3 ms·

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

by 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.

by 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.