> And there is of course a good reason not to make programs > in development too easy to access: a point of view that I > like to call "pragmatic elitism". > > As it gets easier for untrained novices to enter the realms > of an open source program, the quality of participation > descends. Bug reports become unhelpful. Feature trackers > become clogged with senseless ideas. Mailing lists burst > with incompetence. It doesn't have to be like this, but > from my experience I can tell that if you create software > for simple minded people, you get simple minded feedback. > As a developer, you feel a lot of frustration if this > happens. It might stall or harm development tremendously. Intersting POV, and you're right. So how can those people be kept away from bugtrackers and devel mailing lists? I really hope that as many people as possible can use and benefit from free software, but yes, you're right, the above points are valid. I think it's great if "normal users" enter the free software world, but those should perhaps use the software only and shut up ;-) ? Best regards ce