Feedback on user manual

[Scott Ritchie]

On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 01:23 +0000, Mike Hearn wrote:
> On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 17:02:01 -0800, Scott Ritchie wrote:
> > Scott Ritchie,
> > Self Proclaimed Wine Usability guy
> 
> Good. We need one. I do my best but these days spend most of my time
> writing app compat patches. Somebody who is specifically devoted to
> usability can only be a good thing.
> 
> Does it involve writing usability patches though?
> 

Well, patches to the code not so much.  My knowledge of wine internals
isn't that hot, and frankly there's so much documentation and packaging
work to do that we're probably better off if I just yell at people in
IRC and email on code issues while I build packages and documentation.
For example: please get winecfg working quickly :)

I'm really excited about where AppDB is headed.  With the new maintainer
interface being finalized and the upcoming bug reporting documentation
I'm making, nailing down exact problems should be a lot easier for you
coding boys.  One of the biggest developer complaints, that bug reports
are little more than "my application doesn't work!" should soon dry up.

I really do think we're on the verge of something truly groundbreaking.
With things like the proposed desktop integration, the easier
configuration programs, the possibility of winelib program packaging,
and, dare I say it, a stable release version, wine may become one of the
greatest and most important free software projects ever.

This might sound like a lofty goal, but I believe it is very obtainable.
So, I may as well say what I'm thinking:  Within six months I believe it
will be easier to install free windows software on Linux than in
Windows.  I believe I will be able to teach my mother how to have Ubuntu
download and run a winelib compiled app in a few minutes.  I believe
that within a year wine will become so usable that The Economist will
mention it in a story about how Linux is taking over Windows market
share, even on the home desktop.  And, finally, I believe that Microsoft
will be worried that Wine can provide greater backward compatibility
than Windows itself before they release Longhorn, so much so that they
feel obligated to mention it in their SEC filings.

Great work everyone,
Scott Ritchie