This is really old, and some of you might have seen it on slashdot
back in May, but this is fantastic stuff, so:
Making Linux Easy With Eazel's Andy Hertzfeld
Posted by emmett on Monday May 15, @04:08PM
from the making-things-easy-is-hard dept.
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/15/176254.shtml
> Make no mistake. Andy Hertzfeld, Eazel developer and Macintosh
> forefather, is an Open Source zealot. Forged in the fires of
> Steve Jobs and Bandley 3, Andy's leading the team to build a
> kinder, gentler interface for our favorite operating system. I
> got the opportunity to speak to Andy last week, and I learned a
> lot about the challenges and victories of thinking different with
> Linux.
:
> Slashdot: How did you get involved in the Open Source/Free Software
> movement?
>
> Andy: When I took off from General Magic in 1996, the Internet
> was exploding, and I just wanted to learn about it. So, I set up
> an ISP at my house, got a T1 line, and set everything up myself
> so I could learn about how things are put together. But also, to
> justify that T1 line, I started doing pro bono projects of
> various kinds. I was happily puttering along with those kinds of
> projects when in January of 1998, the Mozilla announcement caught
> my attention in a big way. That led me to Eric Raymond's papers,
> and an epiphany, you know, a moment of insight, where I realized
> that it solved the structural problems in the software industry.
> I'd been depressed about the lack of innovation and the
> stagnation and the anti-user framework that the software industry
> had fallen into. The idealism of the computer industry had led to
> this cul-de-sac, where no one was really happy with their
> machines. The basic problem is that the applications want to
> converge on a common system infrastructure. That's what's good
> for the applications, good for the users, good for everyone, to
> be built on top of a common system software base. The problem is
> that when that common system software base is controlled by a
> proprietary interest, the company that controls it necessarily
> becomes anti-innovative. In order to maintain their control, they
> are at odds with the users and the developers. I had realized
> that, and I didn't see a way out until reading Eric Raymond's
> papers, and learning about the successes of Linux, Apache, et
> cetera. I saw that if that common infrastructure could be owned
> by the community on something like the GPL, the problems are
> solved. You can have a healthy software industry, where anyone
> who wants to innovate has equal footing. That was really exciting
> to me, and I saw it as a call to action. [...]
:
> Slashdot: How much of your original Apple Macintosh design
> influence is finding its way into Eazel?
>
> Andy: What I would say is that our design values have remained
> pretty consistent. What we think is important is the same.
> Essentially, making the user happy. Bill Atkinson, who is really
> the person I learned the most from on how to do good user
> interface, his one rule of user interface design is 'make the
> user happy.' What you do is put yourself in the shoes of the
> user, look through their eyes, and try to make things work from
> their perspective. That being said, one of the things we didn't
> know how to do on the Macintosh, that we learned subsequently, is
> that it's very important to user test. So, to make usable
> software, you have to take your best shot with your own empathy
> with the user, seeing the way the user sees, but then you have to
> test that against real users. You put them down in front of it
> with a video camera running, and you see where they 'get it' and
> where they don't.
>
> Slashdot: When a wirehead designs an interface for wireheads,
> that's fine. The Linux command line works fine for wireheads. For
> that reason, it's why the popular Linux interfaces don't work
> well with people coming right from Windows.
>
> Andy: One of the big problems in terms of usability and Open
> Source software is that no systematic user testing has ever been
> done. That's one of the things we're trying to change at Eazel.
>
> The personal computer has come a long way since 1984. Microsoft
> has a vast marketshare of the desktop computer market, and most
> people are content with machines that don't perform nearly as
> well as they could. With new ideology and a team of experienced
> developers, Eazel is helping to build something that Open Source
> and Free Software advocates have been waiting for. A computer
> industry for the rest of us.
--
Gerald Oskoboiny <
[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/