|
Hello,
I am instructor who regularly starts people on the Gnumeric
path. But there is a recurring problem which strikes at the very growth
potential of this wonderful open-source product.
I want to thank all those who are so dedicated to this
project. It has been a boon to my students, My request here is only
my small attempt to make Gnumeric more successful!
The problem --
In going to the web page "Getting Gnumeric"
the new, excited, but unknowledgeable potential user is confronted with an
immediate technospeak problem. Pushing the "Get Gnumeric
Now" produces nothing now. It produces a
confusing explanation of possible sources, but nowhere to
just Get Gnumeric. There are three
explanations:
1) Getting Gnumeric From Your
Distribution -- Most people do not know what their
"distribution" is, much less know what one looks like. The
recommendation to "file a request" seems particularly off putting to someone who
does not know where to find their "distribution." or what one looks
like.
2) Getting Gnumeric From Third Parties --
Why can't I just get Gnumeric from Gnumeric? Pressing the
"There is a build of 1.9.1 available." Pressing this seems to perform the magicial download.
But it is scary to someone who does not want a "development" version. They
do not want to report bugs. They want the most recent stable version to
learn from and to use. There is no such button to push.
3) Getting Gnumeric From Source -- Who is
"source" ? I thought this page was the "Get Gnumeric Now"
Source. Going further down one finds " The source code is available from gzip'd tarball or
bzip'd tarball. Dependencies for this version
are:"
Pushing either of the buttons takes one to
a "Windows File Association" Anything here now requires you to buy some
commercial file translation package in order to get the open source. Worse
yet, once in this site, it will not let you back out. (A MS trick to make
things more difficult?)
Looking down at the "dependency/version"
table is even more intimidating. It perhaps scares off the last of the
stalwarts.
There has to be an understandable way for the newbie to
download a stable version of Gnumeric. This is a wonderful service and
product. But my students are inevitabley put off by the difficulty and
mystery of how to just "Get Gnumeric" !
I apologize for my descriptions. But I suspect we
are losing many, many supporters, and even future contributors because of the
initial frustration.
George Dell |