Re: T1 or fractional T1 vendors in MA?

["Robert Krawitz-2" <user=69@nabble.blu.org>]

    Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 14:06:54 -0400 
   From: Jerry Feldman <[hidden email]> 

   The downside of FOSS is that while you generally get a better 
   product with a faster bug-fix rate, is it also gives users too many 
   choices.=20 

I've heard that argument more times than I care to remember, but that 
mangy dog still won't hunt any better than it did the first time. 

   Back in the Windows 31 and Windows 95 days, there were some good 
   non-MSFT tools that allowed the user to chose between desktop 
   presentations, but those essentially disappeared to where you get 1 
   Windows desktop. No choices, no confusion.=20 

Sure, there are some people who are scared of choices.  And I agree 
that good defaults are important.  But "no choices, no confusion" also 
means "one size fits all", except that those of us who are 6'5" know 
very well that one size *doesn't* fit all.  Even the airlines, who 
rank pretty high up there on the cluelessness scale, have figured out 
that some people want more legroom and are willing to pay for it. 
Different people work differently.  For example, most of these "one 
size fits all" approaches gravitate toward explicit 
click-to-focus-and-raise, which is exactly the opposite of the wild 
and wooly "focus strictly follows mouse and windows raise or lower 
when I tell 'em to".  Maybe I'm nervous and jittery or nonlinear, but 
I continuously jump around between one or another emacs window, 
browser, and whatever else I have lying around, and sometimes I want 
to see a window while I'm doing something to a different window.  I 
hated using Pagemaker on Windows 3.1 (and I doubt it has changed 
since) because it was very insistent on not allowing that.  It made 
cutting and pasting between documents, for example, very unpleasant 
indeed (and it was even worse if you were trying to edit one thing 
while referring to something else).  And I don't like using Macs for 
the same basic reason. 

   In contrast in Linux and BSD we have KDE or GNOME for most 
   everyone, and we have many other choices of Window managers for 
   those who prefer it. How does a salesperson try to sell this to the 
   average computer user who really is very non-technical as is the 
   sales person.=20 

Set a reasonable default, and have all of those others around for 
people who decide they want to try something different.  Someone who 
doesn't want to deal with it never even has to know that they exist. 
Sure, some people are scared of choices, but that's no reason to deny 
those of us who *do* like lots o'choices (and us real hard core types, 
for whom the existence of choices is a plus just by its very 
existence). 

   We can use the same analogy to a car. Other than big, small, blue 
   or silver, every car has 1 steering wheel (not a choice of a wheel, 
   a joystick), a dashboard that that is essentially the same as every 
   other.  The auto manufacturers found that the digital dashboards 
   were unpopular so you simply get an analog speed dial, or a digital 
   analog to that. My next door neighbor hasn't a clue how to use his 
   GPS. My wife and I have to go to his car and set a destination.=20 

That argument is a) not particularly applicable and b) derived from an 
incorrect premise to begin with. 

Yes, every car has a steering wheel and brake and accelerator pedals. 
Essentially every computer also has a keyboard, monitor, and some kind 
of generally mouse-like pointing device.  And analog gauges for things 
like speed work better than digital readouts anyway due to the nature 
of what's being reported -- it's always fluctuating, but the most 
important thing is the general value.  Digital readouts have 
discontinuities (59 is much closer to 60 than 69 is, but digitally 60 
has more digits in common with 69 than with 59) The precise value of 
the speed (59 vs. 60 MPH) isn't very important, but you sure want to 
know approximately (and with very little interpretation) about what it 
is.  Beyond that, though, cars *don't* have very similar controls. 

Think about the variations in transmissions (traditional stick shifts, 
which don't all have the same shift pattern; automatics with a 
selector on the steering wheel, automatics with the selector on the 
floor, manumatics with shifters that you push front or back, or left 
or right, paddle shifters on the steering wheel) for starters.  Then 
we have all the different controls for audio systems, climate 
controls, and all that.  Then there's BMW's I-drive. 

Also, customizing the controls for a car is a lot more expensive than 
customizing the controls on a desktop.  There's development (one-time) 
cost in both cases, but the (recurring) cost of equipping individual 
cars differently is substantial (think designing the chassis and all 
that to accept mechanically different pieces of equipment, not to 
mention having to custom assemble each car).  The recurring cost for 
software in this way is nil. 

   What I'm trying to point out is that the strength of FOSS (or 
   community development) is choices, but this is also a weakness in 
   the marketplace. Better sometimes does not sell as well as 
   mediocre.=20 

So let people who want mediocre buy it, but don't force everyone else 
to. 

-- 
Robert Krawitz                                     <[hidden email]> 

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail [hidden email] 
Project lead for Gutenprint   --    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." 
--Eric Crampton 

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