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On Tutorials and Open Source
Open Source is the key to creativity in the market. Corporations are completely incapable of being innovative although they are marvels when you consider their ability to see a potential investment as well as their ability to saturate a market with their wares through distribution and marketing.
Open Source is primarily driven by hackers, intellectuals, idealists and developers. Usually these “drivers” are all of those things if not at least three out of four.
In order to breath more life (or simply to keep life breathing into it) into the social experiment/initiative of open source software it is imperative that knowledge be passed onto the next generation. Most of the developers out in the world come from standard development backgrounds and the OS circle is sorely lacking in the “user friendly” category. In my opinion it’s because Linux (the OS platform du jour) wasn’t developed with “user friendly” in mind.
Small tangent, a majority of things are usually a reflection of their intent. OSX and all Apple products are designed to be sleek, friendly, pretty but at the same time restrictive and single minded. Windows is generic, a swiss army knife of functionality where yes, you do have a screw driver, but if you ever thought it would be better than getting a screwdriver… :-P
So if we expect software to get better in the future we need to pass the knowledge forward. Unfortunately, writing a tutorial is a pain in the ass but it’s necessary. If people don’t learn to write then there will be little poetry or the poetry that you will find will be a high gloss contrived facade for a reasonable price or a masterpiece that looks like trash. It reminds me of the music scene. I guess with that in mind I can say that Linux is punk rock and that’s why I like it.
Either way, we need to pass this forward.
