Re: A proposal for a friendlier Emacs

[Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>]

On September 22, 2020 12:59:38 PM UTC, Ergus <spacibba@aol.com> wrote:
>On Mon, Sep 21, 2020 at 08:19:58PM +0300, Jean Louis wrote:
>>* Ergus <spacibba@aol.com> [2020-09-20 03:45]:
>>> There have been too many years of licences nobody reads and msoffice
>useless splash. So people now install the programs just pressing next
>next next accept.
>>>
>>> The problem is that 90% of the cases the information there is pretty
>useless (publicity, license, offers for an account) so most people
>assume that in our case it will be the same and usually ignores that.
>>
>>I am not sure how you come to seach information, as it is very
>>general. I could present Emacs to various people and see if they have
>>read the splash screen, and then after 5 or 10 attempts, I could have
>>statistics, who read what, if they found that there is Tutorial or
>>not, or what else they remembered and if they have read the splash
>>page.
>>
>>With 100 people in the test, such information would be valuable
>>statistics.
>>
>
>>Without mass of people tested randomly, it is harder to say that
>splash
>>is useless for people because it was maybe useless for one msoffice
>>user.
>>
>>I can speak for myself, as it is hard to speak for others, so I know
>>that I was reading licenses of proprietary software before 1999, and I
>>know that I was reading everything that Emacs had to offer, from
>>splash screen, Tutorials in few languages, and GNU news and anything
>>else, I did read it, and that is how I got fascinated with the free
>>software.
>>
>So you are probably more the exception than the rule. As you can see
>nobody these days reads the licenses anymore, not even the tutorials

I am only asking you to be specific, like from where exactly do you draw that information they majority of nobody reads licenses?

Is there a survey result whereby at least 1000 people have been asked if they have read the license or tutorial and in which specific area for which specific group of people?

I know that in Germany we, and I mean my free friends, have been reading license as we were concerned what we can do with proprietary software, if we can make copy for ourselves and if we were allowed to share our install on multiple computers, and later me and my close friends discovered GNU derived distributions and became happy that license now allowed us. I can speak for few close people that I know. And in organization that I worked, the licensing was very much controlled, as we did not want to shift anyone's rights.

As teenager I was clicking through licenses and used warez and whatever I could without paying any license and reading such.

I do not know you, I am 47, what is your age?

I don't know if by saying that nobody reads licenses you refer to nobody teenager interested to play games, or you refer to Tanzanian student who will not care of any license because there will be no enforcement, or you refer to average German trader who needs software professionally.

I know how to make a survey and how to evaluate a survey results, and if none was made, even if it was made, days shall be based on such survey. 

> I just say that nobody knows what is  
>  written in the
>license or the splash screen. Consider also that most of the people in
>the world are nor English speakers > either.

I know you write that but I don't see fusion of such a statement. Did you count number of people not reading licenses and how that was measured, what group of people and in which geographic locations?

Without proper survey result, I don't share your opinion, just contrary, I know that today there is more free software then ever, and speaking from German and of good knowledge of Western European part of the world, I know that those people introduced to free software were especially interested in licensing terms. 

As a speaker on seminars about GNU/Linux systems, attendees in Stuttgart Mediothek, were interested in licensing terms and felt liberated, and I can say they probably read licenses, but I have not controlled them, as a speaker, from their questions I know they were interested.

Do you have more specific data?