Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional rights

[fnorky@geocities.com (Douglas L. Peterson)]

On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:18:51 -0400, you wrote:

>On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Lucky Green wrote:
>
>> At 04:36 AM 9/15/97 GMT, Douglas L. Peterson wrote:
>> >Ok, we write code.  But as James S. Tyre pointed out, if the code is
>> >too difficult to use it will not be.  And as Declan pointed out
>> >many/most people will not use the crypto if they must think about it.
>> >
>> >Writing the code is no longer enough.  The code must be usable by the
>> >sheeple to work.  How do we do that?
>> 
>> Write better code.
>
>I can think of many examples of very bad code that is difficult to use but
>is very popular, an obvious one is that Apple wrote better code than MS.
>
>Even most sheeple rely on whatever is built in to MSWord or Excel than on
>PGP, so on that basis there is *NO* existing example of such code.
>
>So, not only do cypherpunks have to write code, it has to be better
>quality than Apple, with more marketing push than Microsoft.  And it must
>do something useful so they also have to invent a new application that
>would justify using the crypto it contains. 
>
>All while they do something else to pay for things like food and heat. 
>
>At this point it is easier to write laws.
>

No.  Just difficult.  Look at the rise of Linux and Free/Net/OpenBSD.  They are
slowly making it into the mainstream (I found a copy of RedHat Linux and
InfoMagic Linux for sale at a CompUSA last week).

Linux was slow to take off because it is an OS and difficult to learn from
scratch.  If we make programs for mainstream (Windows, MacOS, OS/2) that are
VERY easy to use, do somthing everyone wants, and are free (with source code), I
think they will take off.

-Doug
-------------------
Douglas L. Peterson
mailto:fnorky@geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1271/