This content was published by Andrew Tomazos and written by several hundred members of the former Internet Knowledge Base project.

Easy-of-Use and Complexity

One could say that programs that are easy to use (i.e. *learn*) are, in truth, hideously complex on the inside, because of the difficulty involved in making computer resources available to humans not fluent in computer-speak. This difficulty requires man-hours and money to overcome, so these programs must be proprietary in order for their makers to continue producing them. This inherent complexity makes then more suceptible to bugs and other faults, which reduces their robustness.

But it would also follow that programs such as FreeBSD that are structurally simple on the inside, and therefore very robust, are in turn hideously complex to operate, requiring an operator willing to become fluent in the language of UNIX.

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