[Wolves] Fool and his money

[Aquarius]

Peter Cannon spoo'd forth:
> Fair comment trouble with most how-to's is they assume you have some
> knowledge rather than none at all. 
> 
> To give an example Suse tell you that you can get it for free but you
> have to download the whole "tree" now U and I know what they mean by
> tree but someone new wouldn't its the old chicken and egg conundrum
> people who don't know would write it in understandable language but cant
> because they don't know the product.

Hm. Different issue, there, I think. I entirely accept what you're
saying about the chicken-and-egg problem; this is why I have exhorted
those of you who are fairly new to Linux to write up your experiences
*now*, rather than from the perspective of the more experienced user
that you will become. However, I don't think that that's the reason why
SuSE's descriptions of how to download their code for free are a little
impenetrable for new people. Instead, I think it's because they don't
*want* new people to download their code.

Now, there are (at least) two explanations for that: the two I have in
mind are the charitable explanation and the uncharitable one. The
uncharitable one is: they are in business to make money. They have to
give the code away -- the GPL requires it -- but they're under no
obligation to make it obvious that they are doing so or easy to do.
Everyone who thinks "cor, that's really hard, I'd better just buy the
box set" is one more cheque in the bank for the company.

The charitable explanation is that they don't want new people to
download the code because they won't be able to cope with it. If you're
new to Linux then what you want is an easy installation, a nice box, a
well-bound paper manual, and a little toy. Just like you get with
Windows or OS X. People who don't know what they're doing shouldn't be
downloading code and instructions. You shouldn't ever need a "how to
burn your own ISO" guide, because anyone who doesn't already know
probably isn't in a position to make best use of said ISO anyway, and
they'll go away with a "SuSE is really hard to use!" mentality which is
not good for the company.

I make no claims as to correctness for either of these viewpoints, but
I think that they strike the endpoints of the spectrum of reasons. This
is why I'm interested in people like Matt working with Morphix or
Mepis; to my mind, Matt is the sort of user that Linux should be
targeting now. Technically able, interested in computers, but not a
techie. Because, if we're ever going to reach out to the complete
amateurs in the world, it's going to be Matt and people like him who
are their technical support, who are the people who get rung up because
"they know about computers". If someone is lucky enough to know a Ron
or a sparkes or a Jono then they'll obviously ring that excellently
technical person, but a lot of people don't know someone that
technical.

Aq.

-- 
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything!
I'll ask about Exchange Server next.