DropBox Alternatives For Linux

[kerravonsen]

Thought I might as well share my investigations: http://kerravonsen.dreamwidth.org/942632.html

Comments

[dragonwolf]

I don't agree with your dichotomy between simplicity and customizability.

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I don't agree with your dichotomy between simplicity and customizability. <user=jewelfox> provides a good example with GNOME, and I'd even include things like Kate/Gedit and the not-FLOSS SublimeText.

All of these items are, in fact, very simple to just pick up and start using. A person can figure out the basics of what they want to do within a very short period of time, and be happy with that.

Then, the power users can dig around under the hood and customize them to their heart's content. Kate and Gedit have their plugin systems that allow Gedit to go from a step above Notepad to an editor that rivals Mac's TextMate. SublimeText has the plugin system, plus a simple-to-understand text-based setting system (ST is, of course, aimed at developers, so it's expected that such users wouldn't be intimidated by config files, and most of it's simple key-value pairs). Gnome has extensions, plus the ability to edit the Javascript and CSS files that control just about everything (which has allowed for variations such as Cinnamon and Unity, as well as themes in general).

A lot of basic usability/simplicity (and Jewel's desire for lower cognitive overhead) isn't so much in the lack of customizability, but rather a fantastic set of defaults, so that it doesn't <em>need</em> to be customized. For example, as much as I love toying around with GNOME's CSS file and themeing stuff, I had no desire to do so on my Fedora install, because I already liked the defaults. I think I actually did more customizing of my Ubuntu 12.04 (with Unity) install than I did with my Fedora one (and Unity has been notoriously hostile to customizability until the most recent version or two; and even with Ubuntu Tweak, there's still quite a bit that Canonical has locked out completely).

[kerravonsen]

Look, I don't even understand why we're having this argument! All I wanted to do was share my findings about DropBox alternatives, not argue about user interfaces!

[dragonwolf]

Don't get me wrong, the fact that you shared what you found is awesome, and I'm sorry that that was glossed over.

However, part of what makes an application appealing, regardless of whether it's FLOSS or commercial, is not only finding that balance between customizability and ease of use, but providing good defaults. It seems to me that your assumptions are that "easy to use" means it can't be customizable, I think your choices in your original post (as well as your comments here) reflect that, and I commented accordingly.

Also, I wasn't arguing, but rather joining in the discussion, which I felt was interesting (though perhaps that was missed, given that it appears I screwed up the DW/specific markup and it butchered the whole rest of my comment?) and worthwhile in the broader topic of tool choice.