Yesterday, we found a serious bug in the IMAP library used by RoundCube. To report the bug, we had to click through a pile of links and sign up for an account. When we tried to send a report to the mailing list, it was rejected (500 error) because you may not post in the first few minutes of being a list member.
Today I tried to watch the QuickTime screencast video for Today. It was unbearably quiet. I tried to report this to the software vendor, but after I finally found the right link to click and entered my problem, and after I clicked a emoticon representing "how this made me feel" and then typed a description of what I meant by that emoticon, and after I clicked the submit button, I was prompted to sign up for an account.
I need an account to tell you why I can't view the video for the software I haven't decided to use yet?
Right, we're done here.
So happily, I used it to log into Sourceforge... It worked. And next, it required me to get a Sourceforge account.
Re:Fun on Sourceforge
hex on 2008-06-29T01:46:42
The Sourceforge user name and password are used for CVS and other SF tools(? - definitely CVS) that aren't OpenID-capable. For most other websites that won't be the case.
I describe a similar, (but tangential) problem with Ubuntu on my blog. The first comment misses the point that while my email was annoying, it was still good-intentioned, and that I should be treated with more restraint.
But the problem was that Ubuntu kept thinking I owed them something and that I should jump through hoops to try to remedy their problems. I'm a happy Mandriva (Cooker) user myself, and while I'm trying to promote FOSS in general, I'm glad I have enough options to choose from.
Whenver someone reports a bug, I know well-enough to say: "You're right, it's an issue in my code (or an undocumented/counter-intuitive/not-perfecly-allowed behaviour. It's my fault. I'll fix it." Ubuntu on the other hand, claimed that I should bother enough to go through their red tape trying to fix an issue I know they have.
The user is king, and many people don't realise it. Ubuntu messed royally with Ubuntu Hardy (which I call "Ubuntu Hardly") which I've heard some horror stories of. In Israel alone, two famous FOSS developers and bloggers have happily switched to Mandriva (and blogged about it), and another one said she's planning to switch to Debian. I also tried to help two people on #perl with installing perfectly good CPAN modules on Hardy, which failed from some reason. (One of them now owes me a beer, if I'll ever come to Rome. )
I don't know if it's related to the problems I've encountered, but it seems likely that Ubuntu will lose mind-share among the power users/developers and evidently among more mundane users too.
Re:My Ubuntu Saga
chromatic on 2008-06-24T21:47:08
I don't know if it's related to the problems I've encountered, but it seems likely that Ubuntu will lose mind-share among the power users/developers and evidently among more mundane users too.In English, we call this a "hasty generalization".
Box for your new bug title. Box for your new bug text. Box for your email address. Submit button.
When you hit submit, one of those nice CSS-powered dialog boxes (such as use.perl is now using for login) appears and says "We haven't seen you before, please enter a password to log in next time." You enter a password and click the button. Boom, you have a user account. It's up to you if you ever use it again, but the effort of getting it is minimized.
Secondary gripe: the "repeat your password" box. Most people are fairly good at typing and this only serves as an annoyance. Whatever site it was that introduced me to this new sign-up style didn't bother, and I think they made the right choice. If someone does screw up typing, that's what the "Can't login?" link (AKA "Forgot Password", but that's bad phrasing) is for.
