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Let me add this (possibly unpopular on HN?) opinion: I have never, ever seen an open-source project that begins to compare, purely in user experience, to a clos

Let me add this (possibly unpopular on HN?) opinion: I have never, ever seen an open-source project that begins to compare, purely in user experience, to a closed-source/commercial project. Not saying it can't happen, but the forces that push commercial dev and open source dev don't seem to be the same at all.

Pewpewarrows 15y ago
(Firefox & Chrome) vs IE /thread
AshFurrow 15y ago
What's really interesting is this applies to closed source solutions with a terrible user experience. PhotoShop is awful, but still better than the Gimp.
tomjen3 15y ago
Compare Emacs versus any other paid text editor (not ide). Personally I would say that Emacs has a much better UX. Remember UX doesn't just mean pretty corners and can be used by your grandmother (or Homers dad, if you grandmother is in fact awesome at computers) especially in the context of tools used daily. But I will grant you that is is often to always the case when the intended end user is someone who isn't a programmer.
- cube13 15y ago
  >Compare Emacs versus any other paid text editor (not ide). Personally I would say that Emacs has a much better UX. If you want an OS over your OS. For those that don't, use Vi. </text editor wars>
  - AshFurrow 15y ago
    The Future of Emacs/Vi doesn't matter. The Present Does.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
Which browser do you use?
cageface 15y ago
Open Source is great for infrastructure stuff like server operating systems and programming language implementations. It hasn't had many (if any) wins against proprietary software for user-facing apps.
beej71 15y ago
The simple question came up between myself and a friend of mine who is a designer: "Why don't designers seem to dedicate the same time to OSS projects that engineers do?" Neither of us really had a good answer to that, but also neither of us expected OSS engineers to out-design designers in the general case. Basically, lack of designer input to OSS projects for whatever reason was problematic. Perhaps it's because engineers don't solicit designer input. Perhaps it's because by the time the engineer-only project arrives on a designer's desk, it's too ugly to consider. Perhaps it's because designers don't have the same OSS ethos. Perhaps it's an illusion, and designers do give a lot of input to OSS projects, but the input is bad. Or a combination of a variety of factors.
- tomcreighton 15y ago
  There's actually a really good thread here about this exact topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267861 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267861

Pewpewarrows 15y ago

(Firefox & Chrome) vs IE /thread

AshFurrow 15y ago

What's really interesting is this applies to closed source solutions with a terrible user experience. PhotoShop is awful, but still better than the Gimp.

tomjen3 15y ago

Compare Emacs versus any other paid text editor (not ide). Personally I would say that Emacs has a much better UX. Remember UX doesn't just mean pretty corners and can be used by your grandmother (or Homers dad, if you grandmother is in fact awesome at computers) especially in the context of tools used daily. But I will grant you that is is often to always the case when the intended end user is someone who isn't a programmer.

cube13 15y ago
>Compare Emacs versus any other paid text editor (not ide). Personally I would say that Emacs has a much better UX. If you want an OS over your OS. For those that don't, use Vi. </text editor wars>
- AshFurrow 15y ago
  The Future of Emacs/Vi doesn't matter. The Present Does.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

Which browser do you use?

cageface 15y ago

Open Source is great for infrastructure stuff like server operating systems and programming language implementations. It hasn't had many (if any) wins against proprietary software for user-facing apps.

beej71 15y ago

The simple question came up between myself and a friend of mine who is a designer: "Why don't designers seem to dedicate the same time to OSS projects that engineers do?" Neither of us really had a good answer to that, but also neither of us expected OSS engineers to out-design designers in the general case. Basically, lack of designer input to OSS projects for whatever reason was problematic. Perhaps it's because engineers don't solicit designer input. Perhaps it's because by the time the engineer-only project arrives on a designer's desk, it's too ugly to consider. Perhaps it's because designers don't have the same OSS ethos. Perhaps it's an illusion, and designers do give a lot of input to OSS projects, but the input is bad. Or a combination of a variety of factors.

tomcreighton 15y ago
There's actually a really good thread here about this exact topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267861 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267861