The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks • Hacker News Board

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#21

Post by psadauskas » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:36 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #16

ori_b wrote: post #4

Strangely enough, I'm using Linux precisely because proprietary software is painful to use. For example, searching for software with google to download it, trying to determine if the source is reliable, and clicking through a manual installer is way too tedious - it should be at my fingertips. Also, at least when compared to Windows (where everyone and his brother seems to feel the need for a custom and flashy toolki…

Having a central repository that handles version dependencies and upgrades ... is great. But let's be honest here: whenever a newer version of a software package is released, it can take months before it enters sid on Debian, or in Ubuntu, and these are the better-maintained distros. And if you want to distribute proprietary software, maintaining multiple packages for multiple distributions and multiple versions, is…

But that's the philosophy of those distros such as Debian, Ubunutu and Fedora: Don't upgrade anything except security patches between releases.

If you want the bleeding edge packages, you need to install it yourself from an add-on repo (once you set it up, its just as easy as `apt-get install newpkg`. Or, pick a rolling-release distro that caters more towards having the latest packages available, such as Gentoo or Arch.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#22

Post by access_denied » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:38 PM UTC

rjurney wrote: post #19

bct wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the conventional wisdom, but I'm not sure I believe it. It takes (much) longer for an app's usability to mature without some central arbiter, but "you need " it is far too strong a statement.

Without a central arbiter, an app's usability never matures.

Interesting. Could this central arbiter be a set of rules an principles, an algorythm? That would be a very complicated program, why not take a human mind? It's faster.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#23

Post by ori_b » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:41 PM UTC

rjurney wrote: post #18

ori_b wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also get great usability from a lead developer with taste, and people that are actually interested in using the software. Profit is certainly not the only incentive that drives people. Saving time and effort by fixing problems (usability and otherwise) is also a great motivator.

And yet it never works out that way on very many projects. Why is that?

I disagree. It certainly does happen, and there is plenty of usable open source out there, and lots of patches from users that increased usability. The problem is that it's hard to find people with taste. But this is true no matter what development model is used.

Toss in a lower barrier to entry with open source, and you end up with junk at the bottom. I suspect that if you took the top N proprietary and open source apps, you wouldn't find a usability difference. The average would only get dragged down if you include the half-finished releases of open source stuff that would never have made it to market in a proprietary environment.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#24

Post by tptacek » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:41 PM UTC

There's nothing in this blog post that's blatantly wrong. There's also nothing in it that's news. It's not written better than other sources that have made the same point, which sources include several famous blog posts from usability and UI experts. The author isn't a usability or UI expert. In fact, I'm not sure who he is.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#25

Post by frodwith » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:41 PM UTC

At least for me, usability isn't the point of free software. I want my free software to be usable, yes, and usability should be a goal for the development teams, but the overriding benefit of free software is that it is free. It puts the power back in my hands as an end user. Even if I don't have the technical skills to make use of that freedom, the freedom is important. This is something that "closed-source" applications don't have. If Microsoft made Office free tomorrow and it were easier to use than OpenOffice (it is, though that isn't saying much), I'd use it. But Microsoft Office has vendor lock-in problems and platform compatibility issues, and I'm not free to make it better. If people value usability over freedom, that is their choice. I don't begrudge them the headaches of a different sort that they are incurring.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#26

Post by youngian » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:45 PM UTC

bct wrote: post #13

rjurney wrote: post #5

To get great usability - you need paying users clamoring for it. To implement it, you need central control around a unifying cognitive model. Open source is bad at usability because FOSS projects are controlled by committees that can't even assign tasks, let alone create and enforce coherent cognitive models and elegant interfaces that express them. You could have good FOSS usability - if you had a central company dr…

That's the conventional wisdom, but I'm not sure I believe it. It takes (much) longer for an app's usability to mature without some central arbiter, but "you need " it is far too strong a statement.

Exactly. Ten years ago a lot of people would have told you that you need central control of code and full-time work from paid developers in a central office with careful managerial oversight to build powerful software. And all those people, many of them "experts," were laughably wrong.

I think the concept of designing for usability has just been slower to enter the FOSS world. Only now are open source projects starting to grapple with how you do interaction design on a open source project. But throwing up our hands and assuming it will never happen just because it doesn't always happen right now is silly. How about we start recruiting non-developers to open source projects to run simple usability tests and report on their findings? It's not that developers will never work on usability, it's just that it's a difficult and foreign field to most of us, so we avoid the issue altogether.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#27

Post by rjurney » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:49 PM UTC

access_denied wrote: post #22

rjurney wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a central arbiter, an app's usability never matures.

Interesting. Could this central arbiter be a set of rules an principles, an algorythm? That would be a very complicated program, why not take a human mind? It's faster.

It could be. But it has to be central, because the cognitive model must be cohesive. This is a productive line of thinking.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#28

Post by rjurney » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 4:51 PM UTC

youngian wrote: post #26

bct wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the conventional wisdom, but I'm not sure I believe it. It takes (much) longer for an app's usability to mature without some central arbiter, but "you need " it is far too strong a statement.

Exactly. Ten years ago a lot of people would have told you that you need central control of code and full-time work from paid developers in a central office with careful managerial oversight to build powerful software. And all those people, many of them "experts," were laughably wrong. I think the concept of designing for usability has just been slower to enter the FOSS world. Only now are open source projects starti…

I guess what I'm saying is that something major would have to change for this to happen. The current FOSS processes can't produce good usability on their own. I am not personally aware of any FOSS software that excels at usability, without a central company driving development.

That being said, my knowledge is not exhaustive... maybe there are examples that I am not aware of.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#29

Post by marcusbooster » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:01 PM UTC

stonemetal wrote: post #7

Isn't the main problem for OSS adoption advertising? If you are a graphic artist and don't give a rat's behonkus about computers do you really dig until you find the GIMP(and the continual slog for documentation and understanding) or do you read graphic artist monthly with big color Photo Shop ads, Photo Shop books on B&N's book shelves, and training courses. The choice is just about made for you, in their world Phot…

Maybe it's the average programmer that doesn't give a "rat's behonkus" about the graphic designer?

I think most designers I've met know what OSS kinda is and are always looking for tools to improve workflow - they just want tools that work. Last time I checked out Gimp it still didn't support adjustment layers for non-destructible editing, which is pretty much a show-stopper.

Packages get used when they lead the way in a given field, most of the OSS design apps I've seen are just playing catch-up.

Re: The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

#30

Post by CWuestefeld » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:05 PM UTC

orblivion wrote: post #6

Firstly, open source does (or can easily) have one big usability advantage: installing things, assuming it's on a repository, is much easier. Or, at least, it's very close to there; I haven't asked a lay user how useful they find the "Add Application" menu in Gnome. But assuming it's not already done right, once it is, that's a huge advantage. Secondly, so we've admitted that non-company-backed open source projects c…

I'm primarily a Windows user, having just recently installed Ubuntu onto a netbook. Obviously I'm carrying old habits and baggage, but from my point of view, finding and installing stuff in the repository is a nightmare.

On one hand, I can see how putting it there makes a unified update system possible.

But the system does nothing for me in helping me discover what I need. To learn of the existence of a tool, I still need to stumble across it from a user recommendation or web search. From there, in Windows I just download and install.

But on the Linux platform, I get lost in all the various repositories available, each of which has multiple levels (I forget them specifically, but I remember something about "universal"?). And god forbid that the necessary repository isn't one of the standards (as I had to deal with when installing XBMC); finding and setting up the public keys is like root canal.

The flip side of this, uninstalling software, I haven't figured out at all. It seems that doing so doesn't actually delete the deadwood, but I happened somewhere on a command line way to tell it to clean up. I remain confused about how to specify precisely which packages to uninstall. The way they're built into dependency blocks, with optional recommended pieces, on the installation side is great. But I don't see at all how to determine the root package of something I don't want anymore, so that all the children are removed as well. And I really don't get if or how it determines which shared, possibly optional packages, will stay or go.

So I think that this is precisely what the OP is referring to. As a developer I can appreciate the benefits of the Linux repository system. But as a user of it, It's hideously unfriendly.