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Yet they do... GIMP? Inkscape? Blender? Libre Office? Firefox?? Chrome?? I'm actually not sure what you're suggesting. There are no great open source projects

by welly 7y ago

Yet they do... GIMP? Inkscape? Blender? Libre Office? Firefox?? Chrome?? I'm actually not sure what you're suggesting. There are no great open source projects outside those written for development? That's clearly false.

robenkleene 7y ago
As others have pointed out, web browsers are developer tools. Just because other people also use them for other things doesn’t mean they’re not core to developer's workflows. GIMP, Inkscape, and LibreOffice aren’t competitive with their commercial alternatives. Which leaves Blender, which is the exception of a high quality open source tool that’s not for developers. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I think they’re two reasons it exists: 1. The comparable commercial tools are very expensive, e.g., thousands of dollars per year, versus a bit over a hundred a year for something like Photoshop. 2. Developers have a particular affinity to 3D modeling, e.g., it’s the biggest gatekeeper to various types of development like games programming and AR/VR. But I agree 100% that Blender is a fascinating exception, and I’d love to hear more theories about what’s made it so successful.
- extralegos 7y ago
  Blender is the sole exception, but the very vast majority of the CG industry used closed source counterparts because Blender still does not compete with Maya and Houdini, especially the latter. Blender had recently made some massive improvements and that is definitely starting to change, but this is happening alongside CG artists starting to write scripts more and more, slowly becoming developers themselves. And realize Blender hails from the Netherlands, which maintains a uniquely socially favorable version of capitalism. Projects like Blender would surely have a much harder time being pursued anywhere else.
- aloisdg 7y ago
  Blender is also used by a lot of gamedev.
- FemmeAndroid 7y ago
  A notable thing for me as a very light amateur user, was that Blender (up until the recent 2.80) felt very foreign when compared to professional tools. It is an incredible accomplishment, but it had a notable learning curve, even if you had experience with other commercial 3d graphics software.
- Torwald 7y ago
  > 1. The comparable commercial tools are very expensive, This was specially the case when blender was new and AFAIK command line driven. In those days a SGI machine alone was more expensive then the car of the average Blender user.
simiones 7y ago
Firefox is definitely an exception. Libre Office is simply copying features from MS Office, and is rarely used in commercial settings anyway. Chrome is open source (well, Chromium, Chrome is not), but it is basically 100% developed by a commercial company which does not generally accept community contributions. I don't know enough about GIMP, Inkscape and Blender to give an opinion on how well they can be held up as examples of Open Source community tools that can replace commercial tools. Edit: actually, thinking more about this, Firefox and other browsers are much more a tool for web development than a tool for users directly - the functionality that users use is much smaller in terms of implementation than the functionality that web developers use (the layout and JS engines, and the debuggers, profilers & other development .
- Torwald 7y ago
  Didn't Libre stem from StarOffice, a commercial product?
buboard 7y ago
firefox is (also) a developer tool. Blender is also used by a lot of game developers and thats why it gets a lot of attention. Gimp, inkscape and libreoffice not so much, and it shows.
NotATroll 7y ago
> GIMP, Blender Both of which are known to have notoriously unintuitive UI's, especially when compared to their commercial competitors. > Libre Office Literally just copy & paste M$ Office UI, and honestly still manages to screw that up putting things in different places.
- monkin 7y ago
  > Both of which are known to have notoriously unintuitive UI's, especially when compared to their commercial competitors. This changed lately for both products.
chadlavi 7y ago
Except for GIMP, an engineer might easily use these products regularly. and perhaps not coincidentally, GIMP is infurating trash from a UX perspective.
deleted 7y ago
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by welly 7y ago

robenkleene 7y ago

As others have pointed out, web browsers are developer tools. Just because other people also use them for other things doesn’t mean they’re not core to developer's workflows. GIMP, Inkscape, and LibreOffice aren’t competitive with their commercial alternatives. Which leaves Blender, which is the exception of a high quality open source tool that’s not for developers. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I think they’re two reasons it exists: 1. The comparable commercial tools are very expensive, e.g., thousands of dollars per year, versus a bit over a hundred a year for something like Photoshop. 2. Developers have a particular affinity to 3D modeling, e.g., it’s the biggest gatekeeper to various types of development like games programming and AR/VR. But I agree 100% that Blender is a fascinating exception, and I’d love to hear more theories about what’s made it so successful.

extralegos 7y ago
Blender is the sole exception, but the very vast majority of the CG industry used closed source counterparts because Blender still does not compete with Maya and Houdini, especially the latter. Blender had recently made some massive improvements and that is definitely starting to change, but this is happening alongside CG artists starting to write scripts more and more, slowly becoming developers themselves. And realize Blender hails from the Netherlands, which maintains a uniquely socially favorable version of capitalism. Projects like Blender would surely have a much harder time being pursued anywhere else.
aloisdg 7y ago
Blender is also used by a lot of gamedev.
FemmeAndroid 7y ago
A notable thing for me as a very light amateur user, was that Blender (up until the recent 2.80) felt very foreign when compared to professional tools. It is an incredible accomplishment, but it had a notable learning curve, even if you had experience with other commercial 3d graphics software.
Torwald 7y ago
> 1. The comparable commercial tools are very expensive, This was specially the case when blender was new and AFAIK command line driven. In those days a SGI machine alone was more expensive then the car of the average Blender user.

simiones 7y ago

Firefox is definitely an exception. Libre Office is simply copying features from MS Office, and is rarely used in commercial settings anyway. Chrome is open source (well, Chromium, Chrome is not), but it is basically 100% developed by a commercial company which does not generally accept community contributions. I don't know enough about GIMP, Inkscape and Blender to give an opinion on how well they can be held up as examples of Open Source community tools that can replace commercial tools. Edit: actually, thinking more about this, Firefox and other browsers are much more a tool for web development than a tool for users directly - the functionality that users use is much smaller in terms of implementation than the functionality that web developers use (the layout and JS engines, and the debuggers, profilers & other development .

Torwald 7y ago
Didn't Libre stem from StarOffice, a commercial product?

buboard 7y ago

firefox is (also) a developer tool. Blender is also used by a lot of game developers and thats why it gets a lot of attention. Gimp, inkscape and libreoffice not so much, and it shows.

NotATroll 7y ago

> GIMP, Blender Both of which are known to have notoriously unintuitive UI's, especially when compared to their commercial competitors. > Libre Office Literally just copy & paste M$ Office UI, and honestly still manages to screw that up putting things in different places.

monkin 7y ago
> Both of which are known to have notoriously unintuitive UI's, especially when compared to their commercial competitors. This changed lately for both products.

chadlavi 7y ago

Except for GIMP, an engineer might easily use these products regularly. and perhaps not coincidentally, GIMP is infurating trash from a UX perspective.

deleted 7y ago

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