Ok I feel dumb

[Craig White]

On Tue, 2002-02-12 at 06:27, Tom Achtenberg wrote:
> OK, I see how it is with you Craig.  Either everyone knuckles under your
> thumb and only use the software you approve or you withhold your help.  If
> that is how you want it, so be it.  I hope you never need someone else's
> help.  I couldn't care less about server authentication types or pale data
> interchange but I do care about replying from the correct account something
> only a few Evolution users apparently have been able to get to work while
> several have said it does not. (including several on the users.ximian list.
> 
> You are now officially coming across as an arrogant SNOB.  I don't need that
> kind of help.
> 
----
thanks for the official designation - I appreciate it.

I wonder how many people truly understand the philosophy and nature of
open source software. Certainly anyone expecting to find that the
desktop environment to be as fully developed as a Windows counterpart is
gonna be disappointed. 

Consider that all of the source code is freely available - you can
download - make all the changes that you care to make - have any program
do what you want it to do and not necessarily having anything to do with
the authors intentions and then compile and use as you wish. Never gonna
get that from a Windows / Macintosh environment but that is what open
source is all about.

On the other hand, there are no nothings such as myself, that fiddle
with pre-compiled binaries, downloaded from where ever, in a current
state of development by people whose primary reward is the satisfaction
of contributing to the cause and we end up frustrated that it doesn't
install or behave perfectly.

So I considered this and decided that the biggest impediment to my using
linux / open source software was my limited understanding and thus, I
stay after things not because I need to have them but because each
struggle becomes a learning experience, and if I get enough experience,
I might remember how to solve these issues the next time.

So I had been using Netscape Communicator for email since last August -
despite the fact that I could just tap the control key twice and be
using Outlook 2000 which I preferred - because what was important to me
was that I hang in there, use linux everywhere possible. That I wasn't
gonna fall for the feature trap which in the long run didn't matter,
Koffice / Star Office have all I need to do spreadsheets/word processing
etc. 

So in the final analysis, I understand and sympathize with all who
struggle to make things work such as yourself, but I draw the line at
whining. I remember installing printers just to mirror the problem you
were having so I could figure out what was going wrong for you. I might
have told you to rpm -e evolution-1.01 and rm -fr /~/.evolution and
start over but cest la vie. If that makes me an arrogant snob - then so
be it. 

Craig