Re: Another try to get a response

["Andreas J. Guelzow" <aguelzow math concordia ab ca>]

On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 14:07 -0800, John Leonard wrote:


> I am inclined to agree with you on this issue. The problem as I see it
> is that the open source community consists of a lot of fantastically
> clever programmers, but few designers and even fewer technical authors
> who can put together decent documentation (especially in several
> different languages). 
>
> Worse, it is considered a rite of passage to have to trawl through
> hosts of poorly designed websites, post to forums for answers that you
> don't understand when you get them, and to learn the terminology
> before you can get going. This is fine if you are technically
> inclined, not so good if you are the average Joe whio is just trying
> to get a job done.

There is a large business community that is happy to help you with your
MS Windows problems for a fee. The size of that community and the very
visible advertising for it clearly indicates (to me at least) that there
are lots of problem even with non-open source programs.

So if "average Joe" has a problem with an open source program, why
doesn't he hire somebody to talk them through those installation or
other problems. I am pretty sure that you could find somebody
knowledgable for the appropriate fee.

There are lots of volunteers that work on open source software which
benefits many people. Each of them obviously has a reason to do so but
none of them is required to help "average Joe" just because "average
Joe" would like it.

If you feel that a web site needs improving then you should provide an
improved page (note that I am not saying that you need be able to write
one, you could hire somebody to do so and then offer the page to the
project.)

Andreas