[LAU] [LAD] So what do you think sucks about Linux audio ?

[david]

On 02/05/2013 10:58 AM, Rui Nuno Capela wrote:

>> In other words, software on Linux is usually developer-driven, not
>> user-driven. And this constructs a totally different community and
>> attitude and method of communication. Linux, at its core, is an
>> operating system for developers, for people who want to write their own
>> stuff.
>
> it just happens that i do eat my own dogfood, so maybe i count as
> separate as a dev and as a user? :)

Both, but you're not your typical user. You've been developing your 
excellent "dogfood" for years to match your taste preferences - which 
may or may not really align with those of a non-developer. Or at least 
with a regular user who hasn't had your dogfood before and doesn't have 
your extensive experience with it to get them through the learning 
process. Or a regular user who's coming from a comparable program that 
simply does things differently.

Self-selection is a fundamental thing in open source. It's a fundamental 
strength, and a fundamental weakness.

It's a strength in that motivated, passionate developers and users form 
a community around a product, guiding its development and maintaining 
everyone's motivation. Even helping fund things!

It's a fundamental weakness in that developers and users who don't like 
the way a product does things or is being developed, self-select OUT by 
choosing another product. They may even be subtly or not so subtly 
encouraged to leave: "You don't like the way the program does things? 
Then why don't you just go away and use something else?".

So - over time - a product's community comes to consist of people who 
like the product, like how it works, think that's the way things should 
work, complain when someone posts an idea that would change how things 
are done, etc. (BTW, I'm one of that kind of community member.) So 
whatever quirks the product began with are amplified, even become set in 
stone, are angrily defended by community members when "outsiders" say it 
makes no sense to do something in a way that may be completely, 
inscrutably and seemingly-irrationally different from the way every 
other similar program (or even common usability standard) does it.

(Yes, JPilot - just why DID you decide to use the common UI standard 
ctrl-z UNDO key to bring up the dialog box for entering the user's Palm 
OS password???? Is that really more useful than an UNDO function? I've 
been using JPilot for ages, have never used a password on my Palm Pilot, 
and I still hit ctrl-z expecting it to be UNDO!)

No offense intended, maybe I'm just getting old and crotchety. Newer 
ain't always better - but the old ways aren't always best, either.

-- 
David
gnome at hawaii.rr.com
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/