[plug] Oxymoron: Microsoft, innovation

[Mark J Gaynor]

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 19/06/2006 at 2:45 PM Cameron Patrick wrote:

>Mark J Gaynor wrote:
>
>> Is this the actual reason or is it what they  want you to think, because
>it
>> is outside the core development model.
>
>I've read the flamewars that crop up when the change was suggested on
>mailing lists and in bug reports.

Point Taken!

>> A good place to come from is what people want, not what you think they
>> want and that is more often the problem.
>
>Right.  Unfortunately, users often don't know what they want any better
>than programmers.  Both groups have a tendency to think in terms of
>features rather than what they want to achieve with the software.  Free
>software _should_ give users and programmers a better opportunity to
>communicate about these kinds of things, but it doesn't help when people
>(on all sides) are overly confrontational.

I have found this is usually due to a lack of communications and asking
the right questions in the first place. The latter is an art and I don't
for
one minute think that I have that ability down pat yet. Still working on
it, but many people cannot think out of the square or their comfort zone.

Mark
--