Why is open source software development so conservative?

[Rofko]

I have been thinking about this for a long time...

I am very interested in what people think...

So, it seems to me that, in general, there is very little radicalism and adventure in open-source software development, in particular when a project becomes successful and popular, with programmes often either sticking to a template that has found success and seeking to make it slicker, or, worse, seeking just to imitate a windows product (i understand why it is important at times for there to be programmes similar to windows products btw).

Now, this is very confusing to me for a number of reasons related to the nature of development within the open-source community, and the kind of people who make up that same community. (i.e. I would expect such a process to come up with more radical development)

Do you agree? If so, what are the reasons, and how can this change? If not, enlighten me (us!).

[billgoldberg]

I have been thinking about this for a long time...

I am very interested in what people think...

So, it seems to me that, in general, there is very little radicalism and adventure in open-source software development, in particular when a project becomes successful and popular, with programmes often either sticking to a template that has found success and seeking to make it slicker, or, worse, seeking just to imitate a windows product (i understand why it is important at times for there to be programmes similar to windows products btw).

Now, this is very confusing to me for a number of reasons related to the nature of development within the open-source community, and the kind of people who make up that same community.

Do you agree? If so, what are the reasons, and how can this change? If not, enlighten me (us!).

KDE 4 and Amarok 2.

Need I say more?

[Rofko]

KDE 4 and Amarok 2.

Need I say more?

Yes, they would have been my examples too. But I mean why is this not the rule?

[FuturePilot]

I don't think it's conservative at all. For example, look at what Ubuntu did with notify-osd. That was a pretty bold move and it caused a lot of controversy.

[LowSky]

KDE4 is a great example of radical change and that effectily casued many ppeople to continue to use KDE3.5

or even closed source as an example, Windows Office 2003 to windows Office 2007, Or WinXP to Vista

developers usually learn that people like familiarity, too much change equals bad.

[monsterstack]

Open innovation, some good examples,


The TCP/IP stack, in other words, the thing that allows you, me, and everybody else to use the internet.
Firefox, which made Microsoft improve Internet Explorer after five years of stagnation.
Mediawiki and Wikipedia, Mediawiki being responsible for the most incredible work of online collaboration since the GNU/Linux project began.
Bittorrent, which has revolutionised the way people distribute and share stuff on the internet. Incredibly decentralised, fast, and reliable
Apache, what 70% of the internet runs on. And arguably one of the main reasons the internet became so awesome.
Linux itself, a rag-tag team of hobbyists, enthusiasts, and paid coders all around the world collaborating to make a unique operating system, completely free, completely open, available to anyone and everyone? That's pretty revolutionary stuff as far as I'm concerned.

[billgoldberg]

Yes, they would have been my examples too. But I mean why is this not the rule?

If something works well, you don't have to change it just for the sake of it.

However, have you seen the new demos of Gnome 3 shell?

http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Screencasts

[Rofko]

"Linux itself, a rag-tag team of hobbyists, enthusiasts, and paid coders all around the world collaborating to make a unique operating system, completely free, completely open, available to anyone and everyone? That's pretty revolutionary stuff as far as I'm concerned."

Oh I absolutely agree. I am proudly part of it. The more I become convinced at how awesome the potentialities of the community are, the more I am puzzled at its relative developmental conservatism however.

Another exceptional and revolutionary programme from this community is Blender btw.

People shouldn't be so defensive. Surely debates like this are part of the process of making better software.

"However, have you seen the new demos of Gnome 3 shell?"

It was actually while looking at the new gnome shell that I decided to do this post.

[Delever]

But, but... Why is proprietary software so radical and innovative?

[Rainstride]

I have been thinking about this for a long time...

I am very interested in what people think...

So, it seems to me that, in general, there is very little radicalism and adventure in open-source software development, in particular when a project becomes successful and popular, with programmes often either sticking to a template that has found success and seeking to make it slicker, or, worse, seeking just to imitate a windows product (i understand why it is important at times for there to be programmes similar to windows products btw).

Now, this is very confusing to me for a number of reasons related to the nature of development within the open-source community, and the kind of people who make up that same community. (i.e. I would expect such a process to come up with more radical development)

Do you agree? If so, what are the reasons, and how can this change? If not, enlighten me (us!).

in a lot of ways we are simply playing catch up, witch is one reason you sometimes see people make things windows like(ether that or they have no clue what they are doing). we are missing certain features so to see them be added isn't anything mind blowing. the really big developments (kde 4.0, gnome 3)are not made lightly, especially when it comes to community's that are on 6 month cycles, there all about increments. besides, you don't just make some massive change over night.

also i have not heard of a single "radical and innovative" peace of proprietary software in about 10 years. the biggest thing iv got my eye on is the new nvidia drivers for linux that will let us use opencl. most of the points goes to the cl team for that one though.

[monsterstack]

"Linux itself, a rag-tag team of hobbyists, enthusiasts, and paid coders all around the world collaborating to make a unique operating system, completely free, completely open, available to anyone and everyone? That's pretty revolutionary stuff as far as I'm concerned."

Oh I absolutely agree. I am proudly part of it. The more I become convinced at how awesome the potentialities of the community are, the more I am puzzled at its relative developmental conservatism however.

Another exceptional and revolutionary programme from this community is Blender btw.

People shouldn't be so defensive. Surely debates like this are part of the process of making better software.

"However, have you seen the new demos of Gnome 3 shell?"

It was actually while looking at the new gnome shell that I decided to do this post.

Linux development has mostly been reactionary, traditionally. I don't think that is the case any more, at least not so much. It stems from the fact that if you want Linux to be a viable alternative to other OSes, you first have to make sure it can do everything that those other OSes offer. If that means making some reactionary software, the Gimp, OpenOffice, stuff to get peripherals to work properly, and others, then so be it. There isn't a real need to re-invent the wheel a lot of the time: if the standard Windows 95 desktop GUI is the template that seems to work the best, then who are we to argue? rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater, we should instead try to hone and improve on these things. A lot of the time, real, far-out megainnovation just isn't really necessary.

All that said, I believe we're entering the long-tail phase. Linux has stable, use-able desktop distributions, dozens of them. We've got that down-pat. As far as I'm concerned, there are few areas that really need a lot of work. What comes next is honing and refining what we've already achieved to finally fulfil the needs of those users who are holding out. Often you see around here people claiming to dual-boot for the benefit of just one or two applications or peripherals. That's the last thing Linux has left to conquer.

But on the sidelines of the main push to make Linux as good as it can be, you do see some pretty out-there innovations. The Metisse Window (http://insitu.lri.fr/metisse/) system is one of my favourites, particularly, I think the facade (http://insitu.lri.fr/metisse/facades/) system could really revolutionise the way we think about the user interface. Have a look at the sort of thing it can do (the animated gif stops after the first play, so hit ctrl-f5 to see it again if you miss it):


http://www-ihm.lri.fr/metisse/facades/uifacades.gif

And then of course there is the Google Wave stuff, which I hope really does shake things up. It's something I can see completely changing everything, so long as the developers get it right. I hope they do.

All in all, I think innovation is happening, just that it's mostly happening on the fringes of the major projects. This isn't a bad thing, as eventually the things that are really cool will find themselves filtering down to the main show. And then every now and then, you get something incredible like Wave or Wikipedia coming down on everybody like a tonne of bricks. I don't think they'd be quite as awesome if we had that sort of insane innovation every day.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I have no idea what this is on about, Linux is innovating faster then any OS out there from what I have seen

[Pogeymanz]

I think the sentiment comes from there being a lot of copycat apps out there.

But there are a lot of things that really are innovative that just might not be recognized all the time. Enlightenment17 and Compiz are examples. Along with all the different package systems out there.

I would like to see more exciting things too, though. I feel like open-source software doesn't have a lot of the constraints of commercial software, so it can be more creative. Maybe we just pick boring apps, I don't know.

[deathsshadow77]

I don't think it's conservative at all. For example, look at what Ubuntu did with notify-osd. That was a pretty bold move and it caused a lot of controversy.

So far I think it's been a pretty good success too

[Dimitriid]

There is a lot of very fragile, very fast development happening. You just don't see it cause the nature of free software means that things get properly tested before they are deemed "stable". So development does occurs but distros are usually a lot better at waiting for projects to mature enough, mainly because you don't have the usual non-free software monetary concerns like deadlines or marketing people preasuring for a release.

[MikeTheC]

When you have something that's tried and tested, why would you deliberately want to screw it up?