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bittersweet
4y

I wish all open source desktop applications had the same combination of expert features and polish as Blender.

The state of FOSS applications for creating diagrams, DB management & ERD, drawing SVGs, editing video, slideshow presentations, document processing, etc -- Yeah just all of it seems to be either stuck in some 90's UX paradigm, or it's a basic-as-fuck Electron app with 12 buttons for toddlers.

I know... I know... it's FOSS, can't be entitled.

But there's a part of me that really wants to be.

Fuck it, I'm just going to be entitled.

FUCK YOU LAZY FOSS DEVS, GET YOUR FUCKING SHIT TOGETHER AND MAKE SOME MODERN APPS. THROW YOUR GTK TOOLKIT BULLSHIT IN THE TRASH, GO CHOKE ON YOUR RETARDED WINDOWS-95 THEMED TOOLBARS, AND START MOTHERFUCKING COMPETING. YOU'RE BEING SURPASSED BY VENDOR LOCKED $50/MONTH CLOUD ABOMINATIONS MADE FOR COKE SNORTING DIMWITS. DON'T GIVE ME THAT "BUT PEOPLE WORK ON IT FOR FREE" CRAP, IF BLENDER CAN MAKE A GREAT COMPETING PRODUCT THEN SO CAN YOU.

Ah, completely unjustified and unfair.

But it still feels really, REALLY great to get it off my chest.

Now that I have descended from my soapbox, I'll go drag my useless developer ass over to the nearest FOSS project and see how I can contribute to a slightly less depressing future.

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  • 9
    4y
    That's the spirit.

    *takes a deep breath*

    And now take a good look at Blender.

    Take eg a look at https://fund.blender.org/ .

    Take eg. a look at the fragmentation of FOSS because people still think throwing poop at each other is a better solution than cooperating.

    There's a lot wrong with FOSS.

    And it won't change till people change their mentality and step up.

    Thank you for stepping up.
  • 5
    4y
    Meanwhile FOSS devs reading this:

    "FFS! This is becoming a shitty second job!"

    There is a lot wrong with FOSS. I think a lot of projects get worked on in college and then abandoned as people realize they need to be able to eat too. So it could just be a priorities alignment which causes apps to be "stuck" like you say. I see this a lot with mods for minecraft. Unless somebody who cares enough steps up and takes over, the mod usually just dies.
  • 1
    4y
    Big agree! The state of foss graphics tools is just sad.

    just downloaded inkscape graphics drawings program yesterday after years later to give it a try again.
    It's horribly bad! I could do way better results on google slides than this 90ties programm.
  • 2
    4y
    Yeah well the problem is elsewhere if you look more closely.

    In fact design is not a problem but all the crap behind cross platform vector rendering.

    All of web browsers use modern libraries angle project / skia thanks to google acquisition and keeping things opensource, but still it relies on gpu rendering and if you try to compile skia you download couple hundred of MB. It’s just because GPU rendering despite the fact vulcan tries to unify it corporations try to lock it by directx or metal so it’s fucked up. And don’t get me started on gpu drivers.

    On the other side there are old libraries like gtk that use cairo that have XWindow dependencies that nobody understands anymore cause all developers are dead or retired.

    In short drawing line from (x1,y1) to (x2,y2) is fucked up cause of corporations and people designing frameworks not cause of visual design.
  • 7
    4y
    I'll pick Libreoffice, Draw.io, Krita, Inkscape, anytime over MS Office, Visio, Adobe Illustrator or Fireworks.

    Their UI may look dated on Windows but some have really modern, well-integrated UI's on Linux
  • 3
    4y
    @IntrusionCM

    Yup. A lot of FOSS people seem to hate operating like a professional business, embracing capitalist elements.

    Saying "my software comes with readable source code and a permissive license" doesn't automatically mean you have to just fall back to some hippie commune style of managing your product.

    I understand it's not as easy to successfully monetize open source (either through donations or through a dual personal/corporate licensing model), but I do think it's vital for FOSS to professionalize.
  • 2
    4y
    @webketje
    Visio is dramatically superior, but the rest, pretty much.
  • 6
    4y
    @webketje I pick them too -- and apart from Krita, I curse them all for their horrible UX.

    Again, yeah it's FOSS so it's difficult to be entitled, but I do *wish* using apps like Inkscape or Kdenlive didn't feel like dragging my nipples over coarse sandpaper.
  • 0
    4y
    Now it's your duty to make them better
  • 5
    4y
    I had a huge comment written out but DevShit randomly closed it and now I lost all of it.

    - Blender has tons of corporate funding - that ship sailed years ago.

    - Blender is absolutely not as polished as you'd think. For any sort of advanced scene, blender starts falling apart quickly.

    - The largest obstacle for better applications is lack of useful UI toolkits. I don't want to be working with web technologies, but if that is the fastest way to create aesthetically pleasing applications then I'm going to. Instead of complaining perhaps look to solve the issue instead.

    - I maintain tons of OSS. Across all of repositories I have somewhere in the order of a billion weekly downloads and tens of millions of dependents. Most of those are commercial endeavors. Many of them are multi-billion-dollar corporations. I get nothing back for them. My bf and I are buying cheap pizzas at the store right now because that's mostly what we can afford. However my code helps others generate millions.
  • 0
    4y
    I write my FOSS with UX in mind, but that might be because I feel like the best way to make FOSS more appealing to users is to have a nicer UX.
  • 3
    4y
    @junon That's kinda the sad reality of it...

    Back when I still had a job, I got minimum wage for basically keeping the entire company afloat...

    Meanwhile the manager that did pretty much jackshit and constantly tried to stop me in my work (everything had to be done his way since *insert too big to believe story here*) had enough income to drive a pretty nice sportscar to work, buy overpriced tech all the time and smoke a pack of cigs a day (so about 10 euros a day on cigs).

    Moral of the story: If you want to do good, you'll have to pay the price for it yourself.

    Exploit or get exploited, no in between.
  • 1
    4y
    @junon I definitely think corporate sponsorships are good though.

    Blender gets a shitload of money from companies like Nvidia and Epic? Good!

    I actually think that ideally all software should be open for security and patchability reasons, but where I disagree with The FSF-types is that I don't think a profitable licensing model is necessarily bad.

    I know unreal engine is not open, but I think their license is a very fair example, and similar models should be employed in open source more often: Completely free to download and mess around with for any hobbyist, completely free for startups and indie studios, but above a certain revenue you pay royalties.

    I guess it's technically not FOSS anymore, depending on the way you interpret free/libre.
  • 3
    4y
    Blenders UI has only recently become decent. The reputation the pre-2.8 UI had was just abominable. Everytime a new feature was added it was just dumped into some random keyboard shortcut. There was basically a hazing period that every user had to go through and so any suggestions that it be changed were met with hostilities from the community (Look at the amount of shit Andrew Price copped when he dared to suggest it be made more user friendly).
  • 1
    4y
    @bittersweet Kdenlive has good UI on Linux but last time I used it I abandoned the project due to too frequent crashes and bugs in aligning video segments =/
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