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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

#51

Post by paulgb »

0xdefec8 wrote: post #33

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…

To be fair, what percent of Windows users could actually install the OS if they needed to?

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

#52

Post by yesimahuman »

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.

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

#53

Post by sp332 »

0xdefec8 wrote: post #33

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…

Out of curiosity, what kind of CD-ROM drive requires a special driver?

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

#54

Post by blasdel »

sp332 wrote: post #53
0xdefec8 wrote: post #33

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…

Out of curiosity, what kind of CD-ROM drive requires a special driver?

It's not usually the CDROM, but the chipset it's attached to. A lot of recent motherboards have multiple disk controllers -- usually a standard one that's a part of the motherboard chipset, and a second super-shitty one (often from JMicron) so that they can advertise extra ports (also because Intel chipsets didn't support SATA hotplug for the longest time).

It's fairly common for the CDROM in an 'enthusiast' desktop to be attached to the single PATA port on a secondary controller.

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

#55

Post by rjurney »

joeyo wrote: post #34
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 Mozi…

And thus they were the central force driving good usability. They did it just for fun - or was it a company?

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

#56

Post by bct »

access_denied wrote: post #42
cschwarm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How many lead devels on OSS projects would bend before a pro UID who would contribute to the project?

There are projects for which mainstream UI design is unsuited or unimportant, and there are undoubtedly a few people whose egos would prevent it.

Apart from those, I would expect most projects would be happy to accept advice if the UID demonstrated competence.

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

#57

Post by ori_b »

access_denied wrote: post #42
cschwarm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How many lead devels on OSS projects would bend before a pro UID who would contribute to the project?

At a guess, a large number of them.

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

#58

Post by kl4m »

0xdefec8 wrote: post #50
sophacles wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you're actually saying that: 1. Someone still makes non-standard cd-roms? 2. Someone else still buys them? After learning you are person #2, why would anyone ever trust any other judgement you make?

and therein lies the predictable attitude that will keep linux a distant 3rd on the desktop.

and therein lies the predictable attitude that will keep linux a distant 3rd on the desktop.

See what I did there?

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

#59

Post by indiejade »

access_denied wrote: post #20
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…

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.

Nah. It is possible to make professional-quality, shiny, colorful graphics with GIMP if you know what you're doing. Sure, installing the non-default fonts (that is, not having a one-button install method) and configuring everything is what prevents most people from adopting it.

There are graphic designers who are graphic designers, and then there are web developers who are also graphic designers.

Have a look at what some "designers" are getting paid on sites like crowdSPRING.com and 99designs.com and it's pretty obvious that graphic designers who don't know code are fairly easy to find.

I think this has been why there's been such a backlash against the freelance sites by the brick-mortar "design only" firms.

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

#60

Post by ThomPete »

OOS doesn't suck it just needs more designers involved.

I am a pretty experienced designer focusing on interface design and have tried a couple of times to get involved in these kinds of projects.

But what often happens is that they coders don't really want to have designers involved before at the very end where needless to say the software suddenly dictates the experience.

It's a perfectly solvable problem and have nothing to do with OSS as such but the same thing that hit many big corporate projects.

You decide the platform before you decide on the product.

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