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

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

#31

Post by omouse » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:09 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…

Isn't the main problem for OSS adoption advertising?

You can't advertise without doing some marketing work. Free Software projects have to figure out who their target markets are and cater to them. GIMP is the best example because it could be split into a few different versions; one that's suitable for Photo Shop users, and another that's useful for people who haven't been "tainted" by Photo Shop.

There could be tutorials and books that make it easier for Photo Shop users to use GIMP.

If there was some cash, you could do the sleazy thing and pay people to use the GIMP when teaching graphic design classes or whatever. Heck, you may not have to pay them at all if you can convince them that the price of $0 makes the GIMP better than Photo Shop.

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

#32

Post by bct » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:09 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?

For the same reasons that very few non-open projects have the kind of usability you're talking about.

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

#33

Post by 0xdefec8 » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:11 PM UTC

As a dude who just tried Ubuntu for the first time in 5 years to see how far they've come, but couldn't because the fucking liveCD didn't have a driver for my cdrom, this rings true.

But for what it's worth, after a few grueling days getting the p.o.s. up and running, I was shocked to have all the UI fluff my macbook has, plus the infinite list of other great stuff that's inherent to Linux.

The moral? Just shrinkwrap all OSS with a CS degree holding nerd who has a couple days of free time.

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

#34

Post by joeyo » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:33 PM UTC

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…

  > You could have good FOSS usability - if you had a central
  > company driving the development. As in Firefox. It just
  > hasn't happened many times so far, because people are
  > willing to pay for good closed-source interfaces in most
  > problem domains.

Actually, Firefox was originally started by two guys as a reaction against the centralized development that was at the time occurring with the Mozilla browser. The Mozilla foundation officially came on board later, well after Firefox gained momentum and popularity.

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

#35

Post by naz » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:37 PM UTC

I think the main problem with Open Source application software is the lack of experience in the field the application deals with. Open source programming libraries and languages, webservers and browsers are all great because they are mainly programming problems, and open source developers are programmers. Things like the GIMP and Virtualdub try to deal with problems outside the field of programming, and don't have the knowledge, research or resources to develop something that people in those fields want. Usability is one of those fields but it isn't the heart of the problem.

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

#36

Post by tedunangst » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:37 PM UTC

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.

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

#37

Post by _phred » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:37 PM UTC

omouse wrote: post #31

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…

Isn't the main problem for OSS adoption advertising? You can't advertise without doing some marketing work. Free Software projects have to figure out who their target markets are and cater to them. GIMP is the best example because it could be split into a few different versions; one that's suitable for Photo Shop users, and another that's useful for people who haven't been "tainted" by Photo Shop. There could be tuto…

The trick, it would seem, is convincing them that a $0 tool with its faults and crashes is better than a stable $400 industry-standard tool 15 years in the development and that, when billing design time at $80-120/hour, the latter tool won't quickly prove its worth.

Time and time again, Gimp has proven to me that it's not the tool for doing anything but the most basic editing. I want to love it, because it's free, but I don't have the time to waste when it eats my drawings.

What could really help would be a gallery of stunning art created with only open-source tools; the trick there is teaching the artists to use the tools and making it worth their time to do so...

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

#38

Post by cschwarm » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:40 PM UTC

ori_b wrote: post #17

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…

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.

True. But for Open Source projects, having a lead developer with taste is a matter of chance. And people using the software usually don't care about the "no-users" but only their own wants and needs.

In contrast, Closed Source products simply hire a professional interface designer if that's necessary to convince "no-users" to buy.

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

#39

Post by jodrellblank » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:42 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #24

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.

If he's making the same point as usability and UI experts, why does it matter who he is?

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

#40

Post by access_denied » Tue, Jun 30, 2009, 5:42 PM UTC

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…

Updating software packs, determining if source is reliable, studying source code and debugging are not done very often by office workers in fields like biz admin or design, to say the least.