Since I wrote about the seven kinds of anti-Linux FUD pundits, it occurred to me that plain old forum and blog-comment trolls could be classified, too.
Why does Free and Open Source Software get trolled so much? You'd think we were doing something awful by just writing programs and giving them away. While it is true that a lot of it could be mere paid asstroturfers courtesy of large commercial software companies, that doesn't explain them all. Over the years, I've seen so much online flamage - and even some in person! - that I couldn't miss spotting some patterns. You'll recognize these common trolls in this list. Most of them could almost be cut-and-pasted. Direct one here the next time you see them, if for nothing else than to urge them to get a new trick!
The Stockholder - This is very sad, because we have Joe Sixpack and Susie Soccermom out there with their 401-K being 50% tech stocks in proprietary software companies. And they then assume that all competing software companies are their mortal enemy. Look for lots of bad-mouthing the "competition" and boosting a well-known publicly-traded company, without much evidence of any technical knowledge.
Addendum: For another example of how investors let their wallet do the talking, look at the huge flame war going on right now over the fate of Yahoo. Microsoft is in a full-out war to crush it any way they can, and so hundreds of investors in one company or the other go online to spread the lies that Yahoo is a sinking ship who should submit to Microsoft.
It's all lies folks, every line by every troll, with Carl Icahn being in the lead. Yahoo is a Fortune 500 company (ranked #412), they take in $7 billion per year, and the domain attracts 1.5 billion visitors annually. If MSN.com were separated from the rest of Microsoft, Yahoo could buy them out of petty cash.
The Ugh-meri-kin - This neanderthal attacks GNU/Linux (it's always GNU/Linux) based on the nasty allegation that FOSS is communist, anti-capitalist, or anti-American. That goes 100% anti-logic. If anything, GNU/Linux is software as the signers of the Constitution would have had it. Democratic computing for Democratic people. It belongs to everyone, and is designed with the individual's maximum freedom always as its number-one cause. But then, not too much logic ever went into neanderthal philosophy.
The Vandal - The most dangerous troll of all. Capable of literally destroying FOSS projects just by flaming them online. The vandal always takes the tactic of attacking the interface. It's almost always a graphics program, too. And regardless of whether it's POVRay for 3D modeling or Inkscape for vector graphics, the comparison is always to Photoshop. The vandal works on insecure programmers. It works like this: "Your interface sucks!" So they change it. Then it's "Ha ha! I made you break a perfectly good program! Now you've rearranged your interface, confused yourself, alienated your old users, and not gotten any new users! You sucker, you fell for it!" So far, they've gotten Gimp and Blender this way. Don't fall for it, people! There is not a single thing wrong with a single FOSS program's user interface, anywhere, period.
I repeat: "There is not a single thing wrong with a single FOSS program's user interface, anywhere, period." Ever. In commercial software, people meekly accept the interface they are handed on proprietary software because they have no choice, and all complaints are met with "Buzz off!", and people still buy it anyway. FOSS needs to learn to do the same, or vandals will ruin it for their childish amusement forever. There is no reason to complain about something that you can fix yourself, anyway - that would be why it's open source, you know! If you can't live with a FOSS program as-is and can't program it yourself, hire some off-shore hacker to make you a custom copy for $20. I see it happen all the time.
Update: This point is now getting its own post, Interface Obsession Syndrome.
Rip-Van Winkle - A cousin to the Time Traveler FUD pundit. This user last tried Linux in version 1.0 - maybe somebody at college gave them a Yggdrasil Linux CD - and they didn't like it, and have gone on through life ever since morally convinced that Linux never marched another step forward. Imagine if you judged Windows by a glimpse you caught in 1993 of Windows 3.1 running a hotdog-stand color scheme. Or judged Apple by the MacIntosh system 7 of 1991. The difference between an ordinary misinformed user and a troll is that the troll is now advanced in years and set in his or her ways, and will accuse you of trickery if you try to show them different.
The Red Baron - This is actually a regular troll who just happens to be dishing out their delights in a Linux forum today. So they fly in and zero in on an easy target and buzz away, laughing in the flack. Pick any one of "Not a good gaming platform.", "Can't run this proprietary program.", "I tried it once and it didn't work.", "My gramma couldn't figure it out.", etc. Hold your well-reasoned rebuttal - the Red Baron is far away before you got a chance to react.
The Job Defender - This one's motivations, like the Stockholder, are purely financial. Hey, I can *almost* sympathize! I can imagine that you paid six figures to get a degree and ended up tied to a particular niche in proprietary software, and now you're worried that FOSS will put you out of a job if it catches on. The part where it becomes trolling is when they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that FOSS creates jobs as well. They bet too much money on the wrong horse, and now it's all tears and self-pity.
Update Why hello, Groklaw readers, welcome to the Z-list! I've expanded the statement about interfaces into a new post, Interface Obsession Syndrome.
Update 7/10/08: If the program I have in the screenshot has you stumped, Béranger guessed it. While you're there, if you think I'm full of beans, you'll like how Béranger says so. He, like, really really opposes the views of my post. A lot.
NOTICE: HOLD YOUR FIRE AT LINSUX! I have a sense of humor about them, and I advise you readers to do the same. And I'm saying this fully aware of this post by "Sir Sane".
No, Sir Sane, but thanks for asking. Have you found any new ways to fill your time?
Comments:
Total BS. Insecure programmers shouldn't be responding to trolls. Experienced programmers, if they read these comments at all, should use their judgment to determine whether the UI interface suggestions
a) improve the product
b) fit the product's look & feel
c) break any existing functionality
d) are feasible to develop
Those comments should then be logged in the list of tasks to be done or else discarded.
"There is no reason to complain about something that you can fix yourself, anyway "
Yep, no good reason to ask for a feature that would benefit the whole community instead of being a proprietary fork that needs to be locally maintained through each upgrade.
What open source needs is a paid suggestion box for those who don't want to fork the product. People who want a feature would pay $X and send their comment. The comment gets forwarded to the FOSS support team who will review the comment and implement/ignore as they see fit.
Indeed, "there is nothing wrong... ever..." is slipping over the line in the other direction into fanboyism.
There is plenty wrong with many FOSS interfaces. The important things to remember are:
- There is also plenty wrong with non-FOSS interfaces.
- Software like Excel proves that a poor, non-intuitive interface does not stop a program being successful.
- The problems that trolls identify in an interface are generally not the real problems. Listen to experts and to real users, not to trolls.
In the case of GIMP, there are real and serious problems with the interface - e.g. the clumsy management of layers. However, trolls typically pick on things that aren't broken in the slightest, like line drawing. That's how you can tell them apart from serious comments by people who use the software and really want it to get better.
An honest appraisal of any software (commercial, freeware, or open-source) is bound to find problems. The issue is deciding who to listen to when identifying them. Blender is a great case in point with (I believe) an interesting solution. The interface has been widely acknowledged as hard to learn. To correct the problem (as seen by the interface detractors, myself included) they are refactoring code to allow for a customizable interface - at which point the interface issues become a problem for non-core Blender developers to solve.
Being an artist & graphics application developer, I'd love to know where GIMP compromised itself to be more "Photoshop-like", as honestly I use it when I DON'T want a Photoshop interface...
--Ben
You have a choice, whereas communism doesn't
Communism, if executed right (which is impossible, but I'm not getting into it), is a _good_ thing. (I'm not going to elaborate on that either)
Also, one more type of troll: The Vague troll
These trolls will post random comments about Linux but will not elaborate, and when taken literally, don't make sense, e.g. "Nobody cares about Linux" (I get that a lot, at which point I list all the major companies involved in Linux)
2. "Can't run this proprietary program" is sometimes also valid. Linux still misses stuff, but closes on in visibly.
3. FOSS GUI never crap? Don't make me laugh. I think GUI-wise they are the same good/bad as proprietary stuff. You are right, one can change it, but your approach sucks. Doing a proprietary fork isn't the way.
Fanboyism hurts Linux (adoption) just as much as trolls. Not like i'm too sad if some noob won't switch to Linux.
That having been said, most usability advice I've seen online is bad. (Admittedly, most of it is of the form: adopt this feature from product x which is popular despite its poor usability.) One really needs to consult many random people, or a usability expert (who has consulted many random people.) Of course, this generally doesn't come cheap. While polling ones userbase is not as good as a random sample, it does have the advantages of generally being low cost to do so and the results are unlikely to alienate a majority of the existing users.
Note: the sad thing about the Job Defenders I've met is that most of them seem like they *could* learn Linux without too much difficulty. They just continue to choose not to.
Or judged Apple by the MacIntosh system 7 of 1991.
I'm guilty.
And I find Blender's interface to be very good, it's true it might be a bit steep learning curve, but once you know it it works faster than some more "user-friendly" interface would.
heh, and I'm also guilty of judging Mac's by system 7 or something such (didn't hear until later that they switched to a BSD based system) :)
Really, the indicated conduct is more in line with the philosophy of Josef Goebbels, ("If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, ..."). Of course, opinion varies as to whether Goebbels and his "master race" ilk constituted any advance over Australopithecus, much less Neanderthal.
I mastered the interface in less than a week of practicing with it. Anyone who has't got the patience to do that should forget about ever becoming a 3D artist, because you've probably got over a year of practice ahead of you before you become a really good modeller.
If you balk at a couple days worth of learning and a few more days practice at an interface that will make your later work significantly faster, then you're impatient and easily frustrated, and 3D modelling is definitely NOT for you.
(Name chosen to save Blender-hating trolls the trouble of replying.)
Having taken this position, the article does OSS a fairly large and genuine disservice.
Why? Because everybody knows that it's possible to completely botch an interface. Open Source or not, and no amount of ranting will convince people differently.
Now there are lots and lots of things wrong with e.g. the internals of MS Windows but the way it presents itself to the user is actually considered to be quite good by millions of people. Better in my opinion than KDE or GNOME.
And just look at KDE: only now do they introduce (with much fanfare and under a different name) something very useful that MS Windows had since the beginning: folders. And that's after telling us for years that we really didn't need folders because of the nifty menu they had built in. And now the do implement folders and tell us it's a revolution in interface design.
So who is lagging whom here, and who is adapting their design?
Open Source advocacy is at its most effective when it's credible.
Some in the FOSS area, worship everything FOSS, no matter if is good or sucks, it still gets worship, and any constructive critic who steps in to point out the flaws, is called a troll (when he or she is just being honest). Some FOSS projects are half-done and really need to be fixed (a geek might like em, but real users need it finished, so not to have to dig in and do command line this and that).
I agree with those variables -- fully! :-)
I hate especially the stockholder types, who have no idea how technology works, and judges 'products' by their stock rise/fall, and the market penetration nonsense.
(I can say this is stupid, because I'm an MBA, and I'm an avid Linux user -- I know how stuff from both sides works)
"Fanboyism hurts Linux (adoption) just as much as trolls."
Gosh, and here I was all primed to be the Jack Chick of Linux advocates...
There is probably more importance to be assigned to how you react to a troll. Someone can seem like a troll at first, but eventually you realize they have legitimate complaints/concerns and maybe eventually some constructive ideas. Especially when you're dealing with communication across political and cultural borders, the gruffness of people from other parts of the world can be hard to see beyond.
On purpose. It's about time somebody caught that!
One of our worried regulars, started a blog, to help newbs to recognize them:
http://colatrolls.blogspot.com
It's true: Windows drives you insane :-)