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By that definition, I feel most open source software is malware. I have yet to find a single open source project that is user-facing (i.e. not a compiler, etc),

By that definition, I feel most open source software is malware. I have yet to find a single open source project that is user-facing (i.e. not a compiler, etc), not funded & developed/driven by a major corporation and providing a good USER EXPERIENCE. By that definition, much more open source software is malware, than proprietary software. It is incredible how much time you lose by using Linux and open source tools. GIMP, Darktable, LibreOffice, Eclipse, etc. the list goes on and on. Any tool that you need in your daily workflow usually sucks when it is open source, compared to their commercial counterparts. And the lack of understanding of the open source community that "normal" people don't care about "open source" and simply want a good user experience, didn't help over the past 20 years to improve anything. Using OpenSource makes you feel like you are back in 2000. Having funding and a coordinated team and management focused on solving customer problems and shipping the right features is something that just doesn't work when a bunch of unpaid devs "team up" and loosely work on solving problems they "think" people have and building UX that "they" like, as opposed to what customers like. My experience with open source is much more along the lines of "a bunch of nerds building software for themselves that nobody else can use or wants to use". This is not a recipe for success. And god knows I tried. I tried to switch to Linux about once a year in the past 20 years. It always ended up to be an utter disappointment UX wise. Linux is not something people want to use. It's a great accomplishment. But without focusing on UX, Linux will never reach any adoption outside of the server realm. Period.

crazypython 6y ago
> I have yet to find a single open source project that is user-facing (i.e. not a compiler, etc), not funded & developed/driven by a major corporation and providing a good USER EXPERIENCE. Free software developed by a major corporation is still free software. It may not use the open-source development model, but it's still free software. > GIMP https://krita.org https://krita.org https://penpot.app https://penpot.app > Eclipse IntelliJ IDEA Community > usually sucks when it is open source The UX argument has been well-worn. In my experience Jitsi Meet, videoconferencing software, is far more reliable than Zoom and Google Meet.
Miraste 6y ago
I don't think these examples have anything to do with being open source. They're problems of funding and organization. Of course a lot of open source software doesn't compete well with corporate projects, because it's made by individuals as a hobby. That said, I can list OSS which is highly competitive with its closed equivalents, like Blender and Krita, or has completely displaced corporate software, like VLC, FFmpeg, and git. The issues you mention are real and widespread, but I find open source solutions are still the best tool for the job a significant amount of the time. This is also ignoring the field of corporate open source, which has made great, if caveat-laden, strides in the past few years.

crazypython 6y ago

> I have yet to find a single open source project that is user-facing (i.e. not a compiler, etc), not funded & developed/driven by a major corporation and providing a good USER EXPERIENCE. Free software developed by a major corporation is still free software. It may not use the open-source development model, but it's still free software. > GIMP https://krita.org https://krita.org https://penpot.app https://penpot.app > Eclipse IntelliJ IDEA Community > usually sucks when it is open source The UX argument has been well-worn. In my experience Jitsi Meet, videoconferencing software, is far more reliable than Zoom and Google Meet.

Miraste 6y ago

I don't think these examples have anything to do with being open source. They're problems of funding and organization. Of course a lot of open source software doesn't compete well with corporate projects, because it's made by individuals as a hobby. That said, I can list OSS which is highly competitive with its closed equivalents, like Blender and Krita, or has completely displaced corporate software, like VLC, FFmpeg, and git. The issues you mention are real and widespread, but I find open source solutions are still the best tool for the job a significant amount of the time. This is also ignoring the field of corporate open source, which has made great, if caveat-laden, strides in the past few years.