6 ms·

> After a day of playing with the free version of Resolve in 2017 I gave BlackMagic some cash for a license & capture card for audio I see you've came to the s

> After a day of playing with the free version of Resolve in 2017 I gave BlackMagic some cash for a license & capture card for audio I see you've came to the same conclusion i did years ago. I look at it not as paying for software, but buying my time back at this point. Linux "open source"/free professional software seems to lack the Je ne sais quoi needed to make it worthwhile. It works, but the software is in the "uncanny valley" so to speak compared to polished Mac/Windows paid professional software.

Dalewyn 3y ago
There is an old saying: "Time is money." When you buy something, you are exchanging your money to obtain someone else's time. In this case, time that someone else spent to make sure a program works. The F in FOSS stands for free, so nobody is under any obligation to spend their time so you don't spend yours.
- hn_acker 3y ago
  > The F in FOSS stands for free, so nobody is under any obligation to spend their time so you don't spend yours. Your conclusion generalizes to no-charge software, not to all FOSS. The "free" in FOSS stands for free software, meaning free as in freedom rather than free as in price. If a program is free software [1] then a user of the program can read the source code, modify it, and distribute (including sell) unmodified and modified versions of the program/code. A user who lacks the program or the code isn't entitled to the freedoms but can get the software from someone else who has it. Developers of free software can charge for it. One way of making money from free software is charging for access to the developer's server. Another way is charging for more expansive user support. (Alternatives to charging for the software itself include requesting donations and selling physical merchandise.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    I'm fully aware the F in FOSS stands for free-as-in-libre. I'm also aware that FOSS developers by and large refuse the exchange of any and all money both as buyers and sellers for services rendered. You say developers of free-as-in-libre software can charge for them, but in practice any developer that tries to sell his free-as-in-libre software will be viciously laughed out of the room by everyone else. The F in FOSS in practice stands both for free-as-in-libre and free-as-in-beer. And you don't get to talk about the quality of free beer.
    - Racing0461 3y ago
      Can you guys lemma know when is the year of the linux desktop? I wanna add it to calcurse.
      - Qem 3y ago
        If Micro$oft keeps enshittifying their OS at current rates, I bet a lot of people will get fed up and jump ship to Linux after one or two more windows releases. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
        Dalewyn 3y ago
        Windows 11, for all its faults, enables me to do the things I want to do on a computer. Likewise Android, and to a lesser degree even iOS and MacOS I admit. Linux however demands me to do the computer, it doesn't enable me to do anything because I'm too busy doing computer bullshit. This isn't necessarily surprising, since the goal of Linux (more accurately FOSS) is to use FOSS and isn't concerned about what I need/want to do. So no, most people (or at least myself) will not move from Windows to Linux. I use computers to do things, not preach the holy scriptures of FOSS.
        Zambyte 3y ago
        Which decade was the last one you used GNU/Linux in?
- Zambyte 3y ago
  > The F in FOSS stands for free, so nobody is under any obligation to spend their time so you don't spend yours. This is why I really dislike the term "FOSS". It's both redundant and erroneously misleads people to thinking things like this. Free Software can absolutely be developed under contract, in which case yes, you are entitled to the developers time under the terms of the contract.
belugacat 3y ago
A lot of open source projects suffer from “pet project” syndrome. Some maintainers have very strong opinions about how/what things should be done regardless of actual user demand or feedback, and there’s no one with the power to rebuff them because the product owners deciding what to implement and the engineers doing implementation work are one and same. Commit right makes might. In a (healthy) company, you have PMs and executives who will tell the overly opinionated engineers to STFU and actually implement things that move the needle and solve problems users are facing. This is also why most open source projects have terrible UI/UX and any designer who attempts to help and improve things finds themselves ignored, with no means to actually carry out any decision, and walk away soon after.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  If maintainers are paid to produce a feature, they should produce it regardless. Otherwise they're breaking a contract.
- davidhyde 3y ago
  > “and there’s no one with the power to rebuff them” Except for those that discover the fork button. /s In all seriousness I think that what you mean is that people rarely have the power to fork a project and drag all the users and development expertise over to their version. Especially if they are simply users of the system and not contributors. Users of commercial software can get companies to do stuff for them with their wallets.
- prox 3y ago
  It stems from a bias, developers are power/expert users and their interface behavior is likely matching, which means they are heavily reliant on keyboard shortcuts (Think Blender 1.x and Blender 2.x who leaned heavily and even exclusively on shortcuts) This gives them the idea that their software is very powerful (and probably is) but this creates a cliff to the beginner and intermediate level users. A lot of examples can be found in “About Face: On interaction design” by Alan Cooper.
- oefrha 3y ago
  In fact larger open source GUI projects also tend to suffer from the opposite: with multiple equally powerful maintainers, a good number of contributors, and no one to rally them behind a coherent design, you get a messy bag of poorly documented features spread all over the place. Design by programmer is usually bad enough; design by a loosely-connected web of programmers working almost independently is even worse. Also, a lot of the developers/users are ideologically motivated and heavily invested, when you point out how bad the software is for the average user, instead of reflecting on it they often get defensive.
poulpy123 3y ago
the "je ne sais quoi" is called money

Dalewyn 3y ago

There is an old saying: "Time is money." When you buy something, you are exchanging your money to obtain someone else's time. In this case, time that someone else spent to make sure a program works. The F in FOSS stands for free, so nobody is under any obligation to spend their time so you don't spend yours.

hn_acker 3y ago
> The F in FOSS stands for free, so nobody is under any obligation to spend their time so you don't spend yours. Your conclusion generalizes to no-charge software, not to all FOSS. The "free" in FOSS stands for free software, meaning free as in freedom rather than free as in price. If a program is free software [1] then a user of the program can read the source code, modify it, and distribute (including sell) unmodified and modified versions of the program/code. A user who lacks the program or the code isn't entitled to the freedoms but can get the software from someone else who has it. Developers of free software can charge for it. One way of making money from free software is charging for access to the developer's server. Another way is charging for more expansive user support. (Alternatives to charging for the software itself include requesting donations and selling physical merchandise.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  I'm fully aware the F in FOSS stands for free-as-in-libre. I'm also aware that FOSS developers by and large refuse the exchange of any and all money both as buyers and sellers for services rendered. You say developers of free-as-in-libre software can charge for them, but in practice any developer that tries to sell his free-as-in-libre software will be viciously laughed out of the room by everyone else. The F in FOSS in practice stands both for free-as-in-libre and free-as-in-beer. And you don't get to talk about the quality of free beer.
  - Racing0461 3y ago
    Can you guys lemma know when is the year of the linux desktop? I wanna add it to calcurse.
    - Qem 3y ago
      If Micro$oft keeps enshittifying their OS at current rates, I bet a lot of people will get fed up and jump ship to Linux after one or two more windows releases. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
      - Dalewyn 3y ago
        Windows 11, for all its faults, enables me to do the things I want to do on a computer. Likewise Android, and to a lesser degree even iOS and MacOS I admit. Linux however demands me to do the computer, it doesn't enable me to do anything because I'm too busy doing computer bullshit. This isn't necessarily surprising, since the goal of Linux (more accurately FOSS) is to use FOSS and isn't concerned about what I need/want to do. So no, most people (or at least myself) will not move from Windows to Linux. I use computers to do things, not preach the holy scriptures of FOSS.
        Zambyte 3y ago
        Which decade was the last one you used GNU/Linux in?
Zambyte 3y ago
> The F in FOSS stands for free, so nobody is under any obligation to spend their time so you don't spend yours. This is why I really dislike the term "FOSS". It's both redundant and erroneously misleads people to thinking things like this. Free Software can absolutely be developed under contract, in which case yes, you are entitled to the developers time under the terms of the contract.

belugacat 3y ago

A lot of open source projects suffer from “pet project” syndrome. Some maintainers have very strong opinions about how/what things should be done regardless of actual user demand or feedback, and there’s no one with the power to rebuff them because the product owners deciding what to implement and the engineers doing implementation work are one and same. Commit right makes might. In a (healthy) company, you have PMs and executives who will tell the overly opinionated engineers to STFU and actually implement things that move the needle and solve problems users are facing. This is also why most open source projects have terrible UI/UX and any designer who attempts to help and improve things finds themselves ignored, with no means to actually carry out any decision, and walk away soon after.

robertlagrant 3y ago
If maintainers are paid to produce a feature, they should produce it regardless. Otherwise they're breaking a contract.
davidhyde 3y ago
> “and there’s no one with the power to rebuff them” Except for those that discover the fork button. /s In all seriousness I think that what you mean is that people rarely have the power to fork a project and drag all the users and development expertise over to their version. Especially if they are simply users of the system and not contributors. Users of commercial software can get companies to do stuff for them with their wallets.
prox 3y ago
It stems from a bias, developers are power/expert users and their interface behavior is likely matching, which means they are heavily reliant on keyboard shortcuts (Think Blender 1.x and Blender 2.x who leaned heavily and even exclusively on shortcuts) This gives them the idea that their software is very powerful (and probably is) but this creates a cliff to the beginner and intermediate level users. A lot of examples can be found in “About Face: On interaction design” by Alan Cooper.
oefrha 3y ago
In fact larger open source GUI projects also tend to suffer from the opposite: with multiple equally powerful maintainers, a good number of contributors, and no one to rally them behind a coherent design, you get a messy bag of poorly documented features spread all over the place. Design by programmer is usually bad enough; design by a loosely-connected web of programmers working almost independently is even worse. Also, a lot of the developers/users are ideologically motivated and heavily invested, when you point out how bad the software is for the average user, instead of reflecting on it they often get defensive.

poulpy123 3y ago

the "je ne sais quoi" is called money