Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 16:56:40 -0500 (EST) From: David Scheidt <rufus@brain.mics.net> To: Nils Holland <nils@tisys.org> Cc: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Paul Robinson <paul@akita.co.uk>, "Andrew C. Hornback" <achornback@worldnet.att.net>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: NatWest? no thanks Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.20.0111011639030.14065-100000@brain.mics.net> In-Reply-To: <20011101214159.C27349-100000@howie.ncptiddische.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, 1 Nov 2001, Nils Holland wrote: > On Thu, 1 Nov 2001, Brett Glass wrote: > > > At 12:10 PM 11/1/2001, Nils Holland wrote: > > > > >Speaking neither for the FreeBSD Project, nor for the OSS movement, I'd > > >really like to ask if we really *want* mass acceptance? > > > > Yes. > > I love it when people try to minimize my bandwidth costs by sending short > and precise answers... > > Seriously: How do you imagine it? Throw out the shell and make a GUI only > thing? Will the masses out there ever use an OS where you have to type > something like "find / \! -newer report.tex"? I'm not saying that X or KDE > should not be used, but, as is well known, all GUIs mainly harm > flexibility of a system. How does adding a GUI hurt the flexability of a UNIX-alike? Running X - or Aqua - doesn't magically mean I can't type find . \! -newer report.tex -print, does it? I hope not, because I've done thjings like that on MacOSX boxen. Constraining the user to require that everything be done through a GUI hurts the flexibility of a system, sure. Has anyone suggested that's the right course of action? > My original statement may have sounded a little strange, but I still think > that we're dealing with an operating system for a more advanced class of > computer users. Everyone can join that advanced class at their free will. You seem to think that computer operating systems are either arcane and difficult to use, or are for drooling morons. This seems to be the case, with extant systems, but there's no reason, other than few people have put the effort into it, that you can't have a system that retains all of the power and flexibility of a soemthing like UNIX, but which also has a nice, useful GUI. Apple, and NeXT before them, have done a decent job of building such a system. There not there yet, but they're getting closer. I'm not sure I'd have beleived someone five years ago that tol me my mother (who has called me to ask how to use the VCR) would be able to install a UNIX box from scratch. She's done that now, wtih OSX. There's no technical reason others can't do things like this as well. > But no one can expect icons and strange comic-creatures in animated > widnows telling them how to use the disklabel command (yes, this is a > reference to this strange help system introduced by MS in Office 97 and > up). > Why should you need to use the disklabel command at all, unless you want to do something unusual with the disk? Shouldn't I be able to attach the disk, have a volume daemon see it, ask if I'd like to add it, and give me options to set it up in two or three common (or site specific) manners? Sure the pretty gui may well be running disklabel and friends behind my back, but what do I care? To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSI.4.20.0111011639030.14065-100000>