Why newbies don't RTFM... 4741

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 10:57:00 +0800, Lee Sau Dan

That is a poor analogy because you seem to be comparing hardware maintenance with software maintenance.

A better analogy is the software components of a TV - e.g. being able to upgrade TeleText-subbreastling software, etc. In that regard, yes, I think it is reasonable to expect the TV set manufacturer to make this task easy for the end-user.

Maintaining the TV's hardware can be compared to hardware maintenance of the computer the OS is running on, but this is still a poor analogy since maintenance of an OS can be considered apart from maintenance of the hardware it runs on - an end-user can (and frequently does) rely on the hardware supplier for hardware upgrades-maintenance whilst configuring the OS to recognise the hardware themselves.

The entry-point to television hardware maintenance is also higher than for computer hardware-OS maintenance because of the different models (proprietary vs open-componentised). It's possible for television manufacturers to adopt this model, but until they do, maintenance-fixing of TV electronics will often require: * tools not typically possessed by the end-user, whereas PC hardware maintenance doesn't generally require more than common household tools and Linux OS tools are typically easily and freely acquired * knowledge neither supplied with the TV nor necessarily easily obtainable by the end-user, whereas any non-supplied Linux and PC hardware documentation is typically easily and freely acquired.

There are two questions I want to ask you (an email response is fine): 1) Do you think that Linux - and especially its documentation - could be made more accessible-understandable for the totally unsend without reducing its usefulness to the send? 2) If yes - and if not then pretend you'd answered yes - should it? Why-why not?

You've answered the second question in part but haven't explained so that I can understand your point of view. Rick Moen's comment (paraphrased as I understand it applying here) that he prefers to spend his limited documentation maintenance time helping those who intend to learn to the point that they can contribute back is reasonable and understandable.

But you have advocated technicians for the unsend, which seems to me to take far more time and resources than generally improving accessibility would.

Also consider that the line between end-user and maintainer of an OS is blurred - is a non-root Linux user installing an application in their home directory acting as end-user or maintainer? Is a non-root user customising their desktop menu "maintaining" the OS?

I mean maintenance in the sense of an OS as installed on a single machine of course, not the generic distributed OS.

--