Re: [Usability] Reaching Users

[Olav Vitters <olav bkor dhs org>]

On Tue, Dec 08, 2009 at 11:27:02AM +0000, kerberos piestar net wrote:
> Firstly, I think bugzilla has no place in any discussions of
> usability.  Bugs are absolute, and bug tracking software is designed

Of course.

> Secondly, and ironically, there is no greater divide in the software
> community between developers and users than in the FOSS community.
> While most closed source, commercial software has various easy ways
> for users to give feedback, Linux doesn't.

You make a statement without backing it up.

> Barrier 1: The majority of Linux distro's (Ubuntu and Suse to name
> two) have no place on their forum for discussing ideas or engaging
> the community - it is all one sided 'support'.  There are plenty of

Brainstorm.

> Barrier 2: The lack of any feedback forums above is understandable
> in context.  The main distro's package the upstream apps and release
> them - they are not directly responsible for problems in Gnome's etc
> codebase.  As a result there is no real way of knowing who made or

Don't follow as there are forums where you can provide feedback.

> maintains which program or module to suggest improvements to.
> Identifying and reporting anything non-trivial is in itself
> non-trivial.  Unless you want to blog about it, there is largely no
> venue for feedback.

Huh?

> Thirdly, there seems very few systems designed to engage such users
> at the developer end.  As a developer myself there seems to be
> nowhere to go to discuss such issues.  I was hoping that given the

This is the same for any software.

[..]
> XP, and the reason that it is so good is because the massive
> backlash of hate and criticism of Vista (by an audiance largely
> looking to find fault) gave them a massive list of key issues to
> address.  I would place good money on the fact that if Vista was

You're overlooking one key point: Feedback was not in any usable form.
Blogs/media/etc.

> Free software though, as stated above, has no real outlet for users
> to speak their mind about problems.  The community is largely self

I disagree. There are loads and loads of forums and so on. Developers
rarely look at those things, but that is something different.

> censoring (as who would complain about free food?) and the people

Self censoring? Don't see that.

> who are not happy with the software largely just go back to
> Windows/OSX.  I always feel that the opinions of 1 unhappy customer
> is more useful than the opinions of 100 happy ones, but the Linux
> community in general consists entirely of 'happy ones' - everyone
> who is unhappy just leaves, rather than sticks around and tries to
> change things.

Again, you're stating things without backing it up.

> Before any real progress can be made on usability and improving the
> marketshare of Gnome (and Linux as a result) these issues should
> largely be addressed.  Users need a place to say why they don't like

1001 things are barriers before 'x' will have any market share.

> something without being called idiots or trolls.  There is very
> little point in having a community contributed OS that the community
> cannot contribute to.  Most users can contribute ideas after all,

You say there is little point, but I don't see
1) Why you state this
2) That it is true

> but few can contribute code - which seems to be the sole focus.

In case you're not aware: Yes, it is a meritocracy. Don't see how this
is a sole problem of Free Software though.

> Flame away!

I know you do not mean this, but please don't suggest such things. To
repeat:
  http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct

Anyway, thank you for the long email, but I don't think it will lead
anywhere. Don't see any practical purpose of this thread other than to
start a long discussion without any end.


Don't want to be negative, but I guess you have some pet peeve you want
fixed asap and nobody looked at it?

-- 
Regards,
Olav