Eh. One thing proprietary software has going for it is clear design goals and the leadership to create a cohesive UX. Open source projects tend to be a grab bag of tools that work well for developers.

Not saying I don't love FOSS, but there's definitely stuff that proprietary software does better in a practical sense, whatever else your opinion of it.

[–] lectricleopard@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Foss struggles to get dev time. If everything was foss, we could coordinate easier.

[–] MMNT@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I am a designer with 20 years of experience. I've tried contributing to FOSS, but the developers are incredibly stubborn and work purely guided by their own assumptions. Hence the horrible UX on so much FOSS. There are more than enough design people that would love to contribute, but are met with nothing but ridicule and insults.

[–] muix@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 3 days ago

Time for yet another fork

[–] index@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago

That has not much do to with FOSS but with the people you are working with. Proprietary software you can't even contribute freely to begin with

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago

This has been my experience as well but as a coder.

I can't count the number of contributions I've made, many of them minor. I'm talking 20-30 lines of code max.

I can count on two hands the number that have been either accepted or declined for a legitimate reason.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Counterpoint - if everything was FOSS it would be absolute chaos with no direction, conflicting goals, incomplete projects, and limited oversight... and also lots of inter-dev-team drama and forking.

For instance...

source

[–] index@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago

it would be absolute chaos with no direction, conflicting goals, incomplete projects, and limited oversight

You are describing the current scenario where everything is proprietary

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Everybody likes forking...

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That looks fun.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 points 2 days ago

Some of these projects split from their parent branches for technical reasons... and some of them for not-so-technical reasons.

[–] KomfortablesKissen@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That is not a feature of proprietary software. That is a feature of an organisation. It only makes sense to make software for a profit in an organisation, so that's why there's so many of those. FOSS also has a lot of organisations, which are also pretty often used btw, but they are not required.

Not having to rely on an approval by any entity is a big thing for people fucking around with stuff. And fucking around with stuff makes one good at that stuff.

[–] nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I don't disagree that it is a feature of organization, but if you're talking about creating a product that has been designed around a common philosophy and UX, that is diametrically opposed to fucking around with stuff. There's a place for that and it does improve people's skills, I also don't disagree there. All I'm saying is there exists a tendency for software produced by organizations to adhere to a UX philosophy.

[–] KomfortablesKissen@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I got a bit too into my own head. I do agree with that.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

cohesive

gestures to MS products for the last 20 years

[–] yonder@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

gestures to Windows' disk partitioner

How To Partition C Drive in Windows 11 Without Formatting Or ...

[–] nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Fair dues, Microsoft managed to fuck that up in spite of itself.

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 8 points 3 days ago

You can have OSS without the F

[–] yonder@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As someone who uses Gnome familly applications daily, I have to disagree with the notion that bad UX is fundamental to FOSS software. The gnome apps and shell all follow the same set of UX guidelines and feel quite cohesive as a result. I can definetly see where you get the idea of bad UX in foss though (looking at you, GIMP and Libreoffice)

[–] nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

I'm not saying it's fundamental, sorry, I should have specified. You're exactly right, GNOME is driven by it's Foundation and so there is leadership in place to make sure that the software ends up as a cohesive whole. Software projects that don't, or that create one after the fact, tend to be a lot less so.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

There's a very good reasons why people and organisations will pay for proprietary software when there is a free alternative available. I've used FOSS word processors before, for example, and they're okay, but nothing like what Microsoft Office can do. Same with video editing.

[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

There's a very good reasons why people and organisations will pay for proprietary software when there is a free alternative available.

Yup... risk transfer

Pay somebody else to take responsibility for pieces of your business process, then blame them when something goes wrong - that's why we have a contract.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago

Also just making their employees more productive.

[–] index@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

There’s a very good reasons why people and organisations will pay for proprietary software when there is a free alternative available.

And there are also very good reasons why people and organisations are stopping relying on proprietary software and switching to open alternatives that won't lock them up.

[–] 299792458ms@lemmy.zip -2 points 3 days ago

Not to mention the Customer/Service Suppport, that is at enterprise level because regular customer support is ... well you all know already.