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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday December 26 2017, @07:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the interesting-viewpoints dept.

Joseph Graham has written a very short blog post about software freedom and the direction we might take to achieve it.

The free software movement, founded in the 80s by Richard Stallman and supported by the Free Software Foundations 1, 2, 3, 4, preaches that we need software that gives us access to the code and the copyright permissions to study, modify and redistribute. While I feel this is entirely true, I think it's not the best way to explain Free Software to people.

I think the problem we have is better explained more like this:

"Computer technology is complicated and new. Education about computers is extremely poor among all age groups. Technology companies have taken advantage of this lack of education to brainwash people into accepting absurd abuses of their rights."

Source : The Free Software movement is Barking up the wrong tree


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:25PM (12 children)

    by Appalbarry (66) on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:25PM (#614417) Journal

    "Computer technology is complicated and new. Education about computers is extremely poor among all age groups. Technology companies have taken advantage of this lack of education to brainwash people into accepting absurd abuses of their rights."

    I'll grant you the second sentence (in bold) but the first is utter nonsense. General use computers have been ubiquitous for several decades, and with smart phones are nearly universal. "Complicated" ceased to be true around the launch of the Mac and Windows. Pretty much anyone today can sit down in front a GUI computer and make it do what they need. The point is that well designed technology doesn't require people to understand the guts of how it works.

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:28PM (6 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:28PM (#614420) Homepage Journal

    Coders should ask their aged grandmothers to test their UI

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tftp on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:59PM (5 children)

      by tftp (806) on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:59PM (#614437) Homepage
      Depends on the intended circle of users. The GUI of Photoshop is complex enough to repel most grannies, and still it is good and efficient in hands of a professional.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:25PM (4 children)

        by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:25PM (#614454)

        It needs to make sense to a graphics professional because it is well designed for a graphics professional though, not necessarily to someone who is a professional user of that specific software, which just means they're used to the bad UI. I see a lot of people confuse the concepts.

        Case in point: Dwarf Fortress has a terrible UI. Fans are good with it, but it's definitely not because it is intuitive to anyone besides people used to Dwarf Fortress.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:07PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @11:07PM (#614485)

          Yup.
          I've got an item in the Pending Stories queue about Cadsoft EAGLE.
          ISTM that it was first developed under DOS.
          It has a noun-verb UI (where Windoze and other modern GUIs have a verb-noun syntax).

          New users find EAGLE to be bass-ackwards.
          Folks who have used it for a while have gotten used to it and forget to mention that weirdness when they recommend it to newbies looking for an ECAD.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:27AM (2 children)

            by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:27AM (#614651) Journal

            GUIs have a syntax? How so?

            --
            The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:49AM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @11:49AM (#614694)

              Sure. Pull-down menus for example.
              You have to click Edit, or View, or Search (verbs) before you can make another choice.

              In EAGLE, you have to specify what object(s) you want the action to affect before you select a verb.

              -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

              • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:12PM

                by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @02:12PM (#614739) Journal

                Let's see. I want to copy text. I select the text (object), and then I select "Copy" (verb) from the menu. Doesn't fit your description, does it?

                --
                The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:46PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:46PM (#614430)

    I'll grant you the second sentence (in bold) but the first is utter nonsense.

    It's not. Most people can use Facebook and Microsoft Office, but they can't do anything even remotely complex. Education about computers is very poor, and you must have a very low bar to think otherwise.

    The point is that well designed technology doesn't require people to understand the guts of how it works.

    A total lack of understanding of the details about how computers work is kind of a hindrance when you're trying to explain source code and Free Software.

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:42PM (1 child)

      by Gaaark (41) on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:42PM (#614463) Journal

      My wife is considered the 'tech' person at her school because she knows enough to wiggle or push in the mouse connection to the computer if the mouse stops working.....but ask her to open up a tab in her browser and wtf?

      She still uses the click the link then click the back button to go forwards and back on pages. Tab? Nope, even though I've explained it takes less time.

      Oh well, at least the young kids have learned at least this much.

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:31AM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @08:31AM (#614654) Journal

        I use tabs a lot, and yet I often do use the click link/back button interface (well, except that instead of using the button, I use the keyboard shortcut). Because in some cases it simply is the most efficient. And in the rare cases where I misjudged and find only afterwards that I want to have both open at the same time, I simply duplicate the tab before going back.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 26 2017, @09:02PM (#614441)

    Any technology that is mere decades old compared to centuries or millenia old really is new. Even the word technology hails from Ancient Greek, that is from 9000 BCE. This newness of computers is reflected by the poor understanding of them by politicians and the general public. To the vast majority of people computers like all other technology are but magical artefacts, complete black boxes of wonder to them. People have no idea how they work and sadly no interest in finding out despite our modern society entirely depends on computers. Using a computer (GUI) has very little to do with understanding how computers work and other tightly related issues, such as copyright and patents. People are lazy and dumb. Those qualities will make us all suffer.

  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:25PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:25PM (#614771) Journal

    "Computer technology is complicated and new. Education about computers is extremely poor among all age groups. Technology companies have taken advantage of this lack of education to brainwash people into accepting absurd abuses of their rights."

    I'll grant you the second sentence (in bold) but the first is utter nonsense. General use computers have been ubiquitous for several decades, and with smart phones are nearly universal. "Complicated" ceased to be true around the launch of the Mac and Windows. Pretty much anyone today can sit down in front a GUI computer and make it do what they need. The point is that well designed technology doesn't require people to understand the guts of how it works.

    Being able to use a computer is not the same as being educated about computers. And the fact that the UI can be made simple does not mean the technology driving it is not complicated.

    Sure, any idiot can use a smartphone. But unless you know how that device actually works, you aren't going to be able to effectively protect your rights while using that device. *That* is the education that is missing. If you don't understand the functional, technical difference between online speech processors like Siri compared to offline ones like Dragon NaturallySpeaking, then you can't understand the privacy or reliability implications of choosing one over the other. Instead, you're going to pick the one that costs less, or the one that's more popular, or the one that works best in some limited demo. And when the servers are shut down, or your personal information leaks, or your license gets revoked, or it fails because your internet went down...you won't know why it failed, and you won't know how to do anything about it. Because you don't understand the technology, you've just been trained to use a specific interface pushed by a specific company.