The Great Geek Manual

1. Most young users have to turn to the Internet for information about open source, because the topic gets skirted in most schools.

2. The most important thing any new user needs to know about open source is to use protection, because you never know what sort of virus open source software could introduce into your system!

3. The biggest problem with programming in America today is that all the glossy commercial photos in the media have created unreasonable expectations. I mean, seriously. Do you know how long it takes them to position the software for one of those video demos?

4. While there are a few freaks parading around for the media, most people using software without a commercial licensing agreement still keep their practices behind closed doors.

5. Programmers new to the open source scene like to keep their projects private, because once other people find out about them, things just get complicated. Meanwhile, more experienced programmers are usually up-front with their family and friends about what’s going on between them and their users.

6. There are a lot of users who act like they’ve found everything they need in their open source software who get caught looking a little too long at the posters of the commercial grade software hanging in certain store windows at the mall… or receiving catalogs from said store in the mail.

7. Open source programmers are always full of talk about how they’re going to satisfy their users’ needs with software unlike any other software their users have ever experienced, but the fact is that it actually takes them a hell of a long time to even figure out what it is that their users want.

8. Open source programmers spend a lot of time trying to convince people to give their software a try, and they talk a big game while their software is being run, but try to get them to sit down and spell things out in documentation and suddenly, it’s like they don’t have a second to spare.

9. After being in a relationship for a while, programmers are often frustrated by the fact that they can’t get their users to try implementations of new techniques, and they start to feel like they’re in a rut.

10. Internet forums are just full of programmers looking for multiple users to try new things with, but in reality, the only people they ever meet that way are other programmers, because actual users wouldn’t be caught dead in those forums except for a laugh.

11. There’s nothing more irritating for a user than hearing from some other user that a programmer’s software has suddenly developed all the features that it lacked back when the user left his software for something new.

12. Everyone gets spam about guides and videos that are supposed to magically bring a user’s skills up to date, but let’s face it, as users get older, they just naturally use less and less open source.

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“Open Source is a lot like Sex…” was written by Pipedreamergrey and originally posted to The Great Geek Manual. It may be reposted so long as this notice remains intact. Copyright 2008 Pipedreamergrey.