Since this discussion is happening in an open forum through this mailing list, I thought I'd add my two cents.
First, I agree that the message in the title bar should go. Not because of GNU or GPL guidelines (specifically), though. Really, I think the question "what other [software] has a message like this?" is not quite the right question. A better question is: What would a person expect to be in the title bar of an application? My answer to this would be (a) the application name, and (b) optionally status information about what you're currently using (e.g., name of the file, subject of a message, etc.) - mostly to disambiguate multiple windows with the same name. A kind of corollary question is: does text like "UNRELEASED TEST SOFTWARE! NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE!" belong in a title bar? And I can't come up with any other answer than "No, absolutely not, not ever, why would you do that?!" The problem is that this is a question of usability, which is getting sidetracked by technical questions about stable vs. unstable releases, which is just not information that belongs where it currently is. If the intention is to communicate that versions with odd numbers (e.g., 0.9.x) are pre-release and versions with even numbers (e.g., 0.8.x or 0.10.x) are stable, then why isn't that described clearly on the Download page? Currently these are in a table with no indication of this other than the number. If the intention is to communicate that Windows versions are not officially supported and that Windows users are a low priority, then why not have a landing page for the Windows version (currently labelled "installers") that provides this information more clearly? On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 3:20 PM, John Darrington < j...@darrington.wattle.id.au> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 01:17:30PM -0600, Alan Mead wrote: > > On 2/24/2016 12:25 PM, John Darrington wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 24, 2016 at 11:57:27AM -0600, Alan Mead wrote: > > > > The GNU guidelines are here: > > http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/maintain.html > > I don't see anything that we are not following. > > Where in those guidelines do you see encouragement to intentionally > scare users? > > I would describe it differently. We are encouraging them use versions > which > have gone through our formal release process. > > > This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it > > under certain conditions; type `show c' for details. > > > > The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the > > appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, your > > program's commands might be different; *for a GUI interface, you > would > > use an ?about box?.* > > We don't include this text in the About box, but even worse we've > chosen > to emphasize a completely different message in the top bar of every > window. Also, our message is poorly written, poorly formatted, and > scary. The GNU guidance is simply to say that the software comes with > ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. The GNU guidance doesn't try to abridge the > users' freedom by telling them what to do. > > Perhaps we should put this in the about box. Thanks for suggesting it. > > The GNU guidance also doesn't try to prevent users from running > testing > versions & reporting bugs, nor does it impugn the software. > > We are not preventing users from running anything. We are merely informing > them and advising them. They are free to ignore this advice. > > The facts don't support you here. Just yesterday a user on this list > was scared by this message and actually uninstalled the latest version > and installed an older, buggier version that lacks this message. > Then, > after I explained that she should install the latest version because > it > contained a bug fix, she posted a screenshot of the latest version > showing the message and asking again if it's really OK for her to run > the latest version with the fix. > > I think all the unreleased versions should have had this warning. > Unfortunately > they did not. We have fixed the problem in recent versions. > > But let me be clear about something, given that > 90% of the computer > users in the world use windows, that makes windows is the NUMBER ONE > platform for PSPP. Harry's releases are more important than any > official release. So it is important and appropriate for us to > consider > the Windows users (because > 90% of the computer users in the world > are > windows users). In fact, it's worse than that because I can't get PSPP > for my Linux machines, which run CentOS 6. There is no PSPP package > for > CentOS 6 and PSPPIRE won't build. IIRC one has to be running a testing > version of Debian to make PSPPIRE compile these days. That virtually > ensures that most Linux users cannot use (recent versions of) PSPP. > > Pspp builds fine for me on a stable Debian release. If you can provide > details of the problem preventing you from building on CentOS we will try > to address that. > > Whilst we are talking about GNU guidelines: Here is what they have to say > about > supporting Windows: > > "As for systems that are not like Unix, such as MSDOS, Windows, VMS, > MVS, and > older Macintosh systems, supporting them is often a lot of work. When > that is > the case, it is better to spend your time adding features that will be > useful > on GNU and GNU/Linux, rather than onsupporting other incompatible > systems." > > It may well be true that windows is the world's most popular operating > system. > But pspp is part of GNU, and GNU's puts principles above popularity. > > His releases add vital bug fixes. It is silly to discourage Windows > users from using the latest versions. > > Personally I discourage everyone from using an unreleased version unless > they wish > to help with the development or testing. > > > Anyway I really hope we can fix the few remaining bugs in git. Then we > can release 0.10.0 which > will not have this warning. > > J' > > > -- > Avoid eavesdropping. Send strong encryted email. > PGP Public key ID: 1024D/2DE827B3 > fingerprint = 8797 A26D 0854 2EAB 0285 A290 8A67 719C 2DE8 27B3 > See http://sks-keyservers.net or any PGP keyserver for public key. > > > _______________________________________________ > Pspp-users mailing list > Pspp-users@gnu.org > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-users > >
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