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The One in Which I Say Open Source Software Sucks

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

#91

Post by nl »

That's bullshit.

The key problem isn't if an application is open source, or even it's usability - it's the incumbency problem.

Name one general consumer application for windows which wasn't being used ~5 years ago - even if it is non open source. I can only think of Firefox, games, and maybe some IM client software.

Even usability disasters (eg Vista) win huge numbers of users when they are the default choice.

When new niches open up (eg, web applications), open source apps have proven to be just as usable as commercial apps. Eg Wikipedia and Wordpress.com are both in the top 10 sites world wide, and both are open source (ie, the apps themselves are open source, not just the infrastructure software).

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

#92

Post by tdonia »

yesimahuman wrote: post #52

I think a perfect example of Open Source thriving is IBM. They package open source software (Eclipse for RAD, Apache for IBM Apache), and sell support. It's not a clusterfuck, you just have business people who need to have support 24/7 from people with full time intimate knowledge of the product.

If you accept the premise from the post that minimizing support costs acts as an incentive to enhance usability, then i think there's an important factor you're touching on here. Since many open source organizations provide FOSS software and charge for support, they've got less of an incentive to provide easy to use software. Rather, their model is tuned to providing easy to support software.

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

#93

Post by ahlatimer »

SwellJoe wrote: post #73
access_denied wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GIMP and Inkscape are not ready for prime-time. (And as always at this point: They lack proper support for CMYK, Fonts, Color-Management, Workflow in big publishing and printing shops.) Never mind the usability desaster that the GIMP represents for anyone who is accustomed to PS.

Never mind the usability desaster that the GIMP represents for anyone who is accustomed to PS. In the interest of fairness...I just bought Adobe CS4 Web Premium (with Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). I've been working with the GIMP and Inkscape for a good long while, off and on, and I'm still finding Photoshop and Illustrator to be incredibly hard to use and obtuse. I've been watching video tutorials, reading the docs,…

There are most definitely stability problems with Photoshop. You would think something that cost that much would at least be stable, but I suppose "serious professionals" look at feature sets and not stability.

My experience with GIMP is none, so I'm not exactly qualified to comment, but Photoshop has to be one of the biggest usability nightmares on the market today. There are strange restrictions and ambiguous error messages that don't make any sense for the novice. Once you get more comfortable with Photoshop, you realize the power and flexibility of it, but it takes a while to get there.

As someone that spent a good long while being frustrated by photoshop, I can't imagine GIMP actually being harder to use.

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

#94

Post by ciupicri »

psadauskas wrote: post #61
cschwarm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just an explanation, not a reason. Why does it have to be like that? Why does Linux distributions fall in one of two categories: either "stable foundation and out-dated apps" or "unstable foundation and recent apps"? What many people want is a stable foundation and recent apps. This is easier to get with a decentral installation system.

Who's foundation? I'm a web developer, so to me, I want the latest ruby, apache, etc... However, a server admin might want the more "stable" versions of the same. I know that Gentoo, at least, has the facility to accomplish this. They have package masking, so you can specify exactly the packages you want to be kept on the bleeding edge. Taken a step further, you can set up your own "profile", and list exactly what ve…

> Who's foundation? I'm a web developer, so to me, I want the latest ruby, apache, etc... However, a server admin might want the more "stable" versions of the same.

What happens when the "stable" version doesn't have the same feature as the latest one? For example the latest Python is 2.6 and it's even declared stable, but RedHat comes with 2.4 IIRC. There were quite a few changes between these versions, so you have to use the same version for both production and development.

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

#95

Post by ori_b »

tedunangst wrote: post #36
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…

"Linux" is only uniform if you stick exclusively to gnome or kde apps. Just try running firefox (gtk) on kde (qt). The file selector dialogs don't even look the same.

Sure, but at least it's uniform within a desktop environment. If you looked at what I was saying, Windows doesn't even give you that. Mac is better, even though it also has 2 gratuitously different available look-and-feels.

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

#96

Post by blasdel »

ahlatimer wrote: post #93
SwellJoe wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never mind the usability desaster that the GIMP represents for anyone who is accustomed to PS. In the interest of fairness...I just bought Adobe CS4 Web Premium (with Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). I've been working with the GIMP and Inkscape for a good long while, off and on, and I'm still finding Photoshop and Illustrator to be incredibly hard to use and obtuse. I've been watching video tutorials, reading the docs,…

There are most definitely stability problems with Photoshop. You would think something that cost that much would at least be stable , but I suppose "serious professionals" look at feature sets and not stability. My experience with GIMP is none, so I'm not exactly qualified to comment, but Photoshop has to be one of the biggest usability nightmares on the market today. There are strange restrictions and ambiguous erro…

As frustrating and annoying as Photoshop is, GIMP is massively worse usabilty-wise across the board, and then all the features are missing too. It's a lose-lose.

I haven't found a single task where GIMP is less obnoxious. Most of the time I give up -- sometimes I'll try to use ImageMajick or PIL, other times I'll get a Mac or Windows box with Photoshop or Paint.NET

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

#97

Post by blasdel »

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…

The GIMP's development process has strong central control around a unifying cognitive model.

Unfortunately the people in charge are idiots with terrible taste, and they've been under siege so long that they're deaf.

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

#98

Post by michaelneale »

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 guess this is reflected in the popularity of the "app store" for iphone - and now others trying to replicate that (not just for phones either). Its the proprietary equivalent of the open source repository approach.

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

#99

Post by veqon »

frodwith wrote: post #25

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" applica…

The motherboard on my XP machine died and I dug out my old w2k machine and (amongst other things) I installed OpenOffice. I only use OO for word documents and spreadsheets but it has served my needs without problems. So why can't I convince anyone else to try it? My guess is that they know Microsoft Office, and they feel safer being in the same boat as everyone else. Any problem won't be their fault. The old FUD.

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

#100

Post by omouse »

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…

What you're arguing for is management. So you contradict yourself. You do need some careful managerial oversight because managers have to figure out what sorts of people they need to accomplish a task.
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