[OT Humor] "Obviously designed by morons"

[James McKenzie]

On 4/12/11 9:45 AM, Tim wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-04-12 at 08:18 -0700, James McKenzie wrote:
>> Sad to say, but if we want 'Joe Average User' to use Linux, we are
>> going to have to dumb it down.
> Who says *we* want that to happen, or even *they* want that to happen?
> Is that actually a goal?  When did it become a goal to aim for Linux
> being just another consumer product?
It is not the *AIM* for Linux to be a consumer product but to penetrate 
MORE of the desktop marketplace.  Android, which is just a modified 
Linux, is beating its competition, iOS and Windows Mobile.  And it has a 
'fancy' interface to boot.  Nothing says that 'under the hood' has to be 
changed, just the HID (GUI) so that folks will not shoot themselves in 
the foot.  Yes, those of us who 'grew up' with Linux are going to be 
upset, but we learned, sometimes from very bad incidents, what not to do.
> Is it even an achievable goal, or even a desirable thing to attempt to
> do?  History has shown that when you dumb down computers to the point
> where stupid people can use them, they do stupid things with them.
This is very true.  It drove the folks absolutely crazy when Windows95 
came out at most technical support lines.  The running joke about the 
guy breaking off the coffee cup holder is just the tip of the iceberg.  
Most folks are now more computer savvy but they don't want to have to 
deal with 'tweaking' their system just to get it to start.  I come from 
the old CLI days (mouse what is that thing).  However, most of my 
computer using 'buddies' cannot remember the days before Windows98SE.

> Why does everything have to get dragged down to that level?  There's no
> point in being another Windows clone, just use Windows if you want that
> level of crap.
>
They don't want an OS that they have to reboot everyday.  I use a Mac, 
with MacOSX.  The Cocoa interface is just a cover for a very modified 
and hardened version of FreeBSD.  The same could be done for Linux and 
it looks like it is in progress.  Those of us who know how to use the 
CLI will not be inhibited from crashing our systems (and I build Wine on 
my Mac, so I have to know a thing or two about the CLI.)

> Good grief, I use Linux, and so do many others, precisely because we
> don't want to use crap like Windows.  It's not just an issue of the
> dollar cost of using it, but the huge amount of time wasting Windows
> inflicts upon you, the unstableness, it shooting itself in the foot, the
> sheer and utter stupidity of its design basis.
>
So, if I change the front door to my house, does that mean the toilet 
stops working and I have to change my stove from Natural Gas to 
Electric?  No.  That is all Gnome/KDE are.  Front Doors.  You may have 
to learn to use a different key and maybe it is sealed a little better, 
but you still have available all of the little goodies behind the 
scenes.  If this were not true, a lot of folks would have abandoned 
Ubuntu/RH/Debian when KDE 4 was released.  They did not and more folks 
have come to use Linux.  Of course the fact that we have more powerful 
machines means that more things have moved to Graphics vice CLI.  
However, the CLI tools should still exist just in case that wonderful 
front door will not unlock.

> If you want an example of what not to do with computing, Windows is
> *the* example of the worst possible way that you could ever do it.
> Don't copy it.
>
Windows was a really bad way to throw a graphical interface onto a very 
broken operating system that was stolen in the first place.  The folks 
on the Gnome and KDE projects have been working on just adding a HID GUI 
for a long, long time.  They have not tried to change the kernel, which 
was needed for WindowsNT and its ilk.  I don't see this as a 'deal 
breaker' for Linux, I see it as a way to get more folks off of a broken 
OS and onto an OS that actually can run more than a day or two without 
serious breakage.

BTW, you can change the front door on your Linux system or choose to 
break a hole in the wall if you wish (run no GUI at all), not so with 
Windows.

James McKenzie