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Time Till Open Source Alternative

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Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#311

Post by AmalgatedAmoeba »

heliodor wrote: post #288
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue, and think GIMP is a good example, that products can fight off open source alternative adoption by being free to certain groups. Piracy, student discounts, shareware, limited trials. You could still consider this a win for open source, as it stops market abuse and restricts those paying to the people who depend on the software for business reasons and who haven't had their trust sufficiently broken that the…

The only thing that held back adoption of GIMP is its perpetually horrible UX.

No, it’s really not (unless you mean the literal, holistic user experience and not what the term usually refers to). GIMP is lacking the tools and integrations that make Photoshop seem like magic, while not being more performant or offering much of a benefit beyond being OSS. The lackluster UI is just the cherry on top.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#312

Post by samstave »

lstodd wrote: post #251
samstave wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont forget Goog literally owened the anti spam industry with gmail after their integrating POSTINI purchase in like ~~2006 And now in 2022 any gmailinbox is fn full of spam...

Because you have to support products, esp. antispam, while goog is generaly known for doing the other thing.

Uh, they literally paid MILLIONS for the antispam company POSTINI and thats what the original anti-spam features for GMAIL are based on... in the last 18 months or something, google apparently deleted that tech from their stack, I posted about this when I first started having so much spam inbox my gmail....

So yeah - THEY _supported_ the product by paying millions for it...

Then they did "the other thing"

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#313

Post by jdeibele »

latchkey wrote: post #147
bruce511 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> seems like an inherent risk with any SaaS provider. If you see risk as binary, then yes there is risk in any SaaS provider, or indeed any part of your company supply chain. Risk though is not binary, it is measured on a scale of 0 to 1. There is risk every time you get in a car. But some cars are safer than others. Some are renowned for putting safety first. The vast majority of people survived their Ford Pinto, n…

> Google is the Pinto of SaaS That's some strong personal opinion... source? GCP has been extremely performant and reliable for me across several different companies. I'm not saying that people have definitely run into issues, which we've all read about here on HN, but this sounds more like squeaky wheel than the norm. > Thanks to their "no support" policy, Their support has been excellent, when I've needed it, which…

Father lost his Gmail account and his Google Fi account. [0] Which means that he was locked out of a lot of other accounts because he couldn't access his email or SMS messages.

I figure Google knows how to protect against attacks way better than a random email provider. I enrolled in their Advanced Protection Program [1] because I don't want my email taken over. I've used a Google Voice number deliberately because somebody can't walk into Verizon or AT&T and get my number.

The idea that there's absolutely no recourse if Google decides I'm a bad guy. Especially since they sometimes seem to target associated accounts - are all of the family accounts going to be cancelled, too?

I don't think Apple's security is as good but I'm also not qualified to judge that. And at least I can talk to support on the phone or go into a store. So I'm moving my email that way over time.

[0]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-cs... [1]https://landing.google.com/advancedprotection/

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#314

Post by latchkey »

jdeibele wrote: post #313
latchkey wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is the Pinto of SaaS That's some strong personal opinion... source? GCP has been extremely performant and reliable for me across several different companies. I'm not saying that people have definitely run into issues, which we've all read about here on HN, but this sounds more like squeaky wheel than the norm. > Thanks to their "no support" policy, Their support has been excellent, when I've needed it, which…

Father lost his Gmail account and his Google Fi account. [0] Which means that he was locked out of a lot of other accounts because he couldn't access his email or SMS messages. I figure Google knows how to protect against attacks way better than a random email provider. I enrolled in their Advanced Protection Program [1] because I don't want my email taken over. I've used a Google Voice number deliberately because so…

The thread is about GCP, not about the rest of the Google products.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#315

Post by butterNaN »

sidlls wrote: post #291
butterNaN wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is impossible to be without ideology. Even if you think you're free from it, you just subscribe to the 'default' ideology of your environments. Meeting market demands _is_ an ideology.

That’s a fair point: but it doesn’t change the underlying narrative. The ideology motivating development of (F)OSS alternatives frequently produces software that is not as good as that produced by a market-demand ideology.

I would agree on that.

My initial diagnosis is that it's because of limited/nil feedback. Market driven projects at least have some sort of user feedback (e.g. early market research) that drives the development. It is often flawed but it's better than just a bunch of engineers assuming stuff.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#317

Post by jedberg »

lrem wrote: post #177
jedberg wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they're saying is that Google is opinionated. They determine that their way is the right way and you will do it their way. As opposed to Microsoft and Amazon, who both ask their customers, "how do you want to solve this problem?" and then build what the customers want. If the way Google has decided you should build something happens to work for you, great, but for most people, they want a product built around ho…

I work in Google and think I can share: in fact we do ask our users a lot. To the point that I would be very surprised if any major development in GCP is allowed at all without extensive focus groups, or coming out of cooperation with some major customer.

Maybe lately, but certainly not at first. I was one of those early customers, and when I would say, "We want to do it like this", they would say, "Well we think this is how it should be done" and then ignore me. So yeah, they talked to customers, and just told them they were wrong.

But also Google has a trust issue. I think GCP makes a superior product, but I would never use it. I'd be afraid that one of my former employees leaves the company, does something Google doesn't like, and they shut down my entire GCP account because my gmail is associated with the gmail of someone who did something bad, even though they don't work for me anymore. (Yes, this is a real thing that happened)

I can't trust Google not to just shut down my account and then give me no human to talk to to get it fixed.

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#318

Post by tomrod »

ryukafalz wrote: post #310
tomrod wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. "It's fine" is the problem. It doesn't need to be fine, it needs to compete with Photoshop to be a serious tool in the space it serves. And what the vast, vast majority of artists have said is that it is insufficient for that. Can you crop a photo in it? Sure, once you figure out the placement of things. Can you perform serious photo manipulation? Somewhat, although Photoshop takes way less cognitive cost…

> Somewhat, although Photoshop takes way less cognitive cost Does it take less cognitive cost because it’s actually easier, or because you’re used to it and you’re not used to GIMP?

To be frank, I'm a regular GIMP user and have only dabbled in Photoshop. However, I empathize with daily drivers of the software.

To address you're question: elements of both.

As a paid service, Photoshop can afford to have developer research users and improve UX. GIMP, as an open source project, is subject to the (often well-placed) whims of its developers, which does not have the same profit motive to keep users as Photoshop.

This in of itself does not guarantee less cognitive load. But certainly it is easier for a GIMP user to adopt Photoshop than it does for a Photoshop user to adopt GIMP.

Further, we could argue the status quo is as it is because GIMP is less productive than Photoshop by at least whatever Photoshop charges per month (and possibly more).

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#319

Post by grandrew »

DannyBee wrote: post #40

The chart is interesting because it misses the important part - it covers time, but not adoption. For example, adoption of GIMP has not likely materially increased over time (as a relative percent of total addressable market) IMHO, what the author gets wrong what so many people who claim this (they are not the first, or the last) get wrong - open source as a whole sucks at building products , but is great at building…

Thank you for brilliant comment highligthing the OSS issues.

But I believe you're missing the main point that OP is making: OSS will _statistically_ dominate every single niche.

There are just more reasons why non-OSS software would cease to exist - so eventually Inkscape will become a de-facto standard for Illustrator things; Blender will become de-facto standard of all 3D-Max things; OBS will become a de-facto standard of all Macromedia Flash Broadcast ... oh wait ... did that happen already?

Re: Time Till Open Source Alternative

#320

Post by latchkey »

jedberg wrote: post #317
lrem wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in Google and think I can share: in fact we do ask our users a lot. To the point that I would be very surprised if any major development in GCP is allowed at all without extensive focus groups, or coming out of cooperation with some major customer.

Maybe lately, but certainly not at first. I was one of those early customers, and when I would say, "We want to do it like this", they would say, "Well we think this is how it should be done" and then ignore me. So yeah, they talked to customers, and just told them they were wrong. But also Google has a trust issue. I think GCP makes a superior product, but I would never use it. I'd be afraid that one of my former em…

Just because they disagreed with you doesn't mean they are bad.

> I think GCP makes a superior product

Exactly. They do.

The rest is mostly just conjecture. The loudest wheels get the most notice... there are plenty of other people, like myself, who have been using GCP for a long time without any drama. It just works.

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