SOFTWARE FOR SOMEONE ELSE
I wrote this a few days ago, trying to finish it quickly in the
morning, and I ran out of time as usual. I don't know if I really
believe in it that much, or at least I feel I couldn't defend it in
an argument. It seems like the sort of thing I'd say in person but
not normally online. Though maybe that's just because in person I
wouldn't be talking to anyone who actually understands what I'm
saying, because I don't know anyone like that to talk to in person
anyway.
Well I don't think I should get so fussed over what I say here, so
I'll just post it anyway. I don't claim any particular confidence
in the accuracy, even just in representing my own opinion, of my
other posts anyway. Maybe it's just that in this case I really
don't want to believe that I won't be able to forever find a cheap
and easy way to keep using computers the same way.
-- START --
The thing about free software, especially open-source Linux/UNIX
software, is that it gives you so much that it's all the more
frustrating when you find nobody's catered to one of your own
requirements.
That sounds selfish, the idea of course is that you should create
what you want for yourself and share it just like everyone else
does in the open-source world. But in the real world certain things
are just damn hard, and somehow the very work of other people
developing software that doesn't meet your personal needs tends to
make it harder. Primary examples are web browsers and operating
systems.
Why is it that at the same time I can buy a car from the 80s and
keep it going mostly by myself, and if not then with the aid of a
normal garage in a nearby small country town, without any
particular engineering skill or exceptonal financial investment, I
can't possibly keep a computer from the 90s, or even the early
2000s, doing the same tasks it was capable of when it was made?
It's because my money, and that of others like me, matters in the
automotive world - I pay for parts, lubricants, time. I don't pay
for the software, and that's why it doesn't really serve my
purpose. But actually with the significant software, the web
browsers and operating systems that aren't approachable for meer
mortals to make an impact developing, someone does pay for those.
They have their interests, which are not all the same but share a
common term, 'new'.
In technology 'new' is growth, "new model" means more sales, "new
hardware" means greater efficiency, "new feature" means more users.
Growth is money, and that's the money that funds open-source
software, that's the direction it steers towards as a ship
following a compass bearing. Hangers-on would make their mark, try
to pull projects in their direction. Maybe their efforts come along
for the ride, like the entire UNIX subsystem, made up of so many
little single-person efforts for writing tiny programs to serve an
individual need, which is still dragged around behind
corporate-backed beheamouths of code such as GNOME, Systemd, and
X.org (or increasingly Wayland). Or maybe they just break and go
unsupported, as it becomes too hard to fit them into the software
world that's changed so much.
-- END --
Well not really the end, but that's the last finished paragraph and
I don't feel like writing the rest. My Internet Client is still
working well and gets me around most of the issues, though it's a
shame Firefox works so inefficiently displaying over TCP with X,
and for that matter I'll be stuffed if it goes Wayland-only one
day. OpenWRT's outgrown my router, though I'll try their Image
Builder for making a custom image that I'm guessing will work,
however they say it only runs on x86_64 so I can only do it using
my Internet Client machine because since my new (to me) laptop died
it's the only x86_64 system that's set up. Just examples, are they
evidence that the above is wrong, or that it's right? I don't know.
- The Free Thinker