[ic] Frustrated with IC 4.8

[IC-Admin]

On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, Ian Riddler wrote:

> With all due respect, that's utter rubbish.
> 
> You don't expect the people who drive cars to know how to build one from
> scratch. You don't expect the mechanics who fix them to understand the 
> science behind them.
> Even in the assembly plants, the bulk of the workers are following
> blueprints, not understanding the science behind it.
> 

Aaah, and the factory gives you the car for free ?

> Your reasoning is flawed.  Amongst the people who are trying to install
> interchange are long-term programmers and sys admins with a good
> understanding of the OS and programming. The solution you are giving is
> "Tough, I can understand it. If you can't, go elsewhere."
> That's not a solution, that's pure arrogance.
> 

No, that was not my intention at all. Matter of factly, I can't judge
the code of this program. I don't understand it one bit. :-) If you think
the code is broken and can't get fixed in a way that is acceptable to you,
then I listen to that and I think it's good that you voiced your opinion. 

I myself can't make such a judgement. I watch this list for such a long
time in the hope to make a judgement of that sort (without learning to the
point that I can make a judgement of the code)  from the comments I read
here and the questions which get answered and asked. 

> Interchange IS flawed, in that it's a fairly old piece of open source
> software with a nasty number of bugs, (some of which are showstoppers).
> It's ridiculously hard to install.  A great percentage of the emails to this
> list are installation issues.
>
> The documentation IS too obscure, and the learning curve IS too steep.
>
> The challenge is to fix the bugs, develop clear middle-level and low-level
> documentation and _then_ consider the wonderful new features.
> 

I could imagine that this might be a decision made on purpose. What would
be the advantage from the view point of Red Hat, if they would spend a lot
of time in writing a middle-level or low-level documentation  and loose
time to possibly miss out on new features which keeps them on a
competitive edge ?

Yes, more people might be able to download the software with less
installation for free, may be. But I ask myself, how would that help Red
Hat to make money ? 

Please note, that I don't speak at all for Red Hat and I envison
already that Red Hat folks and Mike Heins might getting mighty frustrated
with me feeding this thread through my comments.

> As for paying money to redhat, there's no way I'm paying hard-earned money
> for broken code in the hope that one day it'll be fixed.

I could imagine that Red Hat would also no way want to give their
hard-earned free time to a unhappy customer, who doesn't want to pay a
dime, in the hope they can make him happy.

> Just like I wouldn't buy a car with 3 wheels in the hope of encouraging the
> car maker to add the 4th.
> 

I guess then that you have to buy another car, who has four wheels. Sorry
to hear that.  

> Ian Riddler
> Partner
> Griffler Enterprises
> 





> >
> > There is no science, where the scientist adapt to the level of
> > understanding of a highschool student, just to make sure everybody
> > can understand quantum physics. If a chemist develops a drug his
> > documentation for that drug will not be watered down to a level
> > a ninth grader can read it like a science fiction novel.
> >
> > Somewhere along the road you can understand, that it's up to you to
> > learn the tools you need. I wouldn't know any field where that wouldn't
> > be the same.
> >
> > Birgitt Funk
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> interchange-users mailing list
> interchange-users@interchange.redhat.com
> http://interchange.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/interchange-users
>