Re: [Userops] What is "userops", and who does it target?

[Elena ``of Valhalla'']

On 2015-04-12 at 16:25:52 -0400, Dave Crossland wrote:
> > 4) A very non-technical user.  This person may be able to install
> >    applications from (sorry to use this term) "an app store" or etc, and
> >    interacts with computers, but lacks a lot of self confidence or
> >    skills regarding understanding how the technology they're working
> >    with works at all.
> 
> And this is typically someone who is unlikely to have heard of "open
> source," no longer owns a desktop and is laptop/tablet/phone only, doesn't
> buy any sofa servers as uses the one supplied by the cable company...
> UserOps is a lost cause :)

Not necessarily: in various (political, social, *) activism environments 
there are lots of people who are in one or more of the following
categories:

* Are interested in content creation and can understand the four
  freedoms and free software as a movement and share their principles 
  (possibly more in the area of free content).

* Are interested in keeping control of their data, even if they only 
  have a vague idea of the actual risks involved.

* Are concerned with the loss of privacy involved in digital society, 
  and its consequences on democracy.

* Have a pressing need to communicate in a secure way, without being 
  intercepted or blocked by hostile, possibly government-backed, parties.
  They usually also have the need not to be seen using "strange" 
  software, however, as that would attract suspicion anyway.

These and other can be reasons enough why somebody who is otherwise 
very non-technical may be interested in self-hosting, if it was 
as easy as installing an app from an app store.

Unluckily I don't think that it is feasible to actually reach that kind 
of ease of use (at least, not in the present/near future), so 
targetting 4 from the start is probably doomed to fail, but I believe 
most of those people have at least somebody in the 3 range who can 
help them, and targetting 3 can have at least some consequences 
for interested people in 4.

-- 
Elena ``of Valhalla''