The Luxury of Ignorance: An Open-Source Horror Story

http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html
from WinCustomize Forums
Great article from one of the more famous Open Source contributors. Been down this road a few times.

"I've just gone through the experience of trying to configure CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System. It has proved a textbook lesson in why nontechnical people run screaming from Unix. This is all the more frustrating because the developers of CUPS have obviously tried hard to produce an accessible system — but the best intentions and effort have led to a system which despite its superficial pseudo-friendliness is so undiscoverable that it might as well have been written in ancient Sanskrit."

"So, let's review. In order for the nice, user-friendly autoconfiguration stuff to work, you have to first edit an /etc file. On a different machine than the one you're trying to set up. You have to read the comments in configuration file to know that you need to do this ubn the first place.

What a truly lovely, classic blunder this is. That they turned off the autoconfiguration support is understandable from a security-engineering point of view. But failing to mention this in the Administrator's Guide, and failing to warn the user during the configuration-wizard dialogue that operating printers may not be visible unless your site admin has performed the appropriate ritual on the printers' host machines...that is moronically thoughtless."

I suggest you read the whole thing. If you have ever wrestled with Linux and it made you question if you had a clue, then it is comforting to know that experts run into the same problems.
14,228 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
He says that like sanskrit is hard to read

While I've had no trouble setting it up on my Linux boxen, I'd still say he has a point, at least as a first principle.

Thing is, none of the current systems really meets the usability criteria entirely. Arguably, the Mac probably comes closest, but in some way that comes at the cost of greater difficulty in doing things substantially differently from the default model.

Even an expert (in any of the systems) can be stymied by something that's outside of their purview in one fashion or another. And all platforms have apps or utilities that are poorly thought out or designed, and therefore difficult to use or even get to work.

They all keep improving though, and ultimately, that's what counts.

Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I agree, in fact I wonder why anyone here would really care if printing under linux can be hard to set up sometimes. What's the relevance to Wincustomize?
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Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This has nothing to do with WinCustomize. I could understand if someone was posting an article on the various GUI tools (KDE, Gnome, Window Maker, etc) available to users of Linux distros. Instead this article is about one guys failure to properly set up his printer network. I read an entire page of dribble..wine..wine..wine. On top of that he is generalizing his difficulty with CUPS would be the same in all distros since he didn't include Fedora in the title. Obviously he hasn't tried other distros such as SuSE Pro 9.0 which was a breeze to install and use.

_____________________________________________________________
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Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Every distro I have used never gave me any problems setting up a printer. Yeah CUPS can be a real pain if you don't know what you are doing, but there are plenty of help books and online sources for this, and most of the distros have other easier options then using CUPS. I am taking this post as an apparent attempt to bash open source(linux) once again.

Makes you wonder what MS is offering to make so many sites contine to bash open source software.

And yes I agree that this has no relation to Wincustomize at all. Other then the software being supported here is all windows based software.....
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
this site is about customizeing. not about windows. in fact this place surprises me that it doe not have any gnome, kde, heck any window manager themes here(some can put any here to shame due to how much more you can change.
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm not exactly sure why Griffinme posted this here unless it was to start up some sort of OS bashing war but, it is definitely off-topic and since it comes from another website [http://www.catb.org/~esr] it may very well be a copyright violation. At the very least the post is in bad taste since he has not referenced the homepage that it came from nor did he mention that it is one of many articles that deal with the upsides and downsides of open source programming. I would really like to hear why Griffinme did post this here. Was this his original writing - if not! - what are you trying to get across to this community!
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I thought this was news worthy because:

A. It was written by Eric S. Raymond. The author of "The Cathedral & the Bazaar" and has been one of the major contributors to the open source movement. Him being critical of Linux is like Steve Ballmer being critical of Windows.

B. He is talking about software interfaces. Something I thought most people here would find interesting, since this whole site is dedicated to changing the way you interface with software.

C. I was not trying to bash Linux. The article does cover many of my frustrations when dealing with Linux. The idea was to bash kryptic software interfaces.

D. No, I didn't write it. If you actually followed the link and read the article you might have noticed that the link to his homepage is along the left side of the screen. In fact it is the top button in his list of links and is labeled "Home Page".

It sounds like most of the replies didn't bother to read the article or completely missed the point of it. Copyright violation?!? Did you miss the quotes? Did you miss the link? Did I at anytime try to claim it was written by me?

-Griffin


Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Maybe wincustomize wasnt the best place to post the article as this is a site dedicated to custmizing windows and the article is related to linux.
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Oh good grief karb0n (and the rest of you for that matter), give it a break. The guys' stated his case.

There's a saying which applies here: "Live and let live".

Sheesh, you've all got the long knives out - and for what!?

I haven't read the article, yet, but as soon as I'm finished beating you lot over the head with this here wet fish I shall - it sounds news-worthy enough.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm using Linux right now. As odd and mixed up as it sounds, this is where I get my wallpapers. Even though the site's mostly dedicated to Windows, when paired with art.gnome.org, you can customize your Linux system just as much as your Windows system.

I understand you about the fact that Linux doesn't have the most intuitive interface, but I think the learning experience is worth it if you have the time, especially if Microsoft isn't your favorite company.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
sometimes i don't really get the point why you publish such articles?
what does it have to do with the customization of windows?

it smells like stupid os bashing which should be far below of your standards.

btw: cups is a hard to work with bundle of applications. )
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
F0rezt, Thanks, you answered my question. I was curious why so many Linuxer's would be hanging out at a Windows Customization site. Seemed really fishy until you clarified.

In regards to relevance: There have been plenty of Linux-oriented posts at WinCustomize over the years, and although it does not really apply to Win-customizing, it has established its place in the news items. I don't see any reason to complain.

BTW: I can't help but agree with the author of the article, and he obviously has a great deal more expertice in the field than I do. Linux does have a tremendous learning curve. Perhaps if I had a few extra weeks to single-heartedly devote to learning Linux it would have left me with a better experience. Unfortunately, life, research, and family move on. Learning it now would simply create a deficiency in my other priorities, but I admire those that have adapted to it.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I was hoping to spark some conversation about things that are user hostile with skinning. I can't count the number of times I have seen neat looking skins that were unusable because of tiny or unreadable fonts/buttons, color schemes that fade buttons or text into the background, noisy backgrounds that overwhelm text, etc.

Does anyone know why MS decided to move the close program button next to the min and max buttons? That has always seemed like a step backwards to me.

Overall I think Stardock's software is good about their interface and getting better, but then I have been using it for a few years and might be blind to issues.

Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
When I first read this article, I too thought that Griffinme was trying to start a flame war here. However, unlike several other posters before me, I took time to read the article on the author's website, included as a link in this article. After reading the article again on the authors website, I was still wondering. So I decided to pursue it a bit further. I clicked on the Homepage link, then clicked on the "Who Is ESR?" http://www.catb.org/~esr/who-is-ESR.html

I was surprised to find out that this is one of the originators of the OpenSource movement. So, if anyone thinks he is just some newbie that doesn't know what he's talking about, you should check your sources before you post.
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Griffin,

I think what is confusing a lot of viewers is you chose to post an article about CUPS setup on a website dedicated to cusomizing GUI of desktops. It would of been better being a user of Linux to discuss the differant GUIs available that are currently used by the Linux community. This would benifit both Linux users and Windows users by providing relevant information.

Being a long time member at WinCustomize I would like to see they expand the theme catagories to include similar features found at www.themedepot.org. Including wallpaper, skins and tools designed by artists/programmers working in Linux to be used by everyone no matter what your OS is.

As for why I still come here after switching to SuSE Linux I like to use both the wallpaper and WinAmp skins in Linux. Some users are still not awaire that WinAmp skins can be used with the Open Source XMMS player in Linux by just changing the extension to "zip".