Re: Penguin Pete Debunks "Ease of Use" in GNU/Linux Myths

On Friday, June 24, 2011 12:10:46 PM UTC-4, Homer wrote:

Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
>
> http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index...1&pb=1

Pete makes some good points in this article, pointing out that many people
have no trouble navigating an Android Phone or an iPhone, but freak when they
see the Linux GUI instead of Windows, and many still struggle with the Windows
GUI.

Pete probably doesn't remember the days when we used to access computers via a
terminal, or we had to use CP/M or MS-DOS and there was no GUI, and getting
support over the telephone often meant spending hours with a customer who had
typed a semicolon instead of a colon, or a dash instead of a dot.

Apple introduced the Mac as "A computer for the rest of us", but it was very
expensive, and any real applications like MacProject were painfully slow.
Microsoft tried to introduce Windows, but 1.0, 2.0, 286, 386, and 3.0 were
very slow, buggy, ran hardly any applications, and required the most expensive
hardware available on the market - it was cheaper to buy a UNIX server or
workstation and some X-terminals or some X11 software for the PC.

Windows 3.1 was Microsoft's crowning accomplishment. For 3.0, they had
offered a free help line on a 1-800 number, and came up with thousands of
"frequently asked questions" - then figured out how to provide those answers
in the user interface so that all you had to do was hover, hit f1, or right
click the mouse to get context sensitive help. It really was an amazing
achievement - if Microsoft deserves a patent, that would be it, but it would
be impossible to define the actual patent implementation without publishing
strategic source code - besides, it would have expired by now. Of course,
Microsoft bought much of the UI from HP, and "borrowed" other parts,
especially the UI for Windows 95, from Linux projects like FVWM. Still, with
all that context sensitive help, Microsoft was able to grow the PC using
population from about 50 million users to around 500 million users in less
than 10 years. An amazing feat for any business. The only industry that grew
faster was the Internet, with it's millions of UNIX and Linux servers - which
grew from 2 million users in 1993 to nearly 500 million by 1997. Much of that
early growth was fueled by the Winsock shareware and Mosaic Web Browser,
published in 1993. Microsoft's web browser and internet stack wouldn't be
part of a stable Windows 95B until April of 1996.

Linux, with it's open source applications, many dating back to the "terminal"
days, had user interfaces ranging from command-line to "CHUI", to Athena 2d,
to Motif, to Olit, and eventually to GTK/Gnome and QT/KDE.

Google (and several other Linux advocates) saw that having a consistent user
interface approach, and keeping application user interfaces separate from
their service modules would result in something far easier to use. The result
was Chrome and Android. Android is a full blown Linux server with lots of
service applications, which can provide information that can be presented
using any compatible GUI. In most cases, the service app is tied to the GUI,
but when there are multiple apps capable of handling the information, a list
of those options is offered.

As a result, each application can be very simple. Rather than a huge complex
monolithic application that has to be able to do everything imaginable to any
type of office document, each application can have a very specific purpose,
working on a specific type of information, and the user gets the ability to
choose from thousands of apps, most of which are easier to use than the cell
phone itself.

Is that the same Penguin Pete who launched a vicious attack on Ken
Starks (of the HeliOS project that donates computers to kids), accusing
him of being a fraud, and attacking Linux advocacy in general?

http://www.thenixedreport.com/artic...npete.html

I know what Pete went though. In 2007, I was the one having the stroke, and
after going into a surgical procedure that the insurance company decided
(after the fact) was only partially covered, leaving me with a huge debt, they
realized they couldn't use surgery to fix the problem, and had to go with the
"Passive" approach.

It took almost 3 months to get back to where I could walk, eat, and get back
to work. I'd lost the left side, and was left-handed.

Ironically, when I did start posting again, even though I had posted that I
had had a stroke, the WinTrolls still had their fun with the ad-homonym
attacks.

I finally just ignored them.

http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index...x_advocate

I don't think his sort of "advocacy" is especially useful, frankly.

I didn't see anything in the article than indicated that pete was even aware
of the nature of the problem. There are many open source advocates who have
to stop working on their OSS projects because their paying job
responsibilities have increased and they have to do more "Real Work" to meet
deadlines and other business commitments.

Many developers and advocates work on OSS with the permission of their
employers, and that permission is ristricted. Their OSS participation can't
negatively impact their jobs, and they can't doing things that would expose
the company to legal liabilities (posting as a representative of the
company...)

Meanwhile, if Ken really is a "scam artist" as "Penguin" claims, he must
be the most impoverished one I've ever heard of, since he can't even
afford to pay for a life-saving operation on his partner Diane, after
she suffered a stroke:

http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2011/...ed-in.html

Ken stated in the article that he and diane were in that age where they were
old enough for Social Security, but not yet old enough for Medicare, and they
hadn't been able to afford to extend their COBRA long enough to bridge the
gap.

Since they had some assets, probably retirement funds, they didn't qualify for
indigent care. At the same time, they didn't want to drain their entire
retirement nest-egg to pay for a surgery that would have left them homeless
and indigent for the rest of their lives.

Like so many millions in the United States - they were exposed to all the
risks, and getting none of the benefits of all those insurance premiums they
had paid to their respective health insurance companies for decades.

I hope Diane makes a speedy recovery and will pray for her. I was lucky, I
was able to tolerate the pain as my brain found new pathways to the different
parts of my body. It often felt like a nail being driven into my arm or leg,
but enduring it and not seeking the pain killers helped me recover parts of my
body I thought I had lost for good. Today, you wouldn't even know I'd had a
stroke.

For me, it was God working a miracle anonymously.