5 ms·

Keep in mind that it's FREE and OPEN SOURCE software

simonh 5mo ago
Firstly developers and designers of OSS need honest feedback from users as well, not just commercial developers. Secondly, how does being OSS justify significant regressions?
- trwired 5mo ago
  There seems to be pervasive opinion among FOSS enthusiasts that the software being free and volunteer made is kind of get out of jail card for not only criticism, but often simply just feedback. I deeply appreciate that FOSS exists. But - subjective feeling - in general it always had certain reputation for jankiness and user unfriendliness. Sniping down feedback "because the software is free" certainly contributes to that perception. If I have a choice between free, volunteer made software that's unreliable or doesn't even work for some of my use cases, and a commercial, but non-free product, I will be pragmatic about it and choose the latter.
  - paulryanrogers 5mo ago
    Criticism can be constructive. For understaffed teams, patches are even better.
- 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
  Because the authors don't owe you anything. You aren't giving them a single thing. They don't have to justify a thing. There is no SLA, no contract, nothing. Feedback is fine, but there are so comments being things like "ermahgerd I paid nothing for this thing and a feature wasn't working What the actual F!". Go file an issue and fix it yourself buddy.
  - richardlblair 5mo ago
    The feedback wasn't that though. The worst thing they said was that it was "kinda disappointing". Which is perfectly valid. They really want to use inkscape but can't.
    - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
      Yea sure but read the comments in this post it's kinda gross.
      - richardlblair 5mo ago
        Then hop on those comments.
  - chongli 5mo ago
    Users don’t owe the authors anything either. If they want to ignore longstanding complaints, they can toil in obscurity. Heck the only reason this post made the front page of HN is because of lingering goodwill that was built up when the software was actually decent. Now that it’s regressed into uselessness, the goodwill is drying up. I, frankly, don’t have any interest in the software anymore, since it was rendered unusable. I recommend everyone steer clear of it as well.
    - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
      I don't think it really matters if they are on the front page of HN. It's free software they don't need to market it right? Maybe it helps them find people willing to contribute to the issues though. So there is that. You are free to do that. I've only used inkscape like half a dozen times. It was fine for me.
    - cwillu 5mo ago
      “uselessness” he says…
      - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
        I'm not a big inkscape user or a big fan but last time I used it that was absolutely not a word that approached my mind... ...
    - michaelmrose 5mo ago
      This is a very negative statement and even if it were true it wouldn't belong here. It's unkind and unfair.
- nathanmills 5mo ago
  As an open-source developer, feedback is about 1% of what I need. Contributions are the other 99%. However, the reality is flipped where what I get is 99% feedback (issues/feature requests in the issue tracker) and 1% contributions. And this is not a "significant regression", I use Inkscape very often for graphics work and it works great for me. And it does not "justify" regressions, but if you are not willing to fix it yourself, you have no right to do anything other than kindly request a fix, not complain about it. And btw, I don't search hacker news for "feedback", I search my issue tracker.
- squeaky-clean 5mo ago
  There's already feedback in the gitlab issue that the top commenter linked. Their HN comment isn't really adding anything Hit me with the downvotes, but the only thing their comment has contributed to is causing arguments.
nkrisc 5mo ago
Potential users like honest reviews and criticisms of open source software. It helps us decide if it’s worth using or not.
2ndorderthought 5mo ago
I remember my car broke down, it was trash worth maybe 200 in scrap metal at the time. The tow to the yard was like 100 or something. I was screwed and couldn't get rides to work. My buddy lent me a car he had for free. I did not complain once to anyone about the things wrong with that car, and I never will. I even fixed some small issues with it to return the favor. The guy and that car saved my livelihood at the time. I realize that's a little dramatic. I also think people are allowed to raise issues. But the entitlement and the way people talk about free software is annoying. Especially when alternatives cost as much as a used or new car. If you have a Ferrari pallete for software then I hope there's an alternative that satisfies that for free, if so say so, otherwise shut up, contribute, or pay the Ferrari dollars already.
- josephg 5mo ago
  Eh. I draw the line in a slightly different place. I think saying that some piece of software is bad is not an attack on the developers. It doesn't imply ill will, or entitlement or any of that. People are allowed to write whatever software they want. And its generally net positive to share that software, for free, with the world. These things are true at once: - Good work inkscape developers! Inkscape is used by lots of people. I'm happy for the developers and the users, and I hope inkscape keeps getting better. - I don't want to use inkscape because when I tried it, it seemed ugly, slow and buggy. The only problem here is when people equate "this program is junk" with "this person is junk". That's a very dangerous belief to have, because it makes an enemy out of practice. And an enemy out of experimentation. The road to expertise is paved by mistakes. If bad quality work makes you a bad person, you can never learn a new skill.
  - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
    I think you are right. But I also know what it's like to be on the other side of it. Taking it personally isn't the big issue. Instead of celebrating a release the top comments are things like "this one thing doesn't work therefore trash, and unusable". Which reads like coercion for the devs to go spend a bunch of time and prioritize their life to satisfy someone at the free all you can download buffet. The thing that sucks about it is. The devs will go fix that thing. Make a new release. Then the top comment will be some other bug, because all software has them. Then if there are no bugs it will be something else like the devs cousins dogs affiliation the the neighborhood cat. It just gets old to me.
bowsamic 5mo ago
Inkscape is the only software that I see people get so defensive about when criticised. I even had the lead dev appear in my mentions and try and start fighting me on twitter when I complained on my own timeline about the performance on macOS. Weird culture
- ltlnx 5mo ago
  Would you like to name names? I don't think we have a lead dev currently.
  - bowsamic 5mo ago
    No, I don’t want to name and shame. It was a few years ago
    - ltlnx 5mo ago
      I think I know who you're talking about then :) Yes, some years has passed and they are no longer active (and we have a leadership committee instead of lead devs now).
pxoe 5mo ago
Yeah, I'm keeping it in mind. 0.92 still works great. There's basically nothing that's so severely lacking in 0.92, or anything that would be so enticing in 1.x, so there's no pressure to switch at all, and it may as well stay broken forever. It's a little odd to me that the tool regressed so badly in 1.x and stayed the same for five years though, even despite some apparent attempts to fix it, for something that i assume is a core tool (it's right there on the toolbar), though maybe not so much if it's so low priority that it stays unaddressed. It's not a situation where people are asking for something new to be added, it's a feature that worked fine before that got broken years ago and stayed broken. It's frankly bizarre to see hot new releases get touted year after year, while a part of core experience just stays broken. But again, it's kinda fine because the old version is just there, it just makes for a bit of an odd caveat when recommending it to people, for them to stick with the old version because it works better (well, actually works at all). It's a little unfortunate for the new users that might not know that and will just get the latest version and won't experience a feature properly though. (like, if I was a new user to it and picked up any 1.x version and tried the tool there, it would be clear that it's unusable for drawing and it'd be immediately dismissed, even though it actually works pretty great in older versions)

Firstly developers and designers of OSS need honest feedback from users as well, not just commercial developers. Secondly, how does being OSS justify significant regressions?

trwired 5mo ago
There seems to be pervasive opinion among FOSS enthusiasts that the software being free and volunteer made is kind of get out of jail card for not only criticism, but often simply just feedback. I deeply appreciate that FOSS exists. But - subjective feeling - in general it always had certain reputation for jankiness and user unfriendliness. Sniping down feedback "because the software is free" certainly contributes to that perception. If I have a choice between free, volunteer made software that's unreliable or doesn't even work for some of my use cases, and a commercial, but non-free product, I will be pragmatic about it and choose the latter.
- paulryanrogers 5mo ago
  Criticism can be constructive. For understaffed teams, patches are even better.
2ndorderthought 5mo ago
Because the authors don't owe you anything. You aren't giving them a single thing. They don't have to justify a thing. There is no SLA, no contract, nothing. Feedback is fine, but there are so comments being things like "ermahgerd I paid nothing for this thing and a feature wasn't working What the actual F!". Go file an issue and fix it yourself buddy.
- richardlblair 5mo ago
  The feedback wasn't that though. The worst thing they said was that it was "kinda disappointing". Which is perfectly valid. They really want to use inkscape but can't.
  - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
    Yea sure but read the comments in this post it's kinda gross.
    - richardlblair 5mo ago
      Then hop on those comments.
- chongli 5mo ago
  Users don’t owe the authors anything either. If they want to ignore longstanding complaints, they can toil in obscurity. Heck the only reason this post made the front page of HN is because of lingering goodwill that was built up when the software was actually decent. Now that it’s regressed into uselessness, the goodwill is drying up. I, frankly, don’t have any interest in the software anymore, since it was rendered unusable. I recommend everyone steer clear of it as well.
  - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
    I don't think it really matters if they are on the front page of HN. It's free software they don't need to market it right? Maybe it helps them find people willing to contribute to the issues though. So there is that. You are free to do that. I've only used inkscape like half a dozen times. It was fine for me.
  - cwillu 5mo ago
    “uselessness” he says…
    - 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
      I'm not a big inkscape user or a big fan but last time I used it that was absolutely not a word that approached my mind... ...
  - michaelmrose 5mo ago
    This is a very negative statement and even if it were true it wouldn't belong here. It's unkind and unfair.
nathanmills 5mo ago
As an open-source developer, feedback is about 1% of what I need. Contributions are the other 99%. However, the reality is flipped where what I get is 99% feedback (issues/feature requests in the issue tracker) and 1% contributions. And this is not a "significant regression", I use Inkscape very often for graphics work and it works great for me. And it does not "justify" regressions, but if you are not willing to fix it yourself, you have no right to do anything other than kindly request a fix, not complain about it. And btw, I don't search hacker news for "feedback", I search my issue tracker.
squeaky-clean 5mo ago
There's already feedback in the gitlab issue that the top commenter linked. Their HN comment isn't really adding anything Hit me with the downvotes, but the only thing their comment has contributed to is causing arguments.

nkrisc 5mo ago

Potential users like honest reviews and criticisms of open source software. It helps us decide if it’s worth using or not.

2ndorderthought 5mo ago

I remember my car broke down, it was trash worth maybe 200 in scrap metal at the time. The tow to the yard was like 100 or something. I was screwed and couldn't get rides to work. My buddy lent me a car he had for free. I did not complain once to anyone about the things wrong with that car, and I never will. I even fixed some small issues with it to return the favor. The guy and that car saved my livelihood at the time. I realize that's a little dramatic. I also think people are allowed to raise issues. But the entitlement and the way people talk about free software is annoying. Especially when alternatives cost as much as a used or new car. If you have a Ferrari pallete for software then I hope there's an alternative that satisfies that for free, if so say so, otherwise shut up, contribute, or pay the Ferrari dollars already.

josephg 5mo ago
Eh. I draw the line in a slightly different place. I think saying that some piece of software is bad is not an attack on the developers. It doesn't imply ill will, or entitlement or any of that. People are allowed to write whatever software they want. And its generally net positive to share that software, for free, with the world. These things are true at once: - Good work inkscape developers! Inkscape is used by lots of people. I'm happy for the developers and the users, and I hope inkscape keeps getting better. - I don't want to use inkscape because when I tried it, it seemed ugly, slow and buggy. The only problem here is when people equate "this program is junk" with "this person is junk". That's a very dangerous belief to have, because it makes an enemy out of practice. And an enemy out of experimentation. The road to expertise is paved by mistakes. If bad quality work makes you a bad person, you can never learn a new skill.
- 2ndorderthought 5mo ago
  I think you are right. But I also know what it's like to be on the other side of it. Taking it personally isn't the big issue. Instead of celebrating a release the top comments are things like "this one thing doesn't work therefore trash, and unusable". Which reads like coercion for the devs to go spend a bunch of time and prioritize their life to satisfy someone at the free all you can download buffet. The thing that sucks about it is. The devs will go fix that thing. Make a new release. Then the top comment will be some other bug, because all software has them. Then if there are no bugs it will be something else like the devs cousins dogs affiliation the the neighborhood cat. It just gets old to me.

bowsamic 5mo ago

Inkscape is the only software that I see people get so defensive about when criticised. I even had the lead dev appear in my mentions and try and start fighting me on twitter when I complained on my own timeline about the performance on macOS. Weird culture

ltlnx 5mo ago
Would you like to name names? I don't think we have a lead dev currently.
- bowsamic 5mo ago
  No, I don’t want to name and shame. It was a few years ago
  - ltlnx 5mo ago
    I think I know who you're talking about then :) Yes, some years has passed and they are no longer active (and we have a leadership committee instead of lead devs now).

pxoe 5mo ago

Yeah, I'm keeping it in mind. 0.92 still works great. There's basically nothing that's so severely lacking in 0.92, or anything that would be so enticing in 1.x, so there's no pressure to switch at all, and it may as well stay broken forever. It's a little odd to me that the tool regressed so badly in 1.x and stayed the same for five years though, even despite some apparent attempts to fix it, for something that i assume is a core tool (it's right there on the toolbar), though maybe not so much if it's so low priority that it stays unaddressed. It's not a situation where people are asking for something new to be added, it's a feature that worked fine before that got broken years ago and stayed broken. It's frankly bizarre to see hot new releases get touted year after year, while a part of core experience just stays broken. But again, it's kinda fine because the old version is just there, it just makes for a bit of an odd caveat when recommending it to people, for them to stick with the old version because it works better (well, actually works at all). It's a little unfortunate for the new users that might not know that and will just get the latest version and won't experience a feature properly though. (like, if I was a new user to it and picked up any 1.x version and tried the tool there, it would be clear that it's unusable for drawing and it'd be immediately dismissed, even though it actually works pretty great in older versions)