←back to thread

Free software scares normal people

(danieldelaney.net)
917 points cryptophreak | 10 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
Show context
squeedles ◴[30 Oct 25 16:12 UTC] No.45761639[source]▶
Good article, but the reasoning is wrong. It isn't easy to make a simple interface in the same way that Pascal apologized for writing a long letter because he didn't have time to write a shorter one.

Implementing the UI for one exact use case is not much trouble, but figuring out what that use case is difficult. And defending that use case from the line of people who want "that + this little extra thing", or the "I just need ..." is difficult. It takes a single strong-willed defender, or some sort of onerous management structure, to prevent the interface from quickly devolving back into the million options or schizming into other projects.

Simply put, it is a desirable state, but an unstable one.

replies(22): >>45761688 #>>45761787 #>>45761946 #>>45762556 #>>45763000 #>>45763132 #>>45763419 #>>45763515 #>>45764215 #>>45765589 #>>45766183 #>>45766281 #>>45768514 #>>45769691 #>>45771196 #>>45771307 #>>45771846 #>>45772026 #>>45773411 #>>45773951 #>>45776266 #>>45779651 #
dayvid ◴[30 Oct 25 16:15 UTC] No.45761688[source]▶
The contributors of free software tend to be power users who want to ensure their use case works. I don't think they're investing a lot of thought into the 80/20 use case for normal/majority or users or would risk hurting their workflow to make it easier for others
replies(4): >>45761808 #>>45763689 #>>45764090 #>>45774820 #
1. psunavy03 ◴[30 Oct 25 19:16 UTC] No.45764090[source]▶
And this is precisely why desktop Linux has not knocked off Windows or MacOS.
replies(3): >>45764170 #>>45764412 #>>45765635 #
2. bigfishrunning ◴[30 Oct 25 19:23 UTC] No.45764170[source]▶
And that's fine. Those users who want something that's not like desktop Linux have plenty of options.
replies(1): >>45764334 #
3. ghaff ◴[30 Oct 25 19:35 UTC] No.45764334[source]▶
And increasingly it doesn't matter because they just live in a browser anyway.
replies(1): >>45765063 #
4. ripdog ◴[30 Oct 25 19:42 UTC] No.45764412[source]▶
I'd argue that's more because the average person has no interest in installing a new OS, or even any idea what an OS is.

Most people just keep the default. When the default is Linux (say, the Steam Deck), most people just keep Linux.

5. thinkmassive ◴[30 Oct 25 20:41 UTC] No.45765063{3}[source]▶
Which also makes it easier than ever for more users to run Linux as a desktop OS :)
replies(1): >>45765528 #
6. ghaff ◴[30 Oct 25 21:21 UTC] No.45765528{4}[source]▶
Absolutely. I still prefer MacOS/Mac hardware in some ways but running a browser on Linux on a Thinkpad or whatever works pretty well for a lot of purposes.
7. valyala ◴[30 Oct 25 21:32 UTC] No.45765635[source]▶
Omarchy tries resolving this https://github.com/basecamp/omarchy
replies(2): >>45769982 #>>45770680 #
8. a96 ◴[31 Oct 25 09:25 UTC] No.45769982[source]▶
Dear reader, please make sure you look up whose project this is and why it's spammed everywhere.
replies(1): >>45770074 #
9. tmtvl ◴[31 Oct 25 09:41 UTC] No.45770074{3}[source]▶
Duckduckgo led me to this wiki page: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Heinemeier_Hansson>. I can see why software by the creator of Ruby on Rails gets widely shared. Pretty good 24HLM results too.
10. int_19h ◴[31 Oct 25 11:03 UTC] No.45770680[source]▶
I clicked on the link, and the first thing I see is a screenshot where half of the screen is taken by terminal with TUI apps in it. There's no "Install" button, and the "Download" one is labelled "ISO".

Yeah, no, that isn't it.