Things that annoy you most about the various free software projects

[joepie91]

There are a few points that have been annoying me ever since switching to free software almost completely... so I decided to just make a thread about it :)

These are pretty much my top annoyances:
* The interface of The GIMP. It's simply HORRIBLY counter-intuitive.
* The lack of a good universal installing system across distributions. We have debs, RPMs, 'universal installers' that try to mimic InstallShield wizards and completely fail at placing anything in my application list... why not just one universal system? Choice is good, but the core of something should really be standardized to avoid these problems.
* OpenOffice setting the default format to the OpenDocument format by default. I understand the idea, but it's a big hurdle for new users switching from Microsoft Office. One of the complaints I hear the most about OpenOffice is "yeah, not everyone could open my files, so I switched back to Microsoft Office". It would be a better idea to ask the user on setup whether to use Microsoft-compatible formats or their own format.
* The general "functionality goes above user interface design" mentality. The cramped user interface of some programs (yes GIMP, I'm looking at you) sometimes seriously hampers the practical use of programs. An application may be the best available application in executing a task, but if a user can't find the appropriate button it won't have any use.
* The apparent lack of a semi-professional video editing alternative that is still easy in use (something along the lines of Sony Vegas). The ease of use is there (Kino) and the advanced technology is there (Cinelerra), but why aren't those two qualities combined?

Note that this is not a rant, simply a few points that keep annoying me constantly, and seriously hamper the possibilities to get other people to switch to free software. I wouldn't ever switch back to my old proprietary software, because the free software generally does it's job just fine, just the above points are things to improve :)

So... what are the things about free software that annoys you the most?

[earthpigg]

official documentation focuses on 'how to contribute' over 'how to use'.

i'd like to think that if you bring the userbase, and the contributors will follow.

[cgroza]

Use what it works for you. Even if there are diffrent packaging systems you only have to use one. The fact that you are using deb won't interfere with the RPMs and all others.

[joepie91]

Use what it works for you. Even if there are diffrent packaginf systems you only have to use one. The fact that you are using deb won't interfere with the RPMs and all others.

The problem is more that I seriously dislike compiling from source, and a lot of software (that is not in the repo's) is only offered in debs. Apparently there are some techniques to 'convert' a deb into an RPM but none of them have worked for me so far.

EDIT: Running OpenSuSE here btw :)

[cariboo]

It's all well and good to complain about things here, where most developers fear to tread, but what are you personally willing to do about it. Have you become a member of any of the mailing list associated to any of the projects you mention?

It's surprising the results you get with well thought out comments on mailing lists. I had a bug in my bonnet, about a package in the repos, that I thought shouldn't be there. I got a lot of good feedback from many people, even though I didn't succeed in my quest. I wasn't happy at first about the decision, but after rereading the comments, I could see their point.

[joepie91]

It's all well and good to complain about things here, where most developers fear to tread, but what are you personally willing to do about it. Have you become a member of any of the mailing list associated to any of the projects you mention?

It's surprising the results you get with well thought out comments on mailing lists. I had a bug in my bonnet, about a package in the repos, that I thought shouldn't be there. I got a lot of good feedback from many people, even though I didn't succeed in my quest.

Personally... the application development side isn't really my side (I mainly focus on web development) so changing things by myself isn't really in the list of things to do. I'm not actually subscribed to a mailing list but I regularly read posts from mailing lists on the web and I've seen all these issues coming up over and over... most of the time followed by an answer like "it does not have priority".

EDIT: Just curious, what does the 'Beans count' under my username stand for?
EDIT2: Ok, I apparently missed this before... but in the Forum Help forum, it says beans equals posts. However, I know for a fact I have made more posts than just one. Are specific categories not counted or something?

[beew]

Speaking of deb and rpm, I know alien creates debs from rpms, is there anything that does the opposite?

[forrestcupp]

* The interface of The GIMP. It's simply HORRIBLY counter-intuitive.You're in luck. Whenever they finally come out with the next version, the multi-window thing will be solved. You'll have the option to have it either way.



* The apparent lack of a semi-professional video editing alternative that is still easy in use (something along the lines of Sony Vegas). The ease of use is there (Kino) and the advanced technology is there (Cinelerra), but why aren't those two qualities combined?Agreed, but I think this is a hard thing to accomplish by a team of devs that are donating their time. The quality of the feature set of Vegas is pretty complex. I think that's one thing we're never going to get for free.

I actually just bought the latest version of Vegas & DVD Author for Windows, and I'm loving it.

As for the free software thing, there's definitely a lot to complain about, but I think there is much more to be thankful for.

[wilee-nilee]

No complaints it is, what it is, just like any other OS. or program, the good the bad and the ugly in all of them. Personally I just find one that works, actually several. I have plenty of other things to be annoyed about then a little box with nothing even close to logic in it, and is just a bunch of circuits.;)

[joepie91]

Speaking of deb and rpm, I know alien creates debs from rpms, is there anything that does the opposite?

There was something called deb2rpm but I've never got it to work.


You're in luck. Whenever they finally come out with the next version, the multi-window thing will be solved. You'll have the option to have it either way.

I'm aware of that, but that would probably be the least of my worries. Plenty of tools available to automatically arrange your windows as if it was a single-window layout. I'm talking more about where certain menu items can be found, how cumbersome it is to add and modify text if you compare it to, for example, Adobe Photoshop, and how hard it is to 'create' things in GIMP, instead of just manipulating pictures. I know it's generally meant to manipulate and not, for example, create web designs, but the GIMP appears to have a lot of what it takes already. I also haven't been able to find something else that works well in creating web designs.



Agreed, but I think this is a hard thing to accomplish by a team of devs that are donating their time. The quality of the feature set of Vegas is pretty complex. I think that's one thing we're never going to get for free.

I actually just bought the latest version of Vegas & DVD Author for Windows, and I'm loving it.

As for the free software thing, there's definitely a lot to complain about, but I think there is much more to be thankful for.

Cinelerra does quite a nice job of a lot of things that Vegas can do, but it's quite hard to navigate. I think it's possible, but maybe the layout should be rethought.

And I know we should be thankful for things, and I sure am... but compliments don't help to improve software (other than boosting morale), while constructive criticism does. That's why I indicated in the first post it wasn't meant as a rant :)



No complaints it is, what it is, just like any other OS. or program, the good the bad and the ugly in all of them. Personally I just find one that works, actually several. I have plenty of other things to be annoyed about then a little box with nothing even close to logic in it, and is just a bunch of circuits.;)

It can be quite annoying if you have to rely on it for your day-to-day work :)

[juancarlospaco]

* The interface of The GIMP. It's simply HORRIBLY counter-intuitive.
Whats wrong with Gimp?, Adobe Photoshop for Mac is Multi-Window layout and no one complain about it.
Try gimp with Multiple Monitors...



* The lack of a good universal installing system across distributions. We have debs, RPMs, 'universal installers' that try to mimic InstallShield wizards and completely fail at placing anything in my application list... why not just one universal system? Choice is good, but the core of something should really be standardized to avoid these problems.

Theres no lack of such thing, acording to Linux Standard Base,
the Standarized Installer is .RPM
http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/lsb/lsb4-resource-page%23Specification#Specification



* OpenOffice setting the default format to the OpenDocument format by default. I understand the idea, but it's a big hurdle for new users switching from Microsoft Office. One of the complaints I hear the most about OpenOffice is "yeah, not everyone could open my files, so I switched back to Microsoft Office". It would be a better idea to ask the user on setup whether to use Microsoft-compatible formats or their own format.

Microsoft say that they support ODF on Microsoft Office, so is not our problem...



* The general "functionality goes above user interface design" mentality. The cramped user interface of some programs (yes GIMP, I'm looking at you) sometimes seriously hampers the practical use of programs. An application may be the best available application in executing a task, but if a user can't find the appropriate button it won't have any use.
Whats wrong with Gimp?
Gimp is not for beginners anyways, maybe you need a simple app, learn, then switch to Gimp,
where keystrokes, Python Scripts, Scheme and such make the Automation and Comfort of use...



* The apparent lack of a semi-professional video editing alternative that is still easy in use (something along the lines of Sony Vegas). The ease of use is there (Kino) and the advanced technology is there (Cinelerra), but why aren't those two qualities combined?

You are right! :)

[joepie91]

Whats wrong with Gimp?, Adobe Photoshop for Mac is Multi-Window layout and no one complain about it.
Try gimp with Multiple Monitors...


I actually have two monitors, but as I've said before the multi-window interface isn't my biggest concern :P
"Plenty of tools available to automatically arrange your windows as if it was a single-window layout. I'm talking more about where certain menu items can be found, how cumbersome it is to add and modify text if you compare it to, for example, Adobe Photoshop, and how hard it is to 'create' things in GIMP, instead of just manipulating pictures."




Theres no lack of such thing, acording to Linux Standard Base,
the Standarized Installer is .RPM
http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/lsb/lsb4-resource-page%23Specification#Specification


Even RPM-based distro's all have their own variant it seems... and really, if the standard is there, why isn't it being used?




Microsoft say that they support ODF on Microsoft Office, so is not our problem...

I don't know since when ODF is supported, but I know for a fact that most people I know (who use Office 2003) cannot open ODF files.




Whats wrong with Gimp?
Gimp is not for beginners anyways, maybe you need a simple app, learn, then switch to Gimp,
where keystrokes, Python Scripts, Scheme and such make the Automation and Comfort of use...


I am good enough with for example Adobe Photoshop... I wouldn't call myself a "beginner" in graphical editing. Not an expert either, but good enough to get what I want done in a decent way. If you know of any 'simple app' that delivers the same horsepower but is just as easy to use... I'd love to hear it :)

[Spice Weasel]

RPM is the standard for Linux distributions, blame Debian for using dpkg.

[cariboo]

EDIT: Just curious, what does the 'Beans count' under my username stand for?
EDIT2: Ok, I apparently missed this before... but in the Forum Help forum, it says beans equals posts. However, I know for a fact I have made more posts than just one. Are specific categories not counted or something?

You found the one answer, beans==posts. Post in the community section don't count towards your bean count.

[wrtpeeps]

The attitudes of some people associated with them (the projects).

No harm to anyone on here, but a lot of the free software lot are very pushy, trying to ram their "ideals" down other people's throats, never realising that rather than swaying people's opinion they're just annoying them.

That, and the "holier than thou" attitude, the "I'm better than you cause I use x, or I use y".

"People who use mac's just have obviously never tried linux, otherwise they wouldn't be on an evil mac" etc. Gah, I wish it would occur to some people who go on about "choice" that the choice not to use linux is a valid one! It's hypocrisy at the very least!

Rant over. :)

A strange annoyance I'm sure compared to most, but a valid one I feel. :)

[juancarlospaco]

if the standard is there, why isn't it being used?

Because i can.
Never ask "Why?" on Open source, the reply is allways "Because i can"



If you know of any 'simple app' that delivers the same horsepower but is just as easy to use... I'd love to hear it :)

Try Krita for random example...

[Nytram]

Speaking of deb and rpm, I know alien creates debs from rpms, is there anything that does the opposite?

Alien can convert both ways, you just need to set the correct flag.

[joepie91]

Because i can.
Never ask "Why?" on Open source, the reply is allways "Because i can"

Try Krita for random example...

Krita actually works quite good... even under GNOME. Thanks :)

[czr114]

Style over substance, buzz over quality, change for the sake of change, etc.

All development has an opportunity cost. For FOSS development, that opportunity cost is man hours not being expended on other goals.

It's a bit disheartening to see so much work go into bleeding edge bells and whistles when there are serious functionality deficits or performance/resource issues in other projects.

FF4 is delayed, PHP leaves much to be desired, AppArmor is incomplete, libtorrent languishes without UTP, OO can't keep up with MSO formatting, Thunderbird lacks native OpenPGP, graphics drivers are a horrendous mess, GIMP can't compete with Photshop, professional video editing and production lags behind, etc.

Then several competing teams announce sweeping projects to completely overhaul the UI yet again because users feel the current branches look "old."

I know a lot of desktop users want that "cool" factor, and want to see GNU/Linux stay on the buzz treadmill with Apple, but look at the hundreds of thousands of man hours that requires. We've got a dozen or so divergent desktop environments, half of which seem to have borrowed the values of planned obsolescence from the commercial world, and are attempting to keep up on that release treadmill, meanwhile the underlying graphics subsystems and drivers need a lot of work. Think of what all that development energy could do if spread out across the FOSS universe in a feature blitz, optimization drive, and 100 papercuts approach.

I'm not knocking variety. Variety is good. All I'm suggesting is that the current priorities are a personal pet peeve (keeping with the thread subject), and sometimes, that leads to glitzy screenshots getting more attention than something boring like code auditing, performance optimization, or security.

[Dr. C]

...
I don't know since when ODF is supported, but I know for a fact that most people I know (who use Office 2003) cannot open ODF files.
...

Microsoft Office 2003 will not open Microsoft Office 2007/2010 files unless one installs a special upgrade and many people do not have the the upgrade installed, nor will it read Microsoft Works files unless again one installs a special plug in. On the other hand Microsoft Office 2010 opens .odf without any problems.

For the most part FLOSS projects do an excellent job at what they do with very few resources. My one and only complaint is lack of floppy drive support (both 3.5in and 5.25in) in Ubuntu.

[czr114]

5.25"? Really?

If I may ask, what for?

[Dr. C]

5.25"? Really?

If I may ask, what for?

Actually if one gets the 3.5in floppy to work getting the 5.25in floppy to work is trivial. I have done this on Ubuntu 10.04 where I did get both drives fd0 (5.25) and fd1 (3.5) to work at the same time. One would be surprised how many people have data on 3.5in and 5.25in floppies they want to recover, then there are those who wish to communicate with vintage computers, run old software in virtual machines etc. Then there is the need to preserve our cultural heritage. If one can read a book that is 300 years old, why can one not read a disk that is 25 years old?

The only hope to avoid a technological dark age with DRM lies with the FLOSS communities, which why support for old technologies on FLOSS is so critical.

[joepie91]

Microsoft Office 2003 will not open Microsoft Office 2007/2010 files unless one installs a special upgrade and many people do not have the the upgrade installed, nor will it read Microsoft Works files unless again one installs a special plug in. On the other hand Microsoft Office 2010 opens .odf without any problems.

For the most part FLOSS projects do an excellent job at what they do with very few resources. My one and only complaint is lack of floppy drive support (both 3.5in and 5.25in) in Ubuntu.

I know there are plugins for it, but the point is that other users don't understand that. If a friend of mine sends a document to his boss and his boss doesn't know about plugins, or doesn't care to install one, while my friend isn't aware of the possibility to save as a MS Office-compatible file... the damage is already done and they won't be using OpenOffice again. And since a lot of people are STILL using Office 2003 (simply because they dislike the new 'ribbon' or because they already have it and it still works) it's a very present problem.

[wilee-nilee]

The attitudes of some people associated with them (the projects).

No harm to anyone on here, but a lot of the free software lot are very pushy, trying to ram their "ideals" down other people's throats, never realising that rather than swaying people's opinion they're just annoying them.

That, and the "holier than thou" attitude, the "I'm better than you cause I use x, or I use y".

"People who use mac's just have obviously never tried linux, otherwise they wouldn't be on an evil mac" etc. Gah, I wish it would occur to some people who go on about "choice" that the choice not to use linux is a valid one! It's hypocrisy at the very least!

Rant over. :)

A strange annoyance I'm sure compared to most, but a valid one I feel. :)

Nice mirroring of your rant of the other.;)

[oldsoundguy]

Actually it is not the projects as many are one ring circuses with one or two doing the majority of the work.

What I hate and REALLY hate is the fanbuoy/gurl ravings about how such and such is just Sooooooooo great and cool (and they condemn anything similar .. either FOSS or paid as "no good".) When, in reality, the program is is in early Alpha stage and not worth it if you want to USE it ..fine if you want to be a tester.
(For instance, I am running Guyadeque, but KNOW it is under development .. not relying on it as the ONLY audio player on the box.)(but it is getting better EVERY DAY!)

"As good as" is really a weak argument for relying on something that may or may not have an effect on putting beans and bacon on the table .. the Gimp/Photoshop shout fests are a primary example.
Gimp works fine .... UP TO A POINT .. and if above that point is part of your income platform, the arguments for it fall on deaf ears.

[Dr. C]

I know there are plugins for it, but the point is that other users don't understand that. If a friend of mine sends a document to his boss and his boss doesn't know about plugins, or doesn't care to install one, while my friend isn't aware of the possibility to save as a MS Office-compatible file... the damage is already done and they won't be using OpenOffice again. And since a lot of people are STILL using Office 2003 (simply because they dislike the new 'ribbon' or because they already have it and it still works) it's a very present problem.

I have had a lot of success converting people from Microsoft Works to OpenOffice.org precisely because of this problem with Microsoft Office 2003. The trick show the OpenOffice.org user how to save as a .doc.

[JustinR]

There are a few points that have been annoying me ever since switching to free software almost completely... so I decided to just make a thread about it :)

These are pretty much my top annoyances:
* The interface of The GIMP. It's simply HORRIBLY counter-intuitive.
* The lack of a good universal installing system across distributions. We have debs, RPMs, 'universal installers' that try to mimic InstallShield wizards and completely fail at placing anything in my application list... why not just one universal system? Choice is good, but the core of something should really be standardized to avoid these problems.
* OpenOffice setting the default format to the OpenDocument format by default. I understand the idea, but it's a big hurdle for new users switching from Microsoft Office. One of the complaints I hear the most about OpenOffice is "yeah, not everyone could open my files, so I switched back to Microsoft Office". It would be a better idea to ask the user on setup whether to use Microsoft-compatible formats or their own format.
* The general "functionality goes above user interface design" mentality. The cramped user interface of some programs (yes GIMP, I'm looking at you) sometimes seriously hampers the practical use of programs. An application may be the best available application in executing a task, but if a user can't find the appropriate button it won't have any use.
* The apparent lack of a semi-professional video editing alternative that is still easy in use (something along the lines of Sony Vegas). The ease of use is there (Kino) and the advanced technology is there (Cinelerra), but why aren't those two qualities combined?

Note that this is not a rant, simply a few points that keep annoying me constantly, and seriously hamper the possibilities to get other people to switch to free software. I wouldn't ever switch back to my old proprietary software, because the free software generally does it's job just fine, just the above points are things to improve :)

So... what are the things about free software that annoys you the most?

1. GIMP is fine for me - what makes it counter-intuitive to you?
2. I agree with this - but it's not really an annoyance to me.
3. The most recent version of Microsoft Office supports ODF (better than OpenOffice supports .doc files)
4. I believe in the mentality above - I like functionality over design/GUI.
5. I am with you a 100% on this one - we need a better video editing program.

Other than the video thing, I don't really have any annoyances.

[forrestcupp]

I'm aware of that, but that would probably be the least of my worries. Plenty of tools available to automatically arrange your windows as if it was a single-window layout. I'm talking more about where certain menu items can be found, how cumbersome it is to add and modify text if you compare it to, for example, Adobe Photoshop, and how hard it is to 'create' things in GIMP, instead of just manipulating pictures.It won't solve all of your problems, but you could try Gimpshop (http://www.gimpshop.com/download.shtml). They took Gimp and rearranged all of the menus to be more like Photoshop. They have a Debian package for download that would probably work. I think the text features are one of the big things they're working on in the next version of Gimp. Everyone knows text sucks in Gimp, and they're finally addressing that. As for creating things, I've never had any trouble with that.




Cinelerra does quite a nice job of a lot of things that Vegas can do, but it's quite hard to navigate. I think it's possible, but maybe the layout should be rethought.
Cinelerra is a pretty awesome NLE. I've used it on a big project. After hearing everyone complain about how hard it is to use, I was actually surprised at how easy it actually was. But I've had a lot of experience figuring out several different NLEs, though.

But even as awesome as Cinelerra is, it's still not quite up to par with Vegas in terms of features. Nevertheless, there is a group that is working on doing exactly what you said needs done with Cinelerra. Check out the Lumiera (http://lumiera.org/) project. It started out as a complete rewrite of Cinelerra3. It's still very early in development, so don't expect anything anytime soon.

[ratcat]

Gnome has tiny icons and looks like Apple mac 8. As for Gimp, they must be dumpster diving at Adobe for strange effects and plugins. What is going on with Gimp layers? We Ubuntu 10.10 for net and email. Linux needs to stop competing with Windows and Apple. Linux will not replace Apple and Windows desktops but on phones and tablets linux will outrun them.

[joepie91]

It won't solve all of your problems, but you could try Gimpshop (http://www.gimpshop.com/download.shtml). They took Gimp and rearranged all of the menus to be more like Photoshop. They have a Debian package for download that would probably work. I think the text features are one of the big things they're working on in the next version of Gimp. Everyone knows text sucks in Gimp, and they're finally addressing that. As for creating things, I've never had any trouble with that.

I've looked into Gimpshop before but somehow it never really wanted to work on my machine, and it just stayed a fairly default GIMP. Anyway, I've played around a bit with Krita (I especially like the Text tool in Krita, which works a bit like in Photoshop) and I think that's going to be my tool of choice for a while :P





Cinelerra is a pretty awesome NLE. I've used it on a big project. After hearing everyone complain about how hard it is to use, I was actually surprised at how easy it actually was. But I've had a lot of experience figuring out several different NLEs, though.

But even as awesome as Cinelerra is, it's still not quite up to par with Vegas in terms of features. Nevertheless, there is a group that is working on doing exactly what you said needs done with Cinelerra. Check out the Lumiera (http://lumiera.org/) project. It started out as a complete rewrite of Cinelerra3. It's still very early in development, so don't expect anything anytime soon.
That looks very promising. I'll certainly keep an eye on it.

I think I can replace most of my annoyances with a different annoyance: how hard it can be to find an alternative for a program by yourself (I always tend to do own research and not ask, which sometimes isn't a good thing) if the most commonly known program doesn't work like you want it to :P

[kaldor]

...We Ubuntu 10.10 for net and email. Linux needs to stop competing with Windows and Apple...

So Linux/Ubuntu is only good for web/email and we should all switch to OS X/Windows to do serious work, because it's obvious it can't compete?

[Xianath]

The complete and utter lack of any vision, strategy, and focus. No single commercial software company has the manpower that FOSS has yet many consistently manage to outrun FOSS because they have the benefit or organizing their resources.

Some will argue that FOSS developers work in their spare time. How is this a bad thing? Google, Microsoft, Xerox, Sun (at least before the Oracle acquisition), Toyota and other companies employ the concept of "pet projects", where they give people 10-20% of their time to use for whatever they want. Gmail and Chrome were born as pet project, so were the Lisa, Macintosh, Prius, Post-It, and countless other great products. Heck, even the garlic squeezer was a pet project (of Einstein's.) Creative people work best on something that picks their interest, so the "spare time" argument is pretty moot.

The FOSS world should be unified if it wants to stand a chance against the big boys. There's nothing wrong in variety IF it doesn't come from the same source, and for all practical purposes, FOSS and especially FLOSS *is* the same source. If similar FOSS projects joined forces -- say, all the DEs, or distros, or sound servers, word processors, and whatnot -- that would be a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately religious fallacies, ego, and other senseless legacy won't even let that happen, and uses would forever be stuck with multiple sub-par FOSS products as opposed to one that is a viable competitive choice. In that respect, the one and only argument for FOSS will always remain price. It's free and you get what you pay for. That's no way to chip away market share from companies who actually have business sense.

[madjr]

The complete and utter lack of any vision, strategy, and focus. No single commercial software company has the manpower that FOSS has yet many consistently manage to outrun FOSS because they have the benefit or organizing their resources.

Some will argue that FOSS developers work in their spare time. How is this a bad thing? Google, Microsoft, Xerox, Sun (at least before the Oracle acquisition), Toyota and other companies employ the concept of "pet projects", where they give people 10-20% of their time to use for whatever they want. Gmail and Chrome were born as pet project, so were the Lisa, Macintosh, Prius, Post-It, and countless other great products. Heck, even the garlic squeezer was a pet project (of Einstein's.) Creative people work best on something that picks their interest, so the "spare time" argument is pretty moot.

The FOSS world should be unified if it wants to stand a chance against the big boys. There's nothing wrong in variety IF it doesn't come from the same source, and for all practical purposes, FOSS and especially FLOSS *is* the same source. If similar FOSS projects joined forces -- say, all the DEs, or distros, or sound servers, word processors, and whatnot -- that would be a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately religious fallacies, ego, and other senseless legacy won't even let that happen, and uses would forever be stuck with multiple sub-par FOSS products as opposed to one that is a viable competitive choice. In that respect, the one and only argument for FOSS will always remain price. It's free and you get what you pay for. That's no way to chip away market share from companies who actually have business sense.

you are mostly correct.

and till ubuntu was created, there was no real sense of "user friendliness". In fact the phrases "avg. user", "ease of use" or even "GUI" were not in most of linux users vocabularies..

That mentality has changed dramatically in the past few years.

Anyway, a misconception is to think that everyone needs to work on 1 project and do things in just 1 way...

that is not always the case.

For example lots of great projects come from forks or new ones written from scratch. There lies part of the beauty of open source.

Is like a family. They can live under the same roof forever. Some day your kids will have to leave and create their own.

Some example of forks or competitor projects that will make the linux desktop better:

-libreoffice vs openoffice(thank God we got a fork out in time away from Oracle)

-wayland vs xorg(thanks to ubuntu's adoption, this will become better for the desktop than trying to "fix" the aging X.org)

-unity vs gshell (gnome shell had dropped everything good from gnome2 UI. Now after)

-compiz vs mutter (compiz is the bling bling. Mutter is conservative and wont have modules. Thanks ubuntu for saving compiz!)

-shotwell vs fspot (both decent, but shotwell is becoming much better.)

-pitivi vs openshot (good competition there. Which ever reaches the goal first of becoming a decent enough substitute for movie maker or imovie, wins!)

-Ubuntu vs mint (in the history of both, mint has always been ubuntu's closest competitor. and except for the panels and the menu, ubuntu had "copied" almost every improved usability feature it had. Which, in this case is good thing, because both distros have become that much easier to use)

Mint has always been the sandbox for testing new usability features that usually land in ubuntu some time after. Next to come will be ratings of software and "hopefully" a good backup utility.

Anyway, ubuntu has now reached a point where instead of copying it wants to lead the way big time.


So there you have it! forks or competitor projects are not always bad, in fact in the linux WORLD this is GOOD!! This is how linux OPERATES.

linux may be a jungle, but isn't that the way nature evolves?! :)

As long as the competitors are good, the game will be good.

[wilee-nilee]

It can be quite annoying if you have to rely on it for your day-to-day work :)

Just being employed by another made me self employed since about 1995, isn't that enough alone even without the computer problems. Have a dream and fulfill it is what I say.

[cgroza]

Linux needs to stop competing with Windows and Apple. Linux will not replace Apple and Windows desktops but on phones and tablets linux will outrun them.
If Linux stops competing it will die. Competition is the thing that stimulates inovation and new ideas and it is crucial for Linux to have it.

[czr114]

If Linux stops competing it will die. Competition is the thing that stimulates inovation and new ideas and it is crucial for Linux to have it.

It depends on the nature of the competition. A race to be marketing-compliant and embrace the paradigm of perpetually new doesn't necessarily create benefits to users.

[Xianath]

Anyway, a misconception is to think that everyone needs to work on 1 project and do things in just 1 way...

It's all a matter of resource. No sane business would invest in multiple competing projects if they don't have the resources to fully fund either one. Yet FOSS has been doing it since day one because it has never been demand-driven. In other words, the heck with the user, we can do better than those (points at competing FOSS project) guys.


-libreoffice vs openoffice

This is a fork, not a competing project, and forks can be good in such cases. However, given that we had OOo (now LO), do we *really* need goffice, abiword, koffice, and the like? Needless to say, neither of them matches Microsoft Office. Combined, they might have. We will never know.


wayland vs xorg

I wonder where I've heard that argument... oh yes, it was when X.Org replaced XFree86 "once and for all" :)


unity vs gshell (gnome shell had dropped everything good from gnome2 UI. Now after)

Well there you go. If gshell really is that bad and everyone hates it and Ubuntu is going the Unity way... why was it ever created in the first place? Classic example of product failure due to a lack of proper product marketing.


compiz vs mutter

The only reason we have a viable compositing manager now is that the beryl and compiz crowds realized they couldn't do it alone and, for the sake of the end user, joined forces. QED.


So there you have it! forks or competitor projects are not always bad, in fact in the linux WORLD this is GOOD!! This is how linux OPERATES.

Forks are not bad per se and compiz is proof of that. However, note what happened in that case. Two groups had different views and branched the product. They realized they are wasting a lot of time by implementing the same things, while the few areas of contention remained relatively minor in comparison. They sat down, figure out which project did which parts better, and took those, and created one that actually worked. So yes, as experimental branches, to try out new ideas, forks are good. For reinventing the wheel a million times, they are a waste of resources.

[beew]

RPM is the standard for Linux distributions, blame Debian for using dpkg.

What does that mean? I find yum to be painfully slow comparing with apt-get.:)

[Spice Weasel]

What does that mean? I find yum to be painfully slow comparing with apt-get.:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apt-rpm

DPKG (.deb) and RPM (.rpm) are package managers.

Yum and APT are frontends.

You can use APT with RPM, and APT with Dpkg.

RPM is supposed to be the standard for GNU/Linux (according to the LSB (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Standard_Base)), but Debian doesn't use it for whatever reason.

[red_Marvin]

Users.

Particularly, users with visions on what # needs to change in order to attract more users,
waving away that change comes from developers with that [s]he does not know how
to program, but somebody who does should get 'inspired'.
If someebody isn't you, you should not count on it being anybody.

The comparision isn't
Proprietary is nonfree so you buy it <-> FLOSS is free so you download it for free.
but
Proprietary is nonfree so you buy it <-> FLOSS is free so you fork it for free.

...yes why, I am something of a grouch today--one hour of sleep does that to you, thankyou for asking...