Re: OpenCD & GNOME

[Simos Xenitellis <simos74 gmx net>]

Claus Schwarm wrote:

> On Thu, 04 Aug 2005 18:10:43 +0200
> Dave Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:
>  
<snip>

> > > Would the launcher thingy allow to include information about
> > > additional GNOME apps that are related to a certain application or
> > > category, but have not yet been ported to Windows?
> > >      
> > Not a good idea, IMHO. Get people using free software, learning about 
> > the philosophy, the community, the freedom. Force-feeding Linux, or 
> > software that they're not ready to use yet (otherwise, why use the 
> > OpenCD? Why not install GNU/Linux directly?) is not a good idea.
> >
> > Plus, it's in bad taste. People don't like that kind of thing.
> >
> >    
>
> I'm sorry. There's a Ubuntu LiveCD on the OpenCD, isn't it? Are you
> expecting OpenCD users to be computer beginners?
>
> I really fail to understand you here. Why use the OpenCD? Maybe because
> the point of the CD is to feed people piece by piece? Let them explore
> the options in small steps?
>
> However, where's the point in distributing the CD if there's no
> additional information about other apps? Should users get the impression
> these handful of apps are everything they can get for Linux?
>
> If we don't make people curious about exploring a whole new world, why
> do we expect them to switch at all?
The task of explaining to the end-user what a program does, how to make 
it work, etc suits better to go more upstream, both for usability 
purposes but also technical ones. When I install a program, I want to 
get over with it and not get distracted by text messages that ask me to 
read and understand what it says. If it is OpenOffice.org which takes a 
bit longer to install, I don't mind to see some messages. But again, 
with OpenOffice.org, these messages are part of the native installer. 
Whichever Win32 binaries end up eventually on the LiveCD will be 
precompiled, they are already available as packages from their 
respective projects. I hope you do not expect that in this marketing 
effort there will be custom compilations of the Win32 binaries.
If you have used Inkscape, you will notice that there are doing an 
excellent job to introduce to the end user how to the learn the program; 
> From the Help menu you can load tutorials which are SVG files 
themselves, and by reading/doing what they say, you learn at the same 
time how to use the program.
This functionality is provided from the package itself, so if you want 
to get Audacity (or any other program) to promote better itself, feel 
free to write similar tutorials that end-users can find under Help and 
use on the spot.

...<snip>...

Simos Xenitellis
http://simos.info/blog/