[LINK] Usability and Free Software

[Nick Bannon]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 11:38:32AM +1100, George Bray wrote:
[...]
> So, is it fair to say superior system-wide usability can only come from 
> OS's developed with corporate cash and much centralised quality 
> control?

Unfair it is, and in fact I'm sure you've noticed that OS's that you
have in mind - developed with corporate cash and centralised quality
control - don't manage it either. <grin>

Within their commercial constraints, Microsoft do a decent job at being
internally consistent and usable, if you get all your software from
Microsoft. Apple do an excellent job, if you get all your software from
Apple. However, it doesn't make sense to look at every program ever
written by any party and say "Why isn't it all consistent and
usable?". Interface guidelines can be published, but there are always
a few eccentric programs that are just too darn good to live without.
Further, the commercial constraints often bite - even when you have
lots of cash, there's things you can't justify the cost of changing, or
things you'd love to make consistent yet doing so would break backwards
compatibility.

Free Software can have a similar "selection" property. The consistency
of everything in a BSD CVS tree is good. The usability of a GNOME/KDE
Desktop running GNOME/KDE programs is good. The 13000 packages in
Debian have all sorts of styles, but Debian is perfectly suited to
having a sub-project extract a "flavour" - a selection of packages and
default configuration that will provide a ready made installation
targetted for a particular purpose - these already exist.

The advantage of Free Software is that there is no artificial hurdle in
the way of pulling your favourite eccentric program into line. For
example, you can methodically apply the next quality improvement to
each applicable program in the Debian archive. This has happened many
times over with great success and it's the best way we have out of some
of those constraints.

Nick.

-- 
   Nick Bannon   | "I made this letter longer than usual because
nick-sig at rcpt.to | I lack the time to make it shorter." - Pascal