Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#2I think this makes some good points about how projects have trouble reaching users. The fact that people try a program 4 years ago and don't check back since, is particularly true.
But I'd add one other big problem for open source: "anti-marketing", in the form of aggregating trolls.
I don't have to Google far to find sites that apparently just crawl SourceForge and dig up whatever crap they can automatically generate ad-ridden pages for. A lot of direct harm to projects comes from trolls:
- They don't properly credit, and certainly don't link to, the page that they crawled (e.g. SourceForge). So users have no way of knowing that a more complete and authoritative source exists.
- They often don't "re-crawl", so within a matter of months they're advertising something extremely old.
- They usually don't have all the details quite right. So their pages seem "authentic", yet are wrong in critical places (such as, system requirements; I've seen things as stupid as non-Windows programs that "require Windows XP").
- Their robots are sloppy. For instance, I've seen them create a "what's new" page that completely misinterprets the original source release notes, resulting in a couple of nonsensical bullet points. This makes it seem like the software maintainer is retarded.
- They give no direct control to project owners. Not only is there no way to update a page, but even if there were, the site has no way of knowing that the person contacting them is the true maintainer of the software.
Whichever one of these trolls becomes king of Google will do the most damage.
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#3I think this makes some good points about how projects have trouble reaching users. The fact that people try a program 4 years ago and don't check back since, is particularly true. But I'd add one other big problem for open source: "anti-marketing", in the form of aggregating trolls. I don't have to Google far to find sites that apparently just crawl SourceForge and dig up whatever crap they can automatically generat…
These things can be fixed by automatic check for updates and preferably seamless automatic update, but the problem is that people who normally like open source don't like automatic updates. People don't like when they're asked too much questions ("Do you want to check for updates?" - Yes - "Do you want to download update?" - Yes - "Do you want to update now" - ffs just do it!) and they don't like if program does this kind of stuff silently in background. How to fix this problem?
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#4Even today most Open source apps are developer (not user) friendly.
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#5I'll talk about the setup and configuration part. I mean this has been talked about to death but people still don't get it. And lately I'm starting to fear that maybe some people like it.
This is especially visible when trying out various new programming languages. I have written exactly one .NET application in my life and I absolutely loved it that I could just downl... I mean buy the Visual Studio, install it and start coding, debugging and deploying the application. The same story with Delphi.
A very different story is about Python, Haskell and all things Java related. You need to download compilator, then you need to find and download IDE separately, then you need to figure out how to make it work with the debugger, if you're lucky enough to get it working at all. It takes time and effort that doesn't benefit me. It's all reading instructions, changing paths in configuration files and setting environment variables.
And the reason why this is done so is because as I mentioned some people absolutely love the idea that they can use any tools in any configuration that somehow after some effort work together. And people who like to tinker are the people who write open source. So there.
Also making good product = fun, making good setup = boring.
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#6I think this misses the mark, at least in the enterprise world. What the commercial companies have is huge sales teams- sales personnel that know how to convince people to by their product.
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#7I think this makes some good points about how projects have trouble reaching users. The fact that people try a program 4 years ago and don't check back since, is particularly true. But I'd add one other big problem for open source: "anti-marketing", in the form of aggregating trolls. I don't have to Google far to find sites that apparently just crawl SourceForge and dig up whatever crap they can automatically generat…
These things can be fixed by automatic check for updates and preferably seamless automatic update, but the problem is that people who normally like open source don't like automatic updates. People don't like when they're asked too much questions ("Do you want to check for updates?" - Yes - "Do you want to download update?" - Yes - "Do you want to update now" - ffs just do it!) and they don't like if program does this…
people who normally like open source don't like automatic updates
Really? Where does that come from? Because one of the things I love most about running Ubuntu is that everything just stays up to date on its own. I'm always very wary of installing something myself and will nearly always take the apt-get route unless I really need that very latest feature.
Whenever I evangelize running linux, (which is very rarely) this is one of my big selling points. When people see the update manager pop up, update a bunch of programs while I'm doing other stuff and not even ask me to reboot they're often convinced to give it a try.
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#8I'll talk about the setup and configuration part. I mean this has been talked about to death but people still don't get it. And lately I'm starting to fear that maybe some people like it. This is especially visible when trying out various new programming languages. I have written exactly one .NET application in my life and I absolutely loved it that I could just downl... I mean buy the Visual Studio, install it and s…
But there's a catch, isn't there? There's always a catch. At work (Big Company TM), we call it the "MS Happy Path." If you're on it, you're golden and life is good. The overall development experience is great. If you're not, well, sucks to be you. With the other choices you probably have a way out. Even if there's no scaffolding for you, you can at least implement something yourself. Granted it takes more time up front, but it pays off when your priorities vary from those of your tool vendor's.
We've made lots of choices explicitly for the purpose of staying on the MS Happy Path, since we knew it would make our life easier. Not because they were the best solution to the problem.
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
#9You're talking about the average user?
It's simple: because they can pirate proprietary software and they always perceive something which has a price tag as more valuable than something which is offered for free. Something which has more (perceived) value but which you can obtain for free will always win against something which is offered for free (and thus is perceived as probably worthless).
Sad but true.
There are some exceptions, though. A lot of people use Vlc, for instance, because it can play every single (probably pirated) video you'll throw at it. And there isn't a market for commercial video players. Something like Firefox wouldn't have reached such penetration without a lot of marketing (most people doesn't even know what a browser is, go figure).
I'm constantly baffled by the number of articles about these subjects coming out every day from authors who don't understand (or completely ignore) basic human psychology.
Re: Why Users Dumped Your Open Source App for Proprietary Software
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