Debian: contempt for "end user" values has to stop!"

[Donn]

On Tuesday 18 August 2009 22:15:51 Scott Beamer wrote:
> That's the tile of this blog post[1]. The author makes some excellent
> points.
Yeah - but his tone frightens me. I was going to suggest he try my app (Fonty 
Python) to manage his fonts -- but what if something goes wrong?

1. I don't know that it works in Debian (all the deps etc.)
2. I can't spend any time fixing the app (beyond once or twice a year)
3. I get no steady bug-reports or usability reports. Perhaps that's a sign 
that the apps works? But I just have no idea what bugs are in there.
4. I have no team or community helping me with it. A few people have tried, 
but they all fade. This could me my fault, but just cos I wrote an app doesn't 
make me Mr Community.
5. I don't get any payment beyond the odd screenshot. If it was not for 
Savannah I could not even rely on the code being available because my own 
website can die at any time.

So, if he installed it and he found a single bug I expect a *nuke* in my post 
box! Or a snarky rant article. No thanks. Like it or not, the majority of apps 
are written by complete twats like me and we don't even pretend to be experts 
or working coders. 

I guess the irony is that the "end users" *are* the developers.

If that means GNU/Linux will never get its nerd-off then so be it. 

I'd also like to see things graphical progress. There are too many islands, 
too many toolkits, too many little unconnected utilities that largely don't 
work. Not a day goes by that I don't think "Oh by the balls of the Flying 
Pasta Monster, I don't want to have to write a frikkin batch script for this 
now!" -- but I usually end up having to do so. (badly.)

\d
-- 
home: http://otherwise.relics.co.za/
2D vector animation : https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/things/
Font manager : https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/fontypython/