Usability

[Bernhard Reiter]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2001 at 10:08:35AM +0100, Alistair Davidson wrote:
> Bernhard Reiter wrote:

> > From my perspective we do not have the ressources yet to run
> > or buy usability tests.

> That's a shame. It's nice to have an answer to the question though.

Just trying to be honest here.
On the other hand, I guess that feedback with Free Software
regarding usability works differently than with proprietory software.
Finding a sponsor is an option, but somebody has to make the concept.
The concect is more difficult than it looks at first sight.

> BTW, what is our financial situation? I've never seen it mentioned,
> beyond donation pledges.

There are no big financial resources.
We still work to get one full-time position funded,
as we want Georg to be able to work full-time as european coordinator.
This goal has not been reached yet, 
Georg is basically working full-time without payment of any sort right now.
We have some sponsors in Germany and France, which helps us to
cover legal expenses and some costs for show appearances.
Of course there are plans to look for more sponsors and publish more.

> > Other goals have a higher priority:
> > 
> >         - There are Free software areas were no applications
> >         exist at all. These gaps are hurting.
> 
> True. What plans are in place to correct this? Which "missing apps" are
> considered to be hurting the most?

The FSFE itself does not have much developing capacity.
Our goals are to make conditions better for Free Software development, 
connect people and so on. There is no master plan answer to your
question but several opinions and initatives exist.
Two examples are the demudi project and the ofset project for more
applications for education.

> >         - Free Software is getting popular, we really have a hard
> >         time to keep up with explaining it (to politician e.g.).
> 
> I agree that this is a problem, but one that requires comparatively
> little in the way of monetary resources, as long as it's handled
> locally. 

I tend to disagree.
Political work requires quite a bit of monetary resources if you
need to coordinate it on large scale. European, worldwide and even
within Germany is considered large scale.
Without coordination you cannot effectivly participate at some
important political questions.

Software patents, contract and copyright laws deal with
international policies and treaties. 

> One of the nice things about organisations is that they're
> capable of doing more than one thign at once :)

Yes. That is why we welcome your initiatives.  :)

	Bernhard
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