Disorganization: Open source’s cancer and symptom
Andrei Herasimchuk has hit it on the head again. The man has this Web stuff figured out. Previously, he dressed down Jakob Nielsen so thoroughly that I can’t imagine useit.com gets visits these days from anyone besides hack journalists looking for a quote from a self-appointed “usability guru.” Now Andrei has taken on the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad organization of open source software in a new essay: “I would RTFM if there was a FM to FR”. This man is fast becoming the spokesman for the clear-minded and practical techie. (And for anyone who’s been on the Net for any period of time, that title in itself is a thing of beauty.)
Herasimchuk is sick of open source software’s (OSS) shitty organization. I’m sick of it too. In fact, the sheer time required to get OSS to function properly is the perfect reason to avoid it altogether. It’s why I gave up on Linux. Andrei points out three main failings of OSS:
- Horrible usability
- Arcane installations
- Disorganized documentation
He’s oh-so right on all three counts. The problem is, these problems are not going away. They don’t exist because OSS’s contributors are stupid, lazy, or unambitious; these problems exist because OSS is disorganized by its very nature. In fact, the rallying cry of OSS is its very disorganization. Leading the “OSS revolution” its false prophet, Eric S. Raymond, who was recently obliterated by John Gruber in much the same fashion that Herasimchuk exposed Nielsen. The glorious irony of ESR’s disgust with the usability of the Linux printing system CUPS was that it sprang from the very disorganization he so vehemently promotes in the OSS movement. ESR is decentralized software development, and thus ESR is poor software usability.
Herasimchuk’s essay seems to have struck a chord. The comments on his essay show a chorus of nodding techies. But look a little deeper and you’ll see that there’s no solution in sight for the problems pointed out. To wit:
Michel Vuijlsteke, comment #22 (excerpt)
I’m one of those people who’ve been using computers since before they were PCs. I’ve wrestled with everything from Z80 assembly over TRS-80s to early XTs, DOS, DeskView (those were the days), C++, WordPerfect, to Windows, Macs, QuarkXPress, Photoshop, … the works.
Every so often I download a new Linux distro and install it on an old PC I have lying around. And every. single. time. I absolutely loathe the process. I am not a newbie, and I am not an idiot, but there is just no way that you can get it to work even halfway decently without another computer and Google.
Dean Jackson, comment #8 (excerpt)
Speaking as someone who writes W3C specifications, I agree with you — they suck to read. However, they are not meant to be documentation or tutorials; They are specifications. I wouldn’t expect to learn how to work my digital alarm clock by looking at the circuit diagram. …
As for the W3C web site - it is a mess. I can’t find anything and I work there. My eyes bleed when I look at some of the pages. But I don’t think it is going to change in the near future since it has a huge number of pages and an extremely strict persistence policy. Basically it would be a huge effort to clean it up. Maybe it will happen one day.
The fundamental reason for the usability, installations, and documentation shortcomings of OSS is its decentralized, disorganized nature. Yes, it is disorganized—and no, this disorganization is not an asset, at least when it comes to the areas of usability, installations, and documentation. OSS and its zealots have staked their claims on their anti-corporate, anti-hierarchical structure, but they haven’t owned up to the inherent weaknesses of this approach. Sure, you get lots of people working on a project, and manpower is good for churning out code. Sure, you get lots of eyes looking at code, which (debatably) creates more secure software. But usable software? Software for the masses? Windows-esque double-click-to-install-and-everything-works software? Fuhgetaboutit.
So here’s the real question: Can the open source movement adapt? Can it improve? Can it get organized? Can it get its act together and become “mainstream?”
Answer: Not a chance in hell. The OSS movement has become like a religion, and what it could be a promising idea (a collection of individuals donating their time and collaborating to create software) has truly become a “movement” to many. This is a bad thing. The open source movement is mired in dogma, following closed-minded and egomaniacal zealots like Eric S. Raymond and Jeffrey “If it doesn’t validate, I’ll gut you” Zeldman. It’s sort of sad, really, to see these souls latch onto software with zeal that should be attached to philosophy or religion. Worse yet, since these zealots subscribe to laughable, socialistic ideas about the evils of corporations and hierarchy, they’ll never allow the movement to adopt the positive elements of organization (and organizations).
The OSS will not change. The usability, installation, and documentation problems identified by Herasimchuk are but symptoms of the cancer.
May 2nd, 2004 at 7:05 pm
I would RTFM if there was an FM to FR
This is going to be a massive rant. I kid you not. There will be much swearing in this article. Much swearing. There will be vitriol. There will be abusive language. This is going to be R-rated stuff. I’m about…
May 10th, 2004 at 6:13 pm
there is no “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad organization of open source software.” it’s just a lot of people sitting around putting together software for people to use, in their spare time, with little to no promise of financial rewards. most of the internet runs on Apache, which is one of Eric Raymond’s gifts to the world. he gave you a box to stand on, and you use it to lash out against him.
and for what it’s worth, Zeldman comments in his book that the best way to put together a complex website is a good mix of old and new technologies. in his own book, he says that there’s nothing wrong with using tables if CSS can’t do the job.
your article-on-an-article is just mean-spirited and as unproductive as Andrei’s - to quote someone from the comments: “If you don’t like it, contribute, or shut up.” Andrei doesn’t offer to share any of his obviously Olympian design and UI skills with the developers of the projects in question, he doesn’t offer to help write documentation, he doesn’t even mention sending the developers constructive criticism or feedback. he just sits back in his Aeron and rants against the very people that have given him a platform to rant from. it’s the worst sort of cynicism and it doesn’t take a damn step in the direction of solving the problem.
open source is not a cancer and you’re way off base for suggesting it. last time i checked, your website was running on top of free software, and free software empowers millions of people around the world, including large corporations and governments. any changes will be incremental… people need to get their heads out of the sand and realize that we’re still in the Dark Ages of computer interfaces. the WIMP paradigm is 20 years old, maybe that would be worth ranting about… but as far as i’m concerned, you and Andrei are shouting at the grass and telling it to grow faster.
August 13th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Cancer, I thought, is a group of virulent cells that replicate like normal cells and didn’t die off when they should.
If this software was so bad as to be unusable, then wouldn’t it die off too, as people stopped using it? Why the fear of software that is as unusable and awful as you say? Why isn’t the unusability of this stuff self-evident?
The fact is that many millions of people find OSS software perfectly usable. If you don’t, then go use some other software. Fine by me. I won’t complain. Then again, perhaps you’re just trolling OSS users on the internet in order to get some more Google Ad revenue. Good luck with that.