On Mon, 29 Apr 2019 12:12:48 +1200, Peter Reutemann quoted:
'Look around. We do have a problem, and it's time we do something about it.... '
There is a problem, but I don’t think it’s what he thinks it is. The problem is one of lack of respect. Proprietary vendors seem to control most of the agenda: features that proprietary products have are deemed to be essential for open-source software to match, while ones unique to open-source software are downplayed, even ignored. For example, I point out in various online discussions that the Microsoft Office “Ribbon” is actually a poor match for modern widescreen monitors, because it reduces the height of the screen available for seeing your document (most written documents being laid out in portrait orientation), while the LibreOffice/OpenOffice “Sidebar” makes more efficient use of the space. But the discussion about user interfaces gets distracted by the whole “flat look” that is fashionable nowadays, as though actual usability no longer matters. It’s all down to advertising budgets. Proprietary vendors can afford to spend millions to tell everyone how wonderful they are, while open-source projects rely mainly on word-of-mouth. I remember, at a developer conference back in the late 1980s, a motivational speaker telling us that word of mouth is the most valuable kind of advertising you can have, because you can’t buy it with mere money; you actually have to have a product that the customer feels good about using, and about recommending to others. But the reality I see is that, with sufficient advertising budget, you can indeed drown out the users’ voices.