And who will employ me to work on it full time? I know of no example where occasional hobbyist contributions have led to good usability, except for Terminal-bas

And who will employ me to work on it full time? I know of no example where occasional hobbyist contributions have led to good usability, except for Terminal-based text editors (and only in the eyes of some). I think the GIMP stinks and I would still honestly dedicate myself to it for a small salary. I would madly dedicate myself to it if I were to sell it commercially and with perfect copyright in place, because then my "salary" would depend on my merits. But I won't, because I know everybody is used to warezing Photoshop by now. (FWIW, I spent a long time being the target of laughter and facepalms by not warezing Photoshop but supporting cheaper alternatives instead. There's even a social push to do it now.) Maybe this will work again once we have perfect DRM in the disguise of SaaS, but that's a day I fear for different reasons.