Ok, I was just bugging you on this one.

I feel abused, shame on you :D��

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This is your say not mine. Free software to get success really need to
have strong argument.

Actually the GUI is a a well documented problem, many blog post and many pages have been written by , maybe I am a minority but I definitely not the only on.��

> Also being a FOSS is an excuse for mere quality.

No, free software is like Darwinism, evolve and adapt to your ecosystem
or disappear, same for proprietary software but...

...free software contrary to proprietary software may evolve more easily
because of the source code at the disposal of everyone, so evolution and
adaptation is easier, quicker. This is exactly what happen to Squeak,
then the Pharo fork was the promise for a better software with a
different management and more software evolution. In the long term
Squeak may just be better, nothing is written in stone as in evolution.
Pharo to attract more users in its community has no choice but to
improve its overall quality; and as well the first impression count,
little details can make some important different to retain users.

To an extend yes FOSS is easier to move forward because it does not need money to have contributors.

BUT

That does not change the fact that it tends to has a lot less contributors than commercial software.

Also no , FOSS will survive if does not evolve, it will lose users yes, maybe a lot of them but also a lot of people will keep using it because its free.

There are still people out there coding for 30 year old technology, a small minority yes, but still tens of thousands of coders.

Squeak situation was not about not wanting to evolve it was about people wanting to go different directions. Squeak still evolves , maybe not at the rate that it used to but still people contribute to it.

Personally I do not blame the Squeakers or the Pharoers, it was the right choice to fork, those two different ideologies were really hard to live under one roof.

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For example in DrGeo, without affordable tooltips, people will just run
it then go away, no obvious way to figure out this mess

I think you put too much value to tooltips than they deserve, I will take a well documented , easy to maintained software without any tooltips over a badly documented hard to maintain software�� with tooltips anyday.

Ask your users, what you and I think is of little important, in the end they matter the most. There is a reason why companies spend a ridiculous amount of money on customer surveys.

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Again no :) There is paid people like in proprietary software and the
bonus of unpaid talented or less talented people. Don't think the unpaid
people are the looser, they may gain other important things like
learning and improving own knowledge, experimenting/implementing new
idea (got several case like that in DrGeo history), improving
self-confidence, improving the part you need for your onw
stuff/business, etc.

So all in all, in the long term I think free software should be superior
in quality and affordability to proprietary software.

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That's just wishful thinking, in end , work is work and the more people you have the easier it is to move forward. I did not say working for free makes you a loser, dont put words in my mouth.

Not that it would make sense to claim so being a very active contributor to Pharo. I may not have done a lot with bug fixing but I have done a ton of work with PBE. Does that make me a loser ?

But the truth remains that there are only 3 people working part time on PBE, me , Stef and Nicolai with other contributing even less part time. We are not enough, over idealize all you want FOSS but the truth is at least in the documentation department where I have a lot of experience we have a severe lack of contributors. Its a huge problem to say to newcomers that we do not even have an up to date general purpose introductory book. It has been almost a decade of Pharo and we are not there yet. Its sad but true. On the other hand , its none's fault , thats how things are with FOSS.

So no idea why you would think our documentation should be superior when we have such a hard time to find people and of course the ones we have cannot invest more than a few hours per week if we are lucky.

Where is this superiority you claiming, I definitely not see it.

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> The last time I fixed a bug in Pharo , there was so much complaining
> about the way I fixed it that I decided that it would be the very last

But I bet you learn things, especially when people were complaining: its
was feedbacks, as the tooltips in the GUI provide it ;)

Yes I learned that being egocentric is not such a bad idea afterall, no the feedback did not help, it was just personal opinion and personal opinion is just taste.

Some people wanted this way, some people wanted the other way. Personally I was ok with both approaches or my fix not being accepted. In the end my fix was integrated and later on was replaced.�� In the mean time everyone forgot the whole discussion and life goes on.

Truth be told , I have learned a ton about Pharo by myself than with the help of others. Its really hard to find people with similar interests like mine and I have to go and explore by myself unless of course I came against a general problem, like tooltips, but I rarely am so lucky. Of course the help of this list has been extremely valuable through the years for me.

Using Pharo is a lot fun but it also a ton of DIY. But you cannot have your cake and eat it too. I have been several times close to quitting Pharo but I never did it , mainly because I became more confident about myself and my ability to solve my own problems.�� I learned that sometimes you have to truth yourself and take the deep dive into the unknown.

This is why I rarely complain about Pharo, apart for my occasional bursts of frustration.

Saying all that I must note I am a huge supporter of open source because I believe in the extreme importance of open knowledge and I am proud to be part of the Pharo community.