Everyone is a System Administrator

Why are normal users forced to become their own system administrators?

I’ve thought of a few different ways to answer that question, but I’m always led to two different methods of thinking: Active and Passive.

One way to view the use of personal computers is Passive. By this, I mean that computers aren’t necessarily used as a tool to actively accomplish a goal in the grand scheme of owning a computer, but is meant as an appliance that provides a fundamental use. There are no large heavy computations taking place to predict election results or simulate weather on a distant planet. The computer sits on a desk and is available on a whim of the owner to perform very short tasks like viewing family photos, listening to music or chatting with a friend while balancing the checkbook via online banking.

One analogy in the passive use of computers would be to compare a PC to a home, since people live in homes but don’t USE their homes for much of anything other than a place to live.

A PC is like a home:

1. People own houses with windows, doors, rooms and yards. People want computers they can customize to their liking, with different video cards and monitors (like windows), network cards (like doors), memory and hard drives (like rooms and yards to store things).
2. Home owners purchase appliances and budget for infrastructure repairs as needed. PC owners furnish their devices with software according to their own needs and budget (similar to the way you furnish a home) and purchase peripherals that help them facilitate their use.
3. Home owners budget for expansions or a move to a new location as needs change. People normally budget for a new computer, or an upgrade every so often, and plan for a move (of important stored data).
4. Houses are parts of communities (even if the house is in the middle of nowhere and the closest neighbor is miles away it is still considered a community), with home owners helping each other in cooperation to help the community thrive and succeed. PCs are part of a large community since the majority of personal computers are networked in some form, taking part in a community, most often more than one. There are instant message communities, blogs of similar interests, as well as family members emailing each other.
5. Home owners do their best to secure their homes when they’re gone such that possessions within are not damaged/stolen, or the houses themselves are not vandalized. Personal computer owners, for the most part, understand there is an apparent need to secure their computers (they install virus scanners and firewalls because they understand a need to “lock the doors”).

In the passive view, homes are very similar to computers in the way they’re used. Many people have little trouble at all fixing a door or knowing who to call to repair plumbing in their home, yet PC owners don’t necessarily know what is wrong with it when it doesn’t behave as they expect — whether it be a broken video card or a failed mouse.

PCs can also be like cars, making their use more active than passive.

1. Vehicle owners like to fully customize their cars, making them unique and distinguishable from vehicles of the same make and model. Computer users will customize their desktop backgrounds, icons, mouse cursor, mouse pad, etc. to enhance routine daily use.
2. The mechanically inclined enjoy tinkering with the engine, or transmission, sometimes completely replacing factory standard parts with custom 3rd party parts. Computer geeks will tinker with certain aspects of the operation of the computer, customizing all the system defaults, installing specialized uncommon software or even replacing the operating system with something other than what the machine came installed with.
3. Automobile owners view their vehicles as more than just a conveyance, but as an investment or even a status symbol, and go to lengths to protect it as such with theft deterrence and tracking systems. Some PC users view their devices as more than just a tool or a novelty and use it to accomplish tasks they would not otherwise be able to perform without a computer; they balance their checkbook, participate in an auction, or keep a journal or photograph album to be shared with people they’ve never met.
4. There are drivers that speed, so much that they’ve invested in RADAR detection devices in attempts to break the speed limit without getting caught. There are PC owners that could be considered scofflaws in that they violate license agreements, copyright agreements, as well as ethical use.

Active view suggests that vehicles are like computers in that they provide more utility and that makes them not only used more but more functional in their use. The hot-rodders with souped up systems, fancy peripherals, and homegrown or free software become trailblazers that push the limits. These are the “computer geeks” and “hackers”.

Looking at things this way, I’ve found that there are contrasts between these two use cases, but there are also a few similarities. To extend the analogies, homes and vehicles, both require people to obtain some sort of insurance to protect themselves and others as well as the items contained within. Both cases also imply a concept that owners are master of their own domains, constantly making their own decisions.

Doc Searls is exploring how Linux and the Net could be considered infrastructure of hard and soft. I’m not sure how my analogies here would fit into that concept. One thing I am certain of, though, is that there seems to be a fundamental need for change in the way people use computers, or even view the way they are used.

Everyone is forced into becoming their own system administrator, making their own (often uninformed) decisions about their computers whether they actively choose to or not. Whether they realize it or not, this happens often to their own loss and pain (and sometimes damaging others) because most people don’t know how to be a system administrator.

Maybe there should be a license in order to operate a computer. Perhaps there should be some kind of insurance to protect ourselves from computer operators without a license.