used" to the extent that people find it useful.  My
> attempting to _make_ it be used seems, on the face of it, to be
> somewhere between rude and pointless, depending on how.
>
> Besides, who says Linux is "a good operating system"?  Good for what?
> (Again, that is thinking in _process_ terms.)  Isn't it a question
> of utility, that what's good for one person in his/her particular
> circumstances would be terrible for another?  Why would I want to go
> about convincing people that Linux is categorically "good", when  
> that is
> obviously not the case?
>
>> Also, can you help me understand how repeatedly belittling someone  
>> who
>> is honestly seeking to understand the Linux community is  
>> constructive?
>
> Can you understand that peppering us with a series of rather poorly
> thought out questions in our own community forum, taking over that  
> forum
> to get us to help you do your homework, is not at all endearing?  Can
> you get, belatedly, my broad hint that your bothering to do a bit of
> looking around on your own would save a great deal of time for you and
> for everyone else?
>
>> Is it some kind of hazing ritual?
>
> Are you having sense-of-entitlement problems?
>
> Is this entire conversation going to devolve to questions?
>
>
>
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Thank you for your very pointed response. It would have sufficed to  
simply ask me to stop. you needn't have taken so much of your valuable  
time with your hint that I was obviously too obtuse to get. Thank you  
for pointing out one more of my deficiencies.

For what it's worth, your responses have given me a lot of data to  
work with. They have been very informative if not entirely pleasant to  
read.

As for the hazing question, it was mainly earnest. I thought you might  
be giving me a hard time to see how persistent I would be. I now see  
that I was wrong and that you simply do not want me here. I respect  
that.

-edj