Hi Andreas
I would be be very happy to have a go at redesigning http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/downloads.shtml and daughter pages. Let me know the procedure.
>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.
No, none of them is required to do so, but to deny the need is to make open source the "free jazz" of the software world - appreciated only by those who like its challenge and difficulty and it's unorthodox way of going about things (and cos it's "free"!). Personally I have found that there is an open source solution to cover pretty much every eventuality, and that these are often better than the expensive proprietry alternatives.
But there is a classic Catch-22 here in that the superior functionality is often hidden behind obscure interfaces and terminology that only those in the know have a chance of decyphering. It is designed by techies for techies.
Making software user-friendly is not an easy task. Not seeking to blame anyone, but I go back to my original comment that there is a lack of designers, technical authors and usability experts in the O.S. community. Microsoft and certainly Apple realise the importance of usability - this (along with huge ad budgets of course) is their major advantage. Canonical know it too. This is why Ubuntu is the most popular desktop Linux distribution. Leonard Mada (see previous email) knows it too from a business perspective.
John
--- On Wed, 11/19/08, gnumeric-list-request gnome org <gnumeric-list-request gnome org> wrote:
From: gnumeric-list-request gnome org <gnumeric-list-request gnome org>
Subject: gnumeric-list Digest, Vol 55, Issue 11
To: gnumeric-list gnome org
Date: Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 12:00 PM
Send gnumeric-list mailing list submissions to
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of gnumeric-list digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Another try to get a response (Andreas J. Guelzow)
2. Re: Another try to get a response (Leonard Mada)
3. Re: Another try to get a response (Allin Cottrell)
4. Re: Another try to get a response (Jean Br?fort)
5. Look up target of hyperlink? (Jason Heeris)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:26:10 -0700
From: "Andreas J. Guelzow" <aguelzow math concordia ab ca>
Subject: Re: Another try to get a response
To: Gnumeric <gnumeric-list gnome org>
Message-ID: <1227050770 18332 13 camel localhost>
Content-Type: text/plain
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
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:53:58 +0200
From: Leonard Mada <discoleo gmx net>
Subject: Re: Another try to get a response
To: gnumeric-list gnome org
Message-ID: <49235596 5060405 gmx net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Dear all,
Andreas J. Guelzow wrote:
> 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.
>
I recently came to see Linux phased out as a webserver from an otherwise
open-source friendly business (and by the way Netcraft shows a similar
trend), because:
- the cost of MS Windows Server 2003 is ~ $ 800
- the price of a good Linux administrator is > $2.000/month even in my
less-developed country
- most people know how to boot windows and how to log on to windows,
what is the proportion that knows this on Linux?
[This fact is relevant, because we employ customer support, and those
people are likely to be
available over the clock, so they are onsite
when a server problem occurs. Having to pay a Linux-expert beyond the
customer support team, which is available over the clock, is a complete
waste of money.]
- I had to allocate 3 persons for 1 week to install Firefox 3.0 on an
older Ubuntu, and the persons had some knowledge of Linux (albeit
non-experts in Linux, but they were all web-experts; sorry, but
technologies have shifted)
Until open-source learns to come a quantum leap forward with
user-friendliness, I do see dire with open-source. There are exceptions.
But there is still a long path to go, and especially for Linux and some
other programs running on Linux.
Sincerely,
Leonard
> 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
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnumeric-list mailing list
> gnumeric-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnumeric-list
>
>
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:32:21 -0500 (EST)
From: Allin Cottrell <cottrell wfu edu>
Subject: Re: Another try to get a response
To: John Machin <sjmachin lexicon net>
Cc: gnumeric-list gnome org
Message-ID: <Pine A41 4 58 0811182002150 290924 f1n11 sp2net wfu edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN;
charset=US-ASCII
On Wed, 19 Nov 2008, John Machin wrote:
> On 19/11/2008 04:42, Andreas J. Guelzow wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 09:34 -0800, George Dell wrote:
> >> Thank you for engaging me on this issue. While I am a deep
> >> believer in freedom as you mention it I also need to be able
> >> to have people (who understand none of the technospeak and
> >> specialized words), able to get to an installed usable
> >> version. Even your answer leaves my head swimming...
> > Installing gnumeric is usually trivial and you don't even need
> > to go to the gnumeric web site.
> >
> > If you are using Debian...
>
> I'm not aware of any difficulty experienced by Windows users
> installing free and open software like Firefox (competes with MS
> Internet Explorer) or Openoffice.org (competes with
Microsoft
> Office). Their web pages seem to be lucid enough:
The story so far:
* George Dell -- who is obviously (to anyone who read his original
posting) running MS Windows -- remarks on the difficulty of
installing current gnumeric (or rather, finding an installer for
current gnumeric).
* Andreas G offers a basically irrelevant response that assumes a
Linux user.
* John Machin points out that some other free software projects,
in contrast to gnumeric, offer a relatively easy installation path
for users of MS Windows.
My 2 cents: It's a "philosophical" issue and there's no
single
right answer. Many if not most developers of free software abhor
MS Windows (yes, I'm speaking for myself here!), yet we have to
recognize that most computer users still run Windows. Perhaps we
think they ought to get a clue and use something better than
Windows (as I do). At the same time, if we
think our program is
really good, we probably want to make it available to people who
persist in running Windows.
This is clear: No free software project "owes the world" an MS
Windows version. But if a project such as gnumeric _does_ decide
to make an such a version available, then IMO it should do so with
good grace. By this I mean, the MS Windows version should be
easily identifiable by Windows-users who visit the project's
website looking for a download: "Installer for MS Windows HERE..."
Allin Cottrell
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:40:51 +0100
From: Jean Br?fort <jean brefort normalesup org>
Subject: Re: Another try to get a response
To: Allin Cottrell <cottrell wfu edu>
Cc: gnumeric-list gnome org
Message-ID: <1227073251 3525 8 camel athlon>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
There are a few essential
points that were not addressed in this thread.
The fact that we do not ship any 1.8.x version compiled for MS-Windows
is because we are still facing major issues. At least, print preview and
contextual help don't work.
When we have a decent windows version, then we can think how to make
things easy for windows users. As long as it is experimental software,
it might give a bad image of what free softawre is to MS-Windows users.
The current development release (1.9.3) is the best we ever had for
MS-Windows, but it is not a stable release, at least officially (it is
not really unstable, I'm using it everyday).
Just my $.02
Best regards,
Jean
Le mardi 18 novembre 2008 ? 20:32 -0500, Allin Cottrell a ?crit :
> On Wed, 19 Nov 2008, John Machin wrote:
>
> > On 19/11/2008 04:42, Andreas J. Guelzow wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2008-11-18 at 09:34 -0800, George Dell wrote:
> >
>> Thank you for engaging me on this issue. While I am a deep
> > >> believer in freedom as you mention it I also need to be able
> > >> to have people (who understand none of the technospeak and
> > >> specialized words), able to get to an installed usable
> > >> version. Even your answer leaves my head swimming...
>
> > > Installing gnumeric is usually trivial and you don't even
need
> > > to go to the gnumeric web site.
> > >
> > > If you are using Debian...
> >
> > I'm not aware of any difficulty experienced by Windows users
> > installing free and open software like Firefox (competes with MS
> > Internet Explorer) or Openoffice.org (competes with Microsoft
> > Office). Their web pages seem to be lucid enough:
>
> The story so far:
>
> * George Dell --
who is obviously (to anyone who read his original
> posting) running MS Windows -- remarks on the difficulty of
> installing current gnumeric (or rather, finding an installer for
> current gnumeric).
>
> * Andreas G offers a basically irrelevant response that assumes a
> Linux user.
>
> * John Machin points out that some other free software projects,
> in contrast to gnumeric, offer a relatively easy installation path
> for users of MS Windows.
>
> My 2 cents: It's a "philosophical" issue and there's no
single
> right answer. Many if not most developers of free software abhor
> MS Windows (yes, I'm speaking for myself here!), yet we have to
> recognize that most computer users still run Windows. Perhaps we
> think they ought to get a clue and use something better than
> Windows (as I do). At the same time, if we think our program is
>
really good, we probably want to make it available to people who
> persist in running Windows.
>
> This is clear: No free software project "owes the world" an MS
> Windows version. But if a project such as gnumeric _does_ decide
> to make an such a version available, then IMO it should do so with
> good grace. By this I mean, the MS Windows version should be
> easily identifiable by Windows-users who visit the project's
> website looking for a download: "Installer for MS Windows
HERE..."
>
> Allin Cottrell
> _______________________________________________
> gnumeric-list mailing list
> gnumeric-list gnome org
> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnumeric-list
>
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:05:11 +0900
From: "Jason Heeris" <jason heeris gmail com>
Subject: Look up target of
hyperlink?
To: gnumeric-list gnome org
Message-ID:
<d69956980811182305r42cc73d7g4514a1524b111115 mail gmail com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Using Gnumeric 1.8.3 under Debian Lenny/Sid
I have a file imported from MS Excel where a column contains hyperlinked
text (to other sheets in the same file). Is there a function or feature that
would allow me to get the contents of the cells that the hyperlinks point
to?
Thanks,
Jason
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