Open Warrior

Teamwork,
originally uploaded by tim ellis.

The open source development model is what makes open source software so great. The model is simple: release early, release often. The reason is simple, the sooner you can get software out there, the sooner bugs can be found and fixed, and in the long run, better software. For geeks and technical users this is the best type of development model.

For non-technical users however, software which follows this development process can be somewhat daunting. Non-technical users and new users to open source software are looking for usability and complete software packages, not a simplistic form of what one day will be a great software package. I’m pretty sure that a non-technical user who comes across semi-working software, will probably just give up using it.

Think of all those stories that you hear from people when you tell them that you use Linux. If they know what Linux is, their response will usually be something like “Oh yes, Linux, I installed it a while ago but I wasn’t able to get XYZ working.”

The reason this happens, is that we, as geeks don’t mind if something doesn’t work 100% – we can always find a work around. For the non-technical user however, this isn’t the case.

Perhaps it’s time that more emphasis is put on the average non-technical user, rather than the geek who’ll be able to work things out. Maybe it’s time to adapt the development model to cater for non-technical users, rather than have it aimed a the pursuit of perfect, bug free software. Open source software is for everybody to use – but to do that, it must be usable!

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