Open Source UX Issues

Poor UX seems to be a recurring theme with open source projects. Anyone knows why?

Open source projects are run by developers, why would you expect developers to make great tools for any field except development?

Rapid progress in open source says otherwise.

I think that world still exists. We're on HN, so there's always going to be a business/startup bias in what we talk about and share here. And doubly so if someone develops a product as open source with a commercial offering to support it from the get go.Off the top of my head, Imgui[0] is an example of an open source project, widely used, developed by a small group with a main contributor. AssetCooker [1] is a project that I discovered recently which is clearly a passion projec

I have been involved in open source projects with various structures and sustainability models. Open-core Enterprise software startups, unfunded or underfunded middleware/libraries and underfunded end-consumer software/apps. A real problem that I have with lots of open source is a mismatch between technical talent to produce software, an open ethos/philosophy (finding true believers in a much more open future), AND the most important often missing piece, a product mindset and will

"Little changes" from the perspective of a developer? I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one.If I'm not mistaken (please correct me if I am), a plurality (if not an outright majority) of web servers are run using an open source OS. jQuery/Prototype/MooTools together hold an obscenely high share of the JavaScript library market. The great majority of websites on the internet run some combination of PHP, Python, Ruby, many of those running open-source frameworks like Pylons, RoR, Co

Open source more often than not is not quality assessed as some commercial products, and hence the UX and ease of use falls behind. So if open source as an ideal wants to be successful, it needs to step in that regard.Take Blender which was terrible for years and years, but changed happened because the projects they did allowed them to work with professionals which could point out shortcomings.Or GIMP, its UX is terrible still afaik.Or lets install Linux, as long as it takes a considera

Writing good UI/UX and having your software have a vibrant set of open source contributors are usually opposing goals, similar to how you don't see a lot of microservice devops architectures sold as on-prem products. It's certainly possible, but it has to be a fundamental decision and makes a lot of things harder.Someone might contribute a nice screen layout, but actual design of a user experience involves design, which is usually a process of intelligently deciding on l

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.I'd frame it as: people who want to get stuff done and who can't or don't want to have to fight or troubleshoot their software or the system it runs on will often have to choose non-open-source options.Some examples, from my perspective of being an enthusiastic and reasonably tech-savvy hobbyist:* Linux is almost always a huge pain to get running well. In contrast, MacOS almost always just works, and

That's both a blessing and a curse.Yes, you can see it as wasted effort, but this is a key component of open source. Projects are built on the ideas and code of other projects. Sometimes this is a joint effort of a community, and sometimes it's done by a single developer who wants to try something different.And this is great. There's growth in experimentation and failure, and trying new ideas. Not everything is going to succeed, and not every project will seem like it was wo