Playing CUPS
February 26th, 2004
“The point of this essay is not, therefore, just to beat up on the CUPS
people — it’s also to beat up on every other open-source designer who
does equally thoughtless things under the fond delusion that a
slick-looking UI is a well-designed UI. … This kind of crap is exactly
why Linux has had such trouble gaining traction among nontechnical users — and
it becomes less forgivable, not more, when it’s surrounded by a boatload of
GUI cotton candy that adds complexity without actually delivering friendliness
to the user.” ESR explodes all
over the Common Unix Printing System and OSS user interface.