Hari's Corner

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Why software development is not for the masses

Filed under: Software and Technology by Hari
Posted on Fri, Oct 20, 2006 at 19:42 IST (last updated: Wed, Jul 16, 2008 @ 20:42 IST)

I recently posted this message in response to a thread at LinuxQuestions.org and thought I would share it here as well since it kind of explains the pressures and pulls, the frustrations and the never-ending debates between users within the FOSS community. As such I think it applies generally to anything in life that involves considerable skill, know-how and talent.

Slightly edited for context's sake:
There is no irony in FOSS development being more controlled. Nobody said that FOSS is for the masses. You assume that because it's freely available, it's for you. Nobody said you have to use it. Nobody benefits by you or me using FOSS. They (the developers) appreciate the fact that we use it of course, but they are by no means obliged to include each and every feature you and I want, nor do they think that's a good idea too.

Because software development cannot be a democratic process. Developers need feedback of course, but they cannot take a popular vote to include features in their system without considering the technical merits of ideas and the possibility of them fitting in with their philosophies and goals. Projects which try and cater to every single end-user requirement end up in a mess because there is always a conflict of goals - different people need different things out of their software.

You have to understand that it's not a question of closed and open at all.

Life works that way. People who are knowledgeable are empowered to make things work. People who don't have the know-how will always depend on them...

Simply put, your empowerment in the community is in proportion to your level of ability and knowledge. You can choose to be empowered or not, that's up to you. Most of us choose to be users and are happy with that status of course, but any time you're not happy with some piece of code you don't see FOSS gives you that power to change it and make it your own... provided you have that skill.
On a general note there will always be dissatisfaction when knowledge, technology, wealth and empowerment are spread out unevenly in a society. I think that about sums it up ;)

2 comment(s)

  1. Well said, sire! No-one is asking us to use FOSS software and we cannot 'demand' features! Only, the FOSS nature of the software makes it amenable to any damn change we like to make, and we can tailor it to our needs.

    Comment by Sudipta Chatterjee (visitor) on Sat, Oct 21, 2006 @ 13:34 IST #
  2. Thanks. And the point I was making was that as an end user we always tend to be dissatisfied and this has nothing to do with software being open or closed. More than anything it has something to do with the end user's level of ability to change things.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Sat, Oct 21, 2006 @ 13:53 IST #

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