Malleable software: Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps
https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software/
Discussion
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"The doctor and writer Atul Gawande has written about how computerization in the medical profession is leading to record levels of burnout. For instance, doctors would once skip irrelevant fields when filling out paper forms; now the software forces them to fill in those fields, and they have no power to edit those software rules. As Gawande says of one doctor: 'Spending the extra time didn’t anger her. The pointlessness of it did'.”
"... the tools and infrastructure we use to deploy software treat users as passive recipients rather than active co-creators. Software is organized into monolithic applications rather than flexible remixable toolkits. Customization requires programming skills that most people don’t have—and besides, most software is closed source. Software doesn’t ship to users with the tools to edit the software."
https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software/
(1/2)
@smallcircles I presume you've seen this article?
"App stores are designed for companies distributing software to consumers, not amateurs sharing tools with their friends. This is a system of industrial mass production, not small-scale craft."
https://www.inkandswitch.com/essay/malleable-software/
The F-Droid project aspires to be about amateurs sharing tools with friends, more an app library than an app store. I wonder how it could be extended to make the apps it ships more malleable by the people using them?
(2/2)
@strypey
Yes, seen this. I follow Ink & Switch closely, as all their publications are mighty interesting.
For people interested in the general subject there's a great collective facilitated by @jryans at:
The article is discussed on their forum:
https://forum.malleable.systems/t/ink-switch-malleable-software-essay/340
Btw, the concept of 'malleable systems' is taken a step further under Social experience design, with 'moldable operational systems', 'moldable services' and 'evolvable solutions'.
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