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Original post by Cipher3D of course, we never actually said we included all of open source, that's ridiculous. We're just talking about the Open Source community pertaining to Linux; usable Open Source Software; popular Open Source software (Apache, Linux, GNOME, Audacity, and Jump n Bump). So no need for nitpicking on the technical definition of open Source [wink]

It still doesn't make sense because your still accussing a large set of software of having the same flaws. You can find equally many commercial applications that lack innovation and have poor interfaces. The thing is, I use a Linux desktop everyday and actually find it easier than Windows to manage most of the time. Of course, both have their pros and cons, but I find these arguments really stupid because you can't just simply state that all OSS lacks innovation or a good interface because there is a lot of software that is very, very good.

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Original post by seanw I use a Linux desktop everyday and actually find it easier than Windows to manage most of the time.

Bingo, problem #1. You're not a good measuring stick. In fact, you're a positively terrible one. A interface which makes sense to an experience computer person has a terrible habit of being complete nonsense to the less familiar.

That's the sort of logic which gave rise to the bad interfaces we see. That, and RTFM, of course.

Philisophical question.

Is it possible to have Open Source Software to be, in general, user friendly? Because open Source Software is almost always going to be made by people that are very familiar with technology and computers, so it is inevitable that Open Source Software will be made to suit these types of people. So in other words, trying to improve on usability of Open Source Software in general will be a never ending battle. I don't think things will change 25, 50 years from now, any Open Source Software will not be as user friendly as their Closed counter parts (ok, forget the ones with bad interfaces, on the whole a lot of Closed Source Software are more easier to use than their Open Source Software counterparts).

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Original post by Cipher3D Is it possible to have Open Source Software to be, in general, user friendly?

Yes.

your rationale for believing it can't is proved wrong by the very usable open source software that IS out there.

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Original post by seanw I don't understand how people can make statements like "all OSS have bad interfaces", "all OSS lack innovation" etc. It doesn't make sense.

See generalization, under opinion, cross-referenced with use your brain.

I'm sure that somewhere in your post was a meaningful, productive point. It just happened to go under my feet.

Seriously, quit nitpicking over pointless semantics. We're talking about the average case. Read the ESR articles/rants I linked to. Maybe it'll hit you hard enough with a clue.

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Original post by Oluseyi ..Oluseyi is my first name. Please don't call it weird, it makes me hostile. Yes, it is a Nigerian name (Yourba, to be specific), and it means "God has done this."

i said it was weird because i thought at first it was an invented word then i remembered a yoruba friend's name. i couldn't then decide if it was a real name or not.

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Original post by seanw It doesn't make sense. Anybody can write OSS. Anybody can write closed source software. Anybody can write both OSS and closed source software if they want. The license choice does not directly effect things like the interface or the innovation of it, only the program itself determines this.

yeah, everybody can write software, be it closed or open. the thing is when you write open source, most of the time, you are developing it during your free time, and you have less pressure concerning interfaces than when you are developing inside a profesional & result-oriented team.

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Original post by flarelocke Using "I" wasn't a big problem, it's the way its use affects the article that was the problem. In informative and persuasive writing, the writer is unimportant and therefore most uses of first person are detrimental to the thesis of the article.

my personal opinion is that using "i" and describing your experience is always more persuasive than using cold generalized sentences : you are "linking" with the reader and people will understand more how you arrived to that thinking. exceptions are pure science articles. again this a personal opinion&style.

by the way, i can't believe someone didn't criticised me when i said OSS are not cool. you guys are more open (no pun intended) than i thought.

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Original post by Mayrel I think that KDE is better than Windows.

...and I reckon that both are trumped by IceWM.

This is not a specious personal-favourite statement: I think Ice is a good example of where OSS has taken from a wide variety of places, taken the best bits, and *innovated* to great effect (more on that below as an e.g.).

It used to really depress me the huge amount of effort and attention that went on Gnome/KDE - and especially Enlightenment (which was, in my professional opinion, rubbish) that weren't helping the user, whereas worthier projects like Ice faded into obscurity. With time, I realised that Gnome does serve one important purpose: it makes linux *look* very pretty (and no-one should underestimate the value of that: until XP, Gnome was managing to make many people believe a standard linux system typically looked a lot nicer and more friendly than Windows. Although, of course, usually 5 minutes attempt to use it would shatter the illusion ;) of usability, it was at least innovating cosmetically, which is a valuable move).

Back to Ice, and some examples...

They took the start bar + start menu, understanding how these things worked positively in Windows (which Gnome and KDE both cloned yet misunderstood and removed many if not all of the HCI benefits).

Over the years, Ice has also stolen some of the minor innovations from KDE/Gnome - such as the incredibly intelligent window-resize code where alt + right click/drag on ANY QUARTER of the window resizes as though you'd dragged that corner's resize handle. This is a major concept in HCI: changing the "active zone" for a common action from a 10-pixel by 3-pixel zone into a 300 by 300 zone (or bigger). For people with minor visibility (need glasses) and control (older people with less-than-perfect hand-eye-co-ordination) this kind of thing transforms the windows paradigm: I've seen 1st-hand how it changes their view of computers from the negative to the positive.

But then, it's also innovated itself. Ice has an optional "command bar" which sits above the start-bar, and is just one long text field you can type into. The magic is that this field is directly connected to a shell, which automatically forks any commands typed into it - so now linux users no longer need to keep starting up xterms to run everything, nor hunt through menus for everything. You can type "mozilla gamedev.net" into it and it's as if it's a direct address bar.

(NB: this innovation also appeared in Windows as part of Active Desktop, and I don't know which came first - both have been around a LONG time. I do know that in Windows it's a hidden option, whereas Ice promoted it to a major feature.)

It's not perfect - e.g. if you launch a console app from it, it won't create a window to show the out and err streams, but for many things - and all GUI apps - it's excellent. Now, if Ice had more than just 2 or 3 developers (it went down to 0 for many months recently!) perhaps such innovations would evolve into something really special.

So, my question is: where are all the OSS developers that could be working on the innovative projects like this one?

It seems the answer is that they're all off on the "sexy" juggernaut projects. Not only does the existence of Gnome and KDE bleed each other continually of developers, not only does it confuse the public/users with two systems that are *almost indistinguishable to an average person* (see what happens when you make a "Gnome" skin for KDE and vice versa...). ...but, they also commit that greatest of OSS sins: their very existence leeches attention and developers from other projects that are just as good or better, until the other projects all die out, forgotten - empty shells bled dry.

It seems that some major sections of the OSS universe are killing themselves with blind fanboyism: there's no-one evaluating the whole genre and saying "No, look: here's what we should be concentrating on". In any large company, this process has to happen at a very senior level on a regular basis - you look at all the things that were a good idea 2 years ago, but where the market has moved unexpectedly, or which it turns out you failed to deliver on, and all the things that were never expected to go anywhere but somehow have turned into surprise successes and now need more money to capitalize on them. It usually results in a major share-price rise ;) - because it is how you stay competitive, focussed, and successful.

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Original post by owl the answer is the same, you can take Blender's source code and write the interface you think is appropiate for people like you and contribute with Open Source.

A common argument from those trying to excuse mediocrity and failure on a particular OSS project: "you have the source, so you could fix it yourself".

This is merely a rhetorical trick. The word "could" here means "in theory, it is physically possible". But the same use of the word "could" can be applied to "Each person in my home town could be President one day". Or "I could win the lottery tomorrow".

The fact is that the only way most people "could" fix e.g. Blender's interface is to give up their family, their job, or all their free time (probably resulting in divorce, poverty, or a stress-induced nervous breakdown) for a very long period of time. The people making excuses usually don't care - they feel that their statement is unassailable, since it is logically true.

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The problem is that it is easier to complain for free about a free product than working for free for a free product.

...often accompanied by that sentiment, which is unfair and insulting. It also serves very well to turn away people who were trying to help by pointing out problems - which is the first stage in fixing them! - which is another way OSS projects often shoot themselves in both feet :(.

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Original post by owl If copying an idea is so wrong, then clones of orginal games shuldn't exist either, no matter how worst or better they are compared to the original.

Since this is a game-dev site, I call you out on that: name me some clones that were worth doing. :)

The only clones I can think of with any inherent value are those that innovated significantly on top of the original. E.g. C&C took Dune2's concept and added a raft of major improvements - not least "select multiple units"! E.g. UT took Quake's DM style gameplay and added Assault. These are clones - but with plenty of innovation and unique style of their own.

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Original post by Promit Bingo, problem #1. You're not a good measuring stick. In fact, you're a positively terrible one. A interface which makes sense to an experience computer person has a terrible habit of being complete nonsense to the less familiar.

Give me a break, I can tell to a good extent when an interface is easy to use. I'm not using obscure Window managers and CLI user interfaces; even my own family regularly use my Linux box without any problems. I wasn't trying to argue about how good an interface certain OSS has, you just cannot label all OSS as having bad interfaces by their nature.

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That's the sort of logic which gave rise to the bad interfaces we see. That, and RTFM, of course.

What logic would that be? It is easy to tell a bad interface from a good one. Granted, you won't be able to pin-point small details that inexperienced users will slip up on, but you can still tell when an interface is good or bad (in regards to issues like feedback, affordability, support for correcting mistakes etc.).