The Open Source Design Conundrum

Matt Asay writes "Walk the halls of any open-source conference and you'll see a large percentage of attendees with ironically non-open-source Apple laptops and iPhones. One reason for this seeming contradiction can be found in reading Matthew Thomas' classic 'Why free software usability tends to suck.' Open-source advocates like good design as much as anyone, but the open-source development process is often not the best way to achieve it. Open-source projects have tended to be great commoditizers, but not necessarily the best innovators. Hence, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst recently stated that Red Hat is "focused on commoditizing important layers in the stack." This is fine, but for those that want open source to push the envelope on innovation, it may be unavoidable to introduce a bit more cathedral into the bazaar. Without an IBM, Red Hat, or Mozilla bringing cash and discipline to an open-source project, including paying people to do the 'dirt work' that no one would otherwise do, can open source hope to thrive?"

Comments

Already handled

[clang_jangle]

This is already being done. Many of the most successful FOSS projects have corporate contributors, so this "design conundrum" doesn't really exist. As for the popularity of Apple devices among FOSS developers, well, a lot of Apple software is based upon FOSS. In fact Apple, like it or not, is a pretty good example of how to monetize FOSS. Can't say I'm thrilled with the methods they employ to achieve that, but it's still a fact that they do achieve it.

Re:Already handled

[Old97]

The best things about OS X and the iPhone were published in academic journals years ago; some as much as two decades ago.

Your statement is generally true for all software. Just about every important thing we do in software was thought of by 1980. There have been refinements, polish and some interesting synergies gained by combining things - innovations, but few if any important inventions. It's just a lot of these ideas were not economically viable to implement until hardware improvements, materials and costs made them so.

You should also credit Apple for excellent execution - since Jobs returned at least - in a number of key areas which left them well-positioned to implement the good ideas once they identified them. One thing neither FOSS or Microsoft can fix is difficulty in aligning hardware and software designs when both are moving targets and only one is in your control.

UI Design and custonmer support are the dirt work

[Anonymous Coward]

That many developers feel it is beneath them and gets in the way of them developing. In the commercial space, developers rarely interact with customers in a support role or in UI design. Many would quit before performing this role, but developers in some cases are the only ones who can properly address this.

In one company I worked for, developers had to eat their own shit in that they were forced into part-time customer support of their code. When your interaction with code begins and ends with the source code control system, you have one view. When you actually are forced to see where the rubber meets the road in your customer, you think much more about the interfaces, the update processes, and the support code and scripts that get working code into working systems.

In the commercial space much effort and resources is applied in these critically important areas. With the journeyman programmers, this rarely if ever happens.

Most of the Apple distribution is Free

[flyingfsck]

It is only a small part of the Apple Mac software that is non-Free and you could even run Darwin which is Free. The bulk of the software on any Apple Mac is GPL.

KDE is very usable

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with the premise that FOSS usability is always bad. I'm not a developer, I can't write code, but I use *nix exclusively for my home computers, running KDE. And they are WAY more usable than my windows computers at work. Small things make such a huge difference--with windows, when you move the mouse wheel, the active window scrolls, even if you have 2 open side by side. You have to click on the one you want to scroll. With KDE, the window that your mouse cursor is hovering over scrolls. This is so intuitive it took me a month or so to even notice. I've found all kinds of other small usability tweaks.

My KDE desktop at home is so much more usable and intuitive than my windows xp box at work that I often work at home just for the pleasure of using KDE.

At least use the updated version of MPT's article

[YokoZar]

Why link to the outdated version of Mathew Paul Thomas' article when he wrote a much newer one here: http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2008/08/01/free-software-usability Appropriately, it's titled: Why Free Software has poor usability, and how to improve it

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Apple makes good hardware

[node 3]

Usability is about far more than making some sad Mac clone. It's about developers, developers, developers, developers - creating the useful applications and functionality that people want

No, usability is not about functionality, it's about how that functionality works. Specifically, it's when the functions are designed to work in a way that better matches the way humans function. Open Source tends to focus more on how the computer functions as a computer and not enough on how it functions as something for people to use.

This focus on human-computer interaction is something the Mac excels at. People don't point to it as inspiration because it's pretty. They point to it because it's more usable. Its prettiness is just one aspect of its usability.

To be clear, functionality is important, but it's not the same as usability. To be usable, a system needs functions, but merely having the functions doesn't make a system terribly usable.

Re:Apple makes good hardware

[woodlander]

Actually, just over half of the nipples are found on men. Check yourself.