Re: GNOME Usability Improvements - Fix the window manager!

[sungod <sungod atdot org>]

jack wallen, jr (jlwallen@iglou.com)'s email of 08/06/99 15:25 said:

>> Setting up ppp is something for root. If a user doesn't have root
>> permission, he should ask root to set up ppp for him. That's the
>> way it is now, and that's how it should remain (IMO).
>> 
>> Ronald
>
>this just doesn't make sense to me.  the new user, wanting to use Linux
>for their desktop OS, doesn't want to have to muck around with priveleges
>and the like.  yes, that's a linux issue of course i know that - but
>that's the very attitude that's keeping the new users away from Linux in
>the first place.  

What exactly is your goal? Would you like to see the power and 
flexibility of Linux in the hands of every man? Would you like to make it 
easier to learn? Easier to remember? More efficient to operate? Or would 
you like to strip it of its power and flexibility by hiding all its 
features and making it stupid, to leave only one big red button in the 
middle of the screen that says "do my taxes, print my resume, walk the 
dog, and pick the kids up from soccer"?

If you want the former, please join us in designing (and hopefully 
developing) tools that DO make Linux more accessible and easier to learn.

If all you want is the latter, your platform awaits: use MacOS. No, I 
don't mean that to be snide or offensive; if you check the headers of 
this email you will see that I'm TYPING this on Claris Emailer in MacOS. 
I use it, I like it, and I think it's a lot more stable and useful than 
people give it credit for. My point is that you shouldn't want to take 
features away from users (to include ownership and permissions); you 
should be helping us SOLVE the problem of how to make them easily learned 
and accessible to new users.

>no matter how close and dear Linux is to those using it - you gotta make
>it simple if you want to entise new users.  and there is absolutely
>nothing wrong with that philosophy.

Patently false. I didn't learn how to drive by doing it in a padded 
arena. I didn't learn how to walk by living in a playpen. I didn't learn 
how to read and write by only having access to ten of the twenty-six 
letters. And I didn't learn how to use Unix by clicking on "My Computer."

Nor should we hide anything. If anything, the point of GNOME should be to 
make all the wonderful features of Linux easily accessible, rather than 
hiding it behind a cryptic command line; not to get rid of them. 
Restriction is not the answer, good design is the answer. In this case, 
you should be more interested in helping decide how to represent various 
permissions to the user (and how to tell them nicely, "you can't use PPP 
because the person who owns this box doesn't want you to") rather than 
just saying "permissions are a bad idea; we should hide them."

So, got a better idea for handling PPP permissions?

-- 
"True riches only increase." -R. Buckminster Fuller
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sungod@atdot.org              http://blackness.org/