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posted by martyb on Monday December 17 2018, @11:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-don't-see-what-you-did-there dept.

PLEX, this last week pushed out changes to its ROKU users (I am one). That made using PLEX nearly impossible for some people. Light and Dark gray color palate. White text on light gray background, to the point of the PLEX 1/4 screen height logo and spinning-working throbber being lost on the background.

So war ensues... See Plex.tv support forums if you must.

My question to you all, "What is TECH's responsibility to the Handicapped?".

Should good TECH also have a backdoor method allowing those with usability issues to still use the product, when TECH changes directions? What about lifetime pre-paid services that are now unusable? Should there be immediate return of funds, so we can buy the second best solution (now the best choice for us)? Should any change be signed off by a third party auditor to insure continued usability?

So again, asked differently, what is TECH's moral responsibility?


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  • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:17PM (8 children)

    by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 18 2018, @08:17PM (#776020)

    Oh please. If Open Source is so great, why is Gnome so moronic? Have they checked behind their couch cushions yet to figure out where they misplaced their missing maximize button yet?

    The problem is that developers no longer care about what the user wants or needs. They only care about what is convenient for them.

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  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 19 2018, @06:55PM (7 children)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday December 19 2018, @06:55PM (#776432) Journal

    Oh please. If Open Source is so great, why is Gnome so moronic?

    Because the people who don't like it don't use it. Open source gives you that choice. Some people hated Gnome so they jumped to KDE or XFCE or Enlightenment or whatever. Other people hated Gnome so they forked it and kept maintaining the older version. Other people hated Gnome so they contributed patches to change what they didn't like. The parent comment didn't say open source was perfect; they said it gives you freedom. Nobody is trying to force you to use that atrocious Fischer-Price UI if you don't want to.

    • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:28PM (6 children)

      by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 19 2018, @09:28PM (#776543)

      That's true, except for when they can't for whatever reason. Just because there is the *theoretical* possibility of freedom, doesn't mean it happens in reality. You have the exact same "freedom" in the closed source world as you do in the open. Don't like Word? Use Word Pro. Or DocsToGo. Or Google docs.

      Also, I used gnome as an example, but there are plenty of others. For example, I've discovered a very frustrating thing where Linux just won't pipe audio through HDMI. It just won't. I have a zbox and a gigabyte laptop. Same problem on both. I've tried 4 or so different distributions. Same problem. Dunno what the problem is. Bug in PulseAudio? Bad hardware detection? I spent several hours trying to figure it out to no avail. All I know is that if I boot Windows, it works but if I boot Linux, it doesn't.

      So as an end user, what would you have me do? Because I am technical, I *could* try ripping out PulseAudio and replacing it with ALSA. Hell, I could try installing slackware and building up my system bit by bit, package by package. But you know what Fuck that. I have a family and a mortgage, and a job that's a higher priority for me than figure out why "Linux" still hasn't figured out how to play nicely with technology that is now almost 2 decades old. Maybe Open Source doesn't cost me money, but it sure in hell costs me time, which is just as valuable.

      The parent tried to claim that closed source will "screw you" and open source won't. My point is that there is nothing preventing you from getting screwed by Open Source software as well. The only difference is the method in which the screwing occurs.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @11:37AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20 2018, @11:37AM (#776761)

        You have the exact same "freedom" in the closed source world as you do in the open.

        You don't know what free software means, do you? That's OK but please do educate yourself before speaking up. PLEASE.

        • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:34PM

          by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:34PM (#776940)

          I understand it just fine, TYVM. My point, which the GP is too arrogant to acknowledge, is that from an end user perspective software freedom means absolutely nothing because they don't have the skill to capitalize on it.

          To an end user, moving from Word to LibreOffice, or LibreOffice to Abiword, is no different than moving from Word to Google Docs.

          This is the massive white elephant in the room that OSS folks seem to go out of their way to ignore. It's not good enough to just write software. You have to think about the audience that you are writing that software for.

      • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:20PM (3 children)

        by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday December 20 2018, @01:20PM (#776786) Journal

        That's true, except for when they can't for whatever reason. Just because there is the *theoretical* possibility of freedom, doesn't mean it happens in reality. You have the exact same "freedom" in the closed source world as you do in the open. Don't like Word? Use Word Pro. Or DocsToGo. Or Google docs.

        Yeah, if you ignore the DEFINING FEATURE, if you ignore the things that make them different, then of course they look the same!

        Switching to a different program is one solution, and it's a very easy one so it's the one most people tend to take. But it's not the only option. My point was merely that these compatible alternatives only exist because the original was open source. What's your alternative to Windows, ReactOS? Good luck using that for anything significant...

        But the only thing preventing you from fixing your issue is that you clearly don't think it's worth your time to do so. If it was a big enough problem for you, you would get it fixed. Unlike proprietary software, you can do that yourself. You don't have to go beg some company to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in modifying their software just for you. You can write the code yourself, and you can learn how to do that just by surfing the web...or you can hire someone to do it for you if you don't have the time or inclination.

        Freedom doesn't mean you're never going to have a problem. It just means that when you DO have a problem, you have plenty of options to resolve it. The side effect is that you also get a ton of examples of how other people have solved similar problems, and often one of those solutions will be suitable. Sometimes it isn't and you've gotta go your own way. With open source, that's possible. With proprietary software, all you can do is follow corporate.

        And FWIW, I've had some minor issues with Linux distros in the past where I couldn't get them to STOP outputting audio through HDMI, so it's certainly possible. But then after a few hours I found the setting and fixed it, so I haven't used that particular feature in maybe three years now...you wouldn't happen to be using an NVidia card, would you?

        • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:20PM (2 children)

          by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:20PM (#776924)

          That's all well and good, but the ONLY reason I have the option of fixing the issue is because I am technical. If I wasn't technical, then what would my option be?

          My point is that from an average end-user perspective, having software freedom is completely meaningless if all the options suck equally and I don't have the skill to evaluate and/or fix the differences that are relevant to me.

          And yes, my laptop has one of those Nvidia Optimus abominations where the connections crisscross between the dedicated GTX1070 and the integrated intel-whatever chip. And I can't use the Nouveau driver because the whole OS locks up on boot when I try so I have to disable it on boot and install the Nvidia blob. But I have to use the out of date one that comes from the Ubuntu PPA because installing the Nvidia provided one breaks everything.

          But the zbox I'm using as a media centre has only the intel chip and has the same problem. In that case I ended up saying hell with it and just used the SPDIF instead.

          • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:58PM (1 child)

            by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday December 20 2018, @07:58PM (#776948) Journal

            That's all well and good, but the ONLY reason I have the option of fixing the issue is because I am technical. If I wasn't technical, then what would my option be?

            Already answered that one:

            You can write the code yourself, and you can learn how to do that just by surfing the web...or you can hire someone to do it for you if you don't have the time or inclination.

            None of us are born "technical". I taught myself how to program in sixth grade by reading tutorials on cplusplus.com. Anyone can do the same. Or hire someone else who did.

            And yes, my laptop has one of those Nvidia Optimus abominations where the connections crisscross between the dedicated GTX1070 and the integrated intel-whatever chip. And I can't use the Nouveau driver because the whole OS locks up on boot when I try so I have to disable it on boot and install the Nvidia blob. But I have to use the out of date one that comes from the Ubuntu PPA because installing the Nvidia provided one breaks everything.

            Yup. My laptop's got an NVidia card and I had similar driver issues. First and last NVidia product I will ever buy. The proprietary driver sucks because NVidia doesn't give a damn, and the open source driver isn't fully functional because NVidia doesn't give a damn.

            Never heard of the zbox before though, that looks like an interesting device....quite surprising that you're having that kind of issue with an Intel card. Of course, you probably wouldn't have these issues if you used an open standard instead of a proprietary one like HDMI...that thing is *designed* to break your connectivity. ;)

            Seriously though...I'm sure you could fix it with enough googling and maybe a couple forum posts...Pulseaudio is a bit obnoxious (of course it is, it's Poettering crap...) and it tries to hide shit from you, so you've gotta find someone who knows where to look to figure out the issue. Or you can just use a different connector, as you already did, because it gives you that flexibility and that's a much lazier solution. :)

            But once again, nobody said it was easy, just that it gives you freedom. You know what would make life pretty damn easy? Being locked in a padded cell. Don't have to get a job, don't have to pay your bills, don't have to worry about a single damn thing. But is that really all that matters? Is it better to be a child and simply do whatever your parents say, or is it better to be an adult and make your own damn choices -- and deal with your own consequences too?

            • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday December 20 2018, @09:12PM

              by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 20 2018, @09:12PM (#776970)

              Is it better to be a child and simply do whatever your parents say, or is it better to be an adult and make your own damn choices -- and deal with your own consequences too?

              If I get a cookie with that, I would be seriously tempted. After the last couple days I've had, I could really really use a cookie. :P

              The problem with HDMI is that it's now effectively ubiquitous. It's exceedingly difficult to find something that *isn't* HDMI. So we're basically SOL regardless.

              You can write the code yourself, and you can learn how to do that just by surfing the web...or you can hire someone to do it for you if you don't have the time or inclination.

              You omitted the one option that most people invariably pick. Throw their hands up in the air, claim that this is crap, and walk away to look for something that does do what they want.

              Depending on what the issue is, sometimes it's just not worth solving. For example, with this Nvidia issue, my solution is to say, "hell with it" and have Windows installed on a separate partition. I don't need audio /w HDMI often enough to justify the time I would need to spend solving the issue. At some point if I'm bored I may try just for the sake of solving it, but at this point I can't return the device and get my money back, so the work around is good enough to keep me going.

              With the ZBox, threw my hands up in the air because I already had a tiresome day and I didn't want to dick around with temperamental hardware. I just wanted to unwind with a movie and a glass of wine. Of course, if I did the same thing today I'd probably just use a raspberry Pi now since it's now performant enough to do so. (Oh wait, even THAT uses HDMI.... >_ )

              It's really unfortunate that Nvidia's head is shoved so far that it turned itself into a Klein bottle, but if I want a laptop that can play fancier games (I like Skyrim, sorry not sorry...), then to my knowledge there is no other option. Intel performance is crap for anything other than powerpoint presentations, and last I checked, AMD has not only virtually zero laptop presence but their drivers are crap too.

              (Or I can go Apple and spend $5000 on $1000 worth of hardware, yadda yadda)

              ...what were we talking about again?