Open Source projects have gone crazy, period

[Alessandro17]

So it isn't just me, it is also experienced developers like Fabio Erculiani, founder and "boss" of Sabayon Linux:

 

http://lxnay.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/open...e-crazy-period/

 

 

You all know that I like to summarize my thinking in a few sentences. I don’t really like very long boring blog posts, and microblogging is already eating my will.

 

GRUB2, I’ve never understood the idiocy behind using bash scripts in bootloader configuration/setup tools. The wannabe Grand Unified Bootloader isn’t unified, grand even after a decade. And one of the sane points of GRUB1, a sane (yet could have been improved) simple configuration file that users were able to understand, was just thrown to the sharks. Same for having to regenerate grub.cfg from scratch at each kernel install/removal, this is really looking for troubles. Congrats!

 

KDE4, they planned to dominate the world with their outstanding ideas (they were, at the time) and they ended up having a crashy fishy Desktop Environment that is giving big headaches to downstream distributors at every minor release, with configuration, ABI, API changes, yeah. And we, as a distro, are as usual taking all the blame for things breaking so often. Hello KDE upstream, just test out your stuff a bit more before feeding the crowd with it. Oh, and of couse I have to mention the super KDE fanboys anecdote I keep hearing at every new release: KDE 4.(x+1) will be much better than KDE 4.x (and will blow GNOME 3 away!). The part in the brackets is a recent addition.

 

GNOME3, yeah, sooner (more likely) or later we will have to switch to it, since GNOME2 is not developed anymore, as you may have happily seen. But when this will happen, I am sure, many of our users will get promptly upset and will start to load our Bugzilla and Forum with WTFs (at a very high WTF/s rate). Many people (the majority?) just want Desktop icons which they can click, some sort of taskbar and a systray where the annoying {censored} is placed. It’s been like that for 15 years, why do these bright minds called “Desktop Environment developers” just pretend to know what users want and what users are not FOR SURE suitable for? On a Desktop (not Mobile nor Handheld) system. WTF? Can’t you guys stop pretending to hold the whole knowledge and sit down with us, simple human beings? And perhaps shut the {censored} up for a few minutes and just listen to what users want? Hasn’t the recent KDE3->KDE4 migration taught anything useful?

 

I’m done for today, but for sure, it’s not all about GRUB2, KDE4 and GNOME3. Everybody seems to have gone crazy, desperately trying to be revolutionary while people just want simple things that work without too much annoyance.

 

Update: when I wrote this blog post it was quite late here, and I feel really guilty for having forgotten Mozilla and its products, Chromium versioning, and many other examples of my theory. Is the Apocalypse of FLOSS near?

 

Fabio, you must be my lost twin brother

[3.14r2]

Open source shows its other (negative) side.

 

Most closed source (read a pure commercial) projects have a certain goal (to profit the owner(s)), thus are created to be user-friendly and easy to use. Such projects (if it's a long term project) usually are developed according with a certain plan. It must be profitable or won't last long.

 

In open source everybody can do whatever one need. Some developers are more interested to satisfy own ambitions, rather then create user-friendly and easy to use products. There is no obligatory path to follow (as in commercial products), so many side ways exist (and are followed).

 

Open source has most components to be successfully, but IMO it lacks a proper well-formed development strategy and is torn apart in different direction. It's open, its' public, it has now owner to care about...

[Alessandro17]

Most closed source (read a pure commercial) projects have a certain goal (to profit the owner(s)), thus are created to be user-friendly and easy to use. Such projects (if it's a long term project) usually are developed according with a certain plan. It must be profitable or won't last long.

 

Exactly! They can't tell their users: "if you don't like what we do, STFU", as Aaron Seigo did, because users vote with their wallets.

 

In open source everybody can do whatever one need. Some developers are more interested to satisfy own ambitions, rather then create user-friendly and easy to use products. There is no obligatory path to follow (as in commercial products), so many side ways exist (and are followed).

 

Exactly my point. But it wasn't always so, there was a time when Open Source seemed to be getting better all the time and developers seemed keener to satisfy their users rather than to inflate their own ego. IMO Debian is still going that way, but they can only provide what is on offer.

[Alessandro17]

Fabio Erculiani's blog entry has caused a lot of uproar over the internet and tons of people agreeing.

So it wasn't just me, and the zealots calling trolls people saying that not all was well with open source were just a vocal minority.

In the meantime I have discovered that a reputable, long time open source developer and writer moved to Macs:

 

On the desktop I switched to Mac OS X full-time. Sometimes with pain in my heart, but it is a polished system that helps me get to work done. Linux became too fragmented and rough to me.

 

I won't mention him, but he helped, among others, shape one of the best Linux distros ever.