On 12/17/2012 05:03 AM, Rejy M Cyriac wrote:
On 12/17/2012 01:47 PM, Tim wrote:
Tim:
Mine actually gets used as a tool, fiddling around with it is the
last thing I want to do.  It wastes my time having to tweak things to
get them to do what I want them to.


Eddie G. O'Connor Jr. sent:
I on the other hand am curious to see the inner-workings of some of
the apps on my Fedora 17 laptop. ...but I also don't want to have to
change or edit something every time I need to get something done....si
I guess there's a sweet spot / middle ground that some folks can fit
into. I'm past the "point-and-click" phase of computing, and am going
to want to constantly learn how to do things, but I'm also no
programmer-level, super-computing, genius who can do all things with a
few lines of code.....

Oh, I'll try out new and interesting sounding software, learn how to set
up a new service, et cetera.  But what I don't want to do is continually
fiddle with the desktop, itself, nor have to learn new ways to do the
same thing, over and over again (whether that be NFS requiring a new
configuration methodology to do exactly what it was doing in the prior
release, or what new hoops have to be jumped through to get the damn
nvidia card to work on the same hardware).

I see people who seem to do nothing other than continually change the
background and menus of their desktop in new and useless ways.  Yes,
that is a dig at the Gnome developers, as well as fiddle-finger-users.

Everyone has their own area of interest, and I believe that all 'fiddling', big or small, contributes to improving Open Source Software.

I agree that there are some contributions to O.S.S. that have been beneficial.....but when a developer or group decides FOR me what THEY think I WANT or NEED in my OS.....well that' seems to be going down the "Red/Green/Blue/Yellow-Brick-Road"....a lot of people complained like crazy when Gnome changed.....others...(myself included!) actually liked the newer look and feel....eventually because of the firmness of the Gnome developers (who only recently relented and decided to include some form of "throwback to an earlier time" with the current release) a lot of people dumped it altogether......well now..BOTH camps can be satisfied....others who liked neither version went the way of MATE....Cinnamon....or KDE....XFCE....etc. As long as there's "Choice" then fiddling shouldn't be a big problem.....not in a community of people who adhere to the power of choice as a major principle...its when you lock people into a format....file-type....style....version....etc. that's when fiddling can become hazardous...


EGO II