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   simsa04 (simsa04@gnusocial.net)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Jan-2023 08:13:41 JST simsa04

   • Evan Prodromou
   Your equation is misguided. "Freedom", "autonomy", and "responsibility" don't mean that people should become unpaid semi-employees of software companies that already abuse the employees they have. Programs are products, not commons goods; I am a customer, you give me the product. I pay for it and if your product sucks, I drop it and turn to the next vendor. Or do you expect everybody to able to grow their own food as well?
   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@prodromou.pub)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Jan-2023 08:19:09 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @simsa04 I do think everyone should be able to grow their own food, at least in part.

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     simsa04 (simsa04@gnusocial.net)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Jan-2023 09:04:56 JST simsa04

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     • Linux Walt Alt (@lnxw37a2) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}
     To me it sound a little bit as if you are generalizing from a very small and privileged percentage of the population. As you say, it has been employees of $EMPLOYER who wrote their specifications, i.e., trained programmers. For them such customizations and the ability to customize may be reasonable. But when a layperson uses an office suite or a browser, he doesn't need such skills. Even worse: If a layperson needs to be able to program in order for him to use an office suite or a browser, then that's not just bad product design, not just a waste of precious lifetime, but the willful abandonment of a defining feature of civilised society: the division of labour. What @evan tacitly proposes is thus some kind of neo-Amish self-sufficiency. Most of such endeavours don't work and lead to impoverished and destitute forms of existence. (There is a reason why most alternative communes working their own land went out of business 20 years ago.)
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     Linux Walt Alt (@lnxw37a2) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864} (lnxw37a2@pleroma.soykaf.com)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Jan-2023 09:04:57 JST Linux Walt Alt (@lnxw37a2) {3EB165E0-5BB1-45D2-9E7D-93B31821F864}

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     @simsa04 @evan
     
     > I am a customer, you give me the product. I pay for it and if your product sucks, I drop it and turn to the next vendor.
     
     The problem with this is that you may have new needs that no software company anticipated, but if you have a little programming skill (and even using VBA in an office program qualifies), you may be able to bend what they produced to make it meet your needs better.
     
     Until a few years back, employees of $EMPLOYER often wrote their own Excel macros and Access database applications to make their jobs easier. It wasn't us tech peeps that wrote or maintained their custom programs. It was the employees themselves.
     
     People *should* have that kind of ability ... and the software they use should grant it to them. It isn't that they have to use it, but it should be available if they want to use it. And we shouldn't make it seem so esoteric that they don't believe they can learn.