Conversation

Notices

1. matt 🏴 (matt@cybre.space)'s status on Friday, 13-Apr-2018 10:18:22 EDT matt 🏴

   Just saw a "free software" manifesto that actually says that "software should be written for programmers", and... how can anyone be this dense? If software is only usable by a small percentage of people with highly specialized technical skills, it's not really free, is it? You're just replacing one gatekeeper with another.

   Instead of software being controlled by capitalistic monopolists, you're advocating it be controlled by a small technocratic elite. That's not better!!!

   1. Bob Mottram 🔧 ☕ ✅ (bob@soc.freedombone.net)'s status on Friday, 13-Apr-2018 11:34:06 EDT Bob Mottram 🔧 ☕ ✅

      in reply to
      @matt A better way of putting this is that usually all software is written for the purposes of the author to solve some particular problem which they have. You are the best person to know what your own problems are and so the best software comes from people who are embedded within the problem.
      
      No mater how empathic you are it's genuinely hard to know what other people's problems are at the level of exactitude required to build software. This kind of problem crops up repeatedly in commercial software development, where the developer high-mindedly believes that they know exactly what other people's problems are and sets about to solve them. Except that often the developer is only indulging in hubris.
      
      This is why diversity is important in software development. Without diversity you can't develop for a wider population because you can't bootstrap your own standpoint.