Why Are Open Source Alternatives So Bad?

[@EricMurphyxyz]

I didn't mean to beat up on GIMP so much, but they were the most obvious example of the issues with FOSS. I'm aware they're working on GIMP 3.0 which should hopefully solve a lot of issues with GIMP. At the same time, it's taken them decades to deliver on basic features like adjustment layers. Wish the devs the best though, all love ✌

[@musthavechannel5262]

While I am very grateful for the free GIMP, it is objectively not a very user friendly software.

[@boo_1096]

I run the last release of GIMP 2.99 (no tag for 3.0 beta yet, but once that drops I'll try it) for daily usage and a lot of things are better. The issue behind GIMP taking a long time to implement these is that it uses a very old architecture, and to upgrade one of those things, a whole lot of other parts had to be updated at the same time, so a _lot_ of work has been happening on the 2.99 branch, which is kind of a shame because 2.10 has gotten very little in the meantime. I'm confident that things will speed up once new features actually land on the main branch instead of on some development branch that pretty much nobody uses. It still doesn't change that the current GIMP experience is kind of poor, but there is an explanation at least.

[@EyobFitwi]

I may be wrong, but based on what I read, I think they deserve it. Some say that the developers are stubborn and don't listen to feedback. One example, the name. Many said that the name is not appropriate to use in a business or education setting and hence they cannot promote its use there, but they don't listen. There's also the pesky CMYK issue. It's like they have a coders-first or 'my way or the highway' mentality. Blender's creator has a point. If you want your large project to succeed, you should listen to your users.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

@@boo_1096 as for large companies involved Gimp has had some of that. A long time back I remember that one of the major movies that year was produced with a lot of use of Gimp. If I remember correctly they added some features their artists asked for. Don't remember what the movie was or how many years back it was, but it used a lot of computer generated video and images. I think the video was rendered using Blender, but I can't be certain. The reason I heard about this and remember it was because AMD supplied a lot if not all of the computers used for rendering and designing the CGI. At the time the company I worked for worked a lot with AMD and we had regular contact with the head of AMD Europe. Now at the time I was a Photoshop user and spent quite some time with that. Later when I tried Gimp my PS knowledge was far from advantageous. I still spend a lot of time trying to emulate things I used to do in PS when I load up Gimp. Having said that I think it has improved a lot over the last five years. It's either that or I have been retraining my self to use Gimp. Today I only rarely touch any graphics editor so I probably have a very old version of Gimp. As for PS I never installed any of the versions you had to rent from Adobe. It just feels wrong not being able to buy a complete software but have to rent it.

[@auruum]

Remember to pin this comment, Eric

[@zoox3732]

GIMP is not a competitor to Photoshop; Photoshop is an image manipulator while GIMP is a puzzle-based image modifier.

[@ryoukaip]

LMAO

[@matt92hun]

Also, PS does what you need it to do when you need it to do it.

[@qlx-i]

Graphical Image Modification Puzzle

[@Algoinde]

I've always thought of GIMP as a mouse-oriented command line argument editor for ImageMagick.

[@pawpenggaga]

Cope

[@SpunkMcKullins]

OBS over here as the final boss of the Internet, single-handedly fueling an entire modern entertainment medium.

[@AAlgeria]

fr

[@MrPicklesAndTea]

OBS makes fraps look like a toy

[@AwesomeAxolotlt]

also Blender (for 3d)

[@TheScribeScribe]

@@AwesomeAxolotlt Adobe is essentially stealing everyone's private info and projects, Louis Rossman just released a video on it. Adobe funded blender back in 2021. I don't know if they had any meetings with the blender creator to give any kind of backdoor loopholes to the 3d open source software but I'm worried adobe could steal everyone and anyone's blender projects.

[@damntrain5145]

@@MrPicklesAndTea nah, Bandicam made fraps look like a toy and then OBS came and made bandicam look like a toy

[@loganfairbairn4605]

Blender is a perfect example of open-source working as intended, I hope more open-source software moves that way.

[@wallacesousuke1433]

Blender is still meh though

[@MangaGamified]

@@wallacesousuke1433 You have nothing to show you used Maya, 3DS max nor Houdini etc tho. You probably mistook Blender as Midjourney to automatically give you results tho

[@wallacesousuke1433]

@@MangaGamified LMAO I'm using Blender right now, while following a Udemy course (Complete Guide to Realistic Character Creation in Blender by Victory3D), just to practice my sculpting skills, Zbrush is vastly superior but man, it costs a fortune...

[@MangaGamified]

@@wallacesousuke1433 That's good, why did you said it was meh tho? was that a wrong send or do you have dual-personality or was that your girl commenting? True Zbrush is superier in finer sculpting like dragon scales but I don't have much use case for it for now, also, in Asia, everything is FOSS 🏴‍☠ Glad you're not one of those "what does that have to do with anything" kind of replies.

[@wallacesousuke1433]

@@MangaGamified cuz Blender is absolutely meh? It's a jack of all trades, master of none, and I absolutely hate modeling in it... At least its sculpting mode is decent enough, but I'm mostly honing my sculpting skills, but as for modeling, animating, rigging, UV unwrapping, retopo? Maya all the way, along with Unreal Engine 5 (my goal is to become a game dev).

[@jersydvl]

Open Source is AWESOME. Especially now that Adobe claims ownership of anything you created with their software

[@haomingli6175]

that is factually false. adobe claims some usage rights, but not ownership.

[@callisoncaffrey]

@@haomingli6175 I'm sure the AI replacing you will be proud of you making that distinction. Not to mention the surveillance state. Spyware tools require Spyware operating systems. I'm really impressed that the guy in the video didn't forget to mention that.

[@haomingli6175]

@@callisoncaffrey well it is difficult to keep your work away from AIs as long as you publish it online. some party is going to be training with it.

[@callisoncaffrey]

@@haomingli6175 And with you giving away your rights to Adobe, they can then sue the AI, while you can sit and watch while remembering this conversation.

[@Tannerlegasse]

​@@haomingli6175 what weak ass crap is that? There are tools that make it impossible for AI to train off your art, and here you are all "well someone is going to steal it, might as well roll over for a multi billion dollar company". What's it like after you sell your soul? Do you feel more of a kinship WITH the AI now?

[@frenchcreekvalley]

Okay for open source, but how about buying commercial software that doesn't require "subscriptions"? Why can't I just OWN anything any more?

[@volvodude101]

because you will own nothing and be happy, according to the banker class

[@tonyzed6831]

Money.

[@reezlaw]

That would be the new middle ground

[@Akab]

Main reason I mostly switched to free (as in freedom) open source licensed software 👍

[@shrek95372q]

WHY REINVENT PHOTOSHOOP AND USE GIMP? ITS FEATURES SUCC AND ITS SOUECE CODE IS BLOATED BECAUSE WRITTEN BY CHEAP WORKERS FROM LNDIA FOR LOW PRICE

[@bar7381]

I think its ironic that Blender's biggest proprietary competitor Maya, suffers from the 90's UI that Open Source software is known for

[@xdanic3]

Maya isn't that bad, you can detach the menues if you need them at hand, have a cool circular menu when you right click and most of the UI, at least teh few I used was quite responsive, Max is the one that has more of a 90s UI problem, if you have certain tab opened exporting a .fbx takes more time.

[@mechadeka]

And then there's the incomprehensible hellscape that is Zbrush's UI.

[@bar7381]

@@mechadeka at least most the time you just use the brushes

[@Aeroxima]

Might be part of why Blender does so well. Even the paid ones seem to be like that. (Also they cost insane amounts of money.)

[@treelineresearch3387]

​@@Aeroxima Blender somehow went from being one of most mindbending UXes ever to being one of the most coherent and logical in its industry segment in one minor version bump.

[@supercheetah778]

OBS is one of the few that doesn't have a proprietary equivalent.

[@too_blatant]

i remember back when everyone used fraps and bandicam.. then obs appeared and everyone forgot about the proprietary programs because obs is just better

[@GameBoyyearsago]

​@@too_blatantAh good old Bandicams Days : )

[@patapancakes]

xsplit?

[@Unadvised8849]

Mirillis action

[@FigureFarter]

@@too_blatantTeachers use screencast-o-matic

[@VectorNodes]

Open source contributor and artist here. Inkscape is awesome. The only valid consumer complaint I’ve heard is the learning curve, but there are valid dev complaints in the code base, as with most software. Also Krita is another great example. That’s top tier industry standard raster painting software

[@DavidMulderOne]

Recently opened Inkscape after years and suddenly went from hating it to it being... Fine. Like Inkscape improved a lot in the last 5 years or so

[@BloodyRosie]

I'm not a vector graphics pro but I've created and modified SVG icons in Inkscape and Notepad++ for websites with 150K - 2M monthly audiences. As he said in the video, "it gets the job done". Conversely, I've seen at least two cases of Illustrator causing lossiness - though I'm sure this wasn't its inherent issue, and possibly related to some poor export defaults.

[@illford]

​@DavidMulderOne I'm so used to old inkscape that I didn't realize it got a UI overhaul 😭 when did this happen

[@DavidMulderOne]

@@illford Not so much an overhaul as far as I know, as gradual improvements. They cleaned up some of the small pain points, added new icons I think and added dark mode... which by itself already makes a big difference. Then again, I very very rarely need Inkscape (and privately own the Affinity suite of products).

[@WDSimp]

Inkscape's learning curve is pretty easy to overcome with the help of youtube tutorials. I focus on logo design and there is a channel called Logos By Nick that patiently explained how to do all of the things that I wanted to do. It's super helpful.

[@arnauadell4824]

And then there's Blender, just casually being the industry standard.

[@ElementalAer]

And OBS, behind almost all the streaming market.

[@JonnyHorseman]

​@@ElementalAerAny good alternatives to OBS?

[@BurnedNoodle]

@@JonnyHorseman used StreamLabs till I got the hang of OBS.

[@AAlgeria]

@@JonnyHorseman no not really except if your a streamer you can use streamlabs i guess

[@DiogoManteu]

Blender is not the industry standard, it's the standard for some smaller studios and most indie developers, who nowadays actually succeed frequently.

[@juliopcrj]

The whole internet runs on free and open source software. It's not that "open source alternatives are bad", but "these specific FOSS alternatives do not do the same as the prorietary thing". Edit, because I'm tired of having to explain again and again: "FOSS" is only a license. It only means "Free and Open Source Software". Some also call it "FLOSS", for "Free/Libre and Open Source Software. Some applications are good, some are bad. It is not the license that makes it good or bad, it is the software itself. Blender is the defacto software for 3D modeling, and it's probably the best one out there. "Oh, but it started as.../Oh, but it is backed by..." Doesn't matter, its license is copyleft, FOSS. Now, before replying to this, ponder about this subject a little bit more.

[@akeem2983]

Also, internet used to be pretty locked down to proprietary software. Back in the day, the only web browser was effectively Internet Explorer and also for a long time Adobe Flash was essential for most of the web. Then proprietary technologies pretty much died out and now websites fundamentally runs on full open source set of software (except for things like DRM). Yes, many web things like web-browsers and individual websites are proprietary, but they are built on open source technologies and you can browse the web pretty much without restrictions (except for DRM) on fully open source systems

[@cholst1]

@@akeem2983 Both Netscape and later Firefox were big before the chrome domination, so not the greatest point. Flash was there before there were alternatives. Websites back in the day ran on LAMP stacks for the most part. Generally far more open than cloud solutions today. (tho they use open source libs here and there).

[@FlameForgedSoul]

Which... _makes them bad._ "The whole internet runs on free and open source software." And the majority of people on said internet _couldn't care less._ Which was the point being made.

[@treelineresearch3387]

Everyone knows linux and FOSS is great in the server space, and usually superior to a lot of commercial equivalents (or the commercial products are just managing open source components). It's when you get into interactive software, GUIs, and UX concerns that it often falls really flat historically, and often still does. GIMP is inferior to Photoshop simply because its UX is so awful, not really because it's lacking a lot of essential features for photo manipulation.

[@Burbie]

they cant even do the basic stuff compared to their alternatives, so theyre shit.

[@Posiman]

I remember posting a bug report on GIMP forum. There was an issue in a way it hadled Czech diacritics in text. One guy posted ten replies about me being a total idiot, who can't setup my language settings properly and angrily closed the issue as being stupid and irrelevant. 16 months later another guy reopened it and said they've fixed the issue in the latest release and they thank me for my feedback. I love open source, but you are right about the communication sometimes being a little difficult...

[@LarixusSnydes]

Yes, unfortunately I recognise this experience you've had with the GIMP team. That said, two years or so ago, I got on IRC and got to chat with some major dev. When I discussed something that did not work, he said that he was sorry for the bad experience I've had and pointed me to the relevant bug report and the work that was been done to correct this exact bug. It has actually been fixed now, so I guess it depends a lot on which channels you use to communicate and especially the person that replies to your question.

[@IsmaelLuceno]

@NewDay14 the rule is simply if you find the bug you fix it or pay to fix it... if you're putting no work/money, of course it will take a while until it gets fixed...

[@parito5523]

@NewDay14 I do programming for a living, many times, apparently simple bugs have very obscure origins that's not easy to track down even on very well rounded codes that follow the best practices. Open source softwares that suffer from the issues from this video generally do not have well rounded codes because more on often than not, they are composed of small little codes everywhere made by amateur programmers to fix or add their own needed functionalities, with many duplicate codes all over the place. Tracking down those bugs then takes time, and those who are most capable of doing so in a fast manner, won't do it because they will spend that time actually making money from their skills.

[@jeffreystephens2658]

You got a bug fixed in 16 months by a volunteer. Corporate software will never fix the bug, but will pay someone 100 grand to pretend to fix the bug every day for 16 years, and your monthly fee will pay their salary.

[@hiddendrifts]

@@jeffreystephens2658 you win some, you lose some...

[@prosto1076]

Why everybody speaks about GIMP as open-source image editor while Krita exists?

[@yerabbit]

its true there is no reason to use GIMP anymore

[@Ash_18037]

The brush creation UI in Krita is just awful (overly complex, unclear). Probably worse than any UI in GIMP. Krita is also much more opinionated than GIMP about the type of user it is built for (artists using graphic tablets). If that is not you, it is not comfortable to use, GIMP does much better here.

[@funkclock44]

GIMP vs Krita is a really hard discussion, but simply put, both tools are meant for *VERY* different things.

[@potato9832]

@@yerabbit Gimp is objectively better for photo touchup.

[@pcenero]

Krita is pretty good at everything I use it for except typography (as of 5.x). Photoshop works a lot smoother in that use case.

[@haydenlee8332]

I also used to hate Blender for how clunky and unintuitive it used to be…. … and then came Blender 2.8 with the UI overhaul. I never needed to look back to Maya ever again since then

[@maythesciencebewithyou]

Same, before 2.8, I had to change bunch of setting to make in somewhat user friendly. I often thought what they were thinking doing it like that. I had great hopes for Blender since the start and 2.8 was really the turning point and I could not be more happy with it now. Too bad Unity decided to go a different route.

[@marc3dartist601]

Blender is a different animal, they have a decent full time paid team, lots of money income from donators like Apple, Nvidia, Google, Epic and much much more.

[@AlphaGarg]

I miss the old UI, and really wish they'd at least gave the option to keep it. Main issue I have really is the radial menus everywhere, you can't right click on them like you can the lists, and they're on places that before used to just do a thing. Like tab switching to and fro Edit, comma changing to bounding box centre pivot, dot changing to cursor pivot, etc. Sculpt UI is fucking amazing now though, it's almost on par with ZBrush at this point, and probably better than Sculptris. Just a shame the other parts of my workflow got stuck in 2.79b :( . .. ... also the video editor sucks now lmao it's a resource hog and I hate it

[@I_cant_sneed]

Personally I prefered the 2,79 UI more but grew accustomed to the newer interface over time, its fine, its not bad.

[@WASTOIDSUPREME]

I actually hated 2.8's UI overhaul. I still use 2.72 to this day.

[@Tinyflower1]

meanwhile here in the gamedev world, blender is already an industry standard (i was taught in maya and zbrush but now use blender professionally), krita is irreplaceable when it comes to seamless textures thanks to wraparound mode and godot is getting better and better and what we are using for the current project

[@Azarilh]

Wraparound? Is it something i shoudl enable on Krita?

[@EmilienDev]

The holy trinity 👌

[@CathrineMacNiel]

@@Azarilh if you want to make seamless textures, yeah it would be encouraging since then you can see how the texture you are working on tiles with itself.

[@liamkaloy]

all the pll in gamedev world ale far on the right side of the normal distribution IQ bell curve. That is why for them open source software is not harder to use and often times is even faster/easier. Open source indeed is made by highly intelligent programmers who do not care that much for the users on the left side of the curve. Smart ppl can have the tool for free, all the rest have to either pay with their time if they stick with open source or with their money if they buy PS. That is perfectly fine.

[@Biotear]

​@@liamkaloy Nah, you aren't entirely wrong but also Blender is just straight up better and easier to use.

[@RetroGameStream]

The takes in this are weird. I especially like when the video casually states "Anyone with an app idea and a little bit of programming knowledge can create an app over the weekend, monetize it with Stripe, and make thousands of dollars a month." Totally glossing over how difficult it actually is to create a unique app, penetrate an over saturated market, maintain and update the code to work with later versions of the OS. And thats not even mentioning the headaches that can happen if the app relies on a third party library, service, or api. GIMP may not be a Photoshop killer but I sure appreciate their and the open source community's efforts.

[@AnnCatsanndra]

This.

[@MMuraseofSandvich]

There's also the problem that some rando in the world is probably not going to be the first person to have that idea in their head. Software as an industry is kinda like a huge crowd of engineers rewriting the wheel. Chances are, not only has someone in a corporation thought of it, the corporation has _patented_ it or has bought out a smaller company that has patented it. As soon as the app starts getting traction the odds of you seeing cease & desist letters threatening a patent lawsuit are greater than zero.

[@DragoNate]

GIMP is great, I love it. I've called it like a free version of photoshop to describe to people who look at me sideways when I mention it. Anyone who legitimately thinks it's a true competitor to PS tho is off their rocker. It may be very similar, capable of much, versatile but most importantly it's FREE. that's the big thing here: price. for a free program, it's f[un]king amazing. can it truly compete with PS in functionality? no. but in price? f[un]k yes.

[@Aeduo]

They were differentiating the difficulty now as compared with the past, which yeah, back then if you were developing software for a hobby, you were far less likely to monetize it, because the barrier was much higher than today. Now depending what you're using, it's like 1 click to publish to a marketplace and immediately take sales. I don't know how relevant that point is overall though. We have far more developers working on free/open source software now than ever, even as a hobby. Computer use has just reached a far wider audience and has met with needing to fulfill far greater needs than ever.

[@anonx8822]

Thought the same, but figured its a hyperbole to drive the point home, I agree with you

[@e_kedi]

obs is fine. literally everyone uses it

[@nalcij]

blender, the best example

[@wertigon]

A lot of the criticism here is valid, however, you are wrong about one thing; Successful Open Source projects are usually not a hobby project, even though they may start as that. I work in industry on embedded software. You are probably using the project my employer pays me to work on for a daily basis, but it is a small utility project embedded in something you don't even think of (think control software for an elevator, though it isn't actually an elevator). This code is open source because it costs us less to submit half a developer to contribute to the code base each month, than it takes paying licenses to a specific company. The code is mature so not much new development is happening, it is mostly making sure newer platforms are supported. This model has unfortunately yet to reach a bigger software house like, say, Dreamworks. If Dreamworks paid three guys to contribute for five years to Gimp, that software UI would be much improved and Dreamworks would in the end be in a much better spot paying a lot less to Adobe. Instead of renting code, Dreamworks would be owning code. Sadly, most suits do not understand this.They believe software is like nails - why build a nail factory when you can just buy them by the dozen?

[@shikyokira3065]

well said. Big companies willing to pay big money to other big companies instead of paying small players to refine existing working projects. Meanwhile, medium to small companies can't afford to pay to refine these projects, so they can only pay the big companies to meet the "industrial standard"

[@bimoverbohm6837]

It's so cool that your company decides to give back and improve the code for everyone. This way everyone wins. That's the true OSS spirit imo.

[@orphancripler]

Exactly, the main problem of open source is the economic incentive, without it your only fuel would be your goodwill and nothing else, and we know how long goodwill lasts

[@rayjaymor8754]

> If Dreamworks paid three guys to contribute for five years to Gimp, that software UI would be much improved and Dreamworks would in the end be in a much better spot paying a lot less to Adobe Perhaps, but the problem is Dreamworks isn't a software company and they know they aren't. You also have to keep in mind that the reality is enterprise companies pay other enterprise companies because it comes with liability. I could totally build a killer server rig for about 1/3rd of the cost of what it would take to buy the equivalent from Dell. So why do I not do that? Because that extra 66% in cost gives me a phone number that my boss can call and scream at when the server $#!^s the bed for some random reason beyond my control and I am away on leave. Did my boss lose hundres of thousands of dollars in that process? Guess who his legal team are reaching out to instead of me? You're never getting that with KDEnlive. They'd never want to take that burden on, it would destroy them. Also, how much are they actually going to be paying those devs compared to how much they end up paying Adobe? Remember, those 3x devs aren't also going to be interested in providing technical support and providing guides and tutorials either. I think you hugely under-estimate what's involved with providing a service. You are solely thinking of "the code" which is exactly what the video points out is a major flaw with open source projects in general.

[@wertigon]

@@rayjaymor8754 Like it or not, that is what happened with Blender, that is what happened with the Linux kernel, and that is what is currently happening with FreeCAD. Not having software people in-house? Yeah, it does sound comforting but you are also completely relying on an external entity and betting that that entity wants the same things you do. With the Cloud model, you are also placing your entire creative pipeline with a different entity that may or may not use that data for, say, AI. Adobe is not your friend and the only things holding Adobe from screwing you over is that it is less profitable to do so, and it may be illegal to do so (hence risking lawsuits).

[@Micha-Hil]

"If buying isn't owning-" Nah. Everything is open source if you try hard enough.

[@knkootbaoat6759]

real

[@Chrispyy__]

ON GOD

[@awesomethegreatamazing2651]

I don’t get it

[@no_name4796]

If you can read assembly, all programs are open source

[@zsomborgyenge4359]

can you modify the source code?

[@KarenSumach]

Funnily enough, Outlook's ""new"" design is basically just a copy of thunderbird's UI. We've gone full circle

[@FilipCordas]

New outlook is terrible.

[@georgehelyar]

New outlook is just a PWA over OWA. I work in email processing and old outlook is the bane of my existence though. What HTML engine do you think outlook uses? Edge? Old edge? IE? No it's fing Word. When you write an email in outlook that's like making a web page in word. Old Outlook has been singlehandedly holding email back for decades, in the same way that IE did for the web. New outlook can't come soon enough, but it's still a while off being ready.

[@theundefinedx0018]

The "new" Outlook is just the Outlook Web UI wrapped in an Electron webapp. That design has existed for years, maybe even 10 years, already. I'd argue more that Thunderbird has based their new 115 design on Outlook web xd.

[@FilipCordas]

@@theundefinedx0018 Not electron webview2, I honestly am not sure if it's actually just a pwa they pretend ship.

[@PvtAnonymous]

Outlook must be one of the worst programs ever written. I swear, I spent so many hours trying to figure out basic stuff that just isn't possible (actual hours of research went into this), that I ask myself, how anyone - especially in a business environment - can bear this. Never have I seen any other mail program/organizer cause so much trouble. And after one incident, I stopped servicing Outlook in our repair shop completely. How people pay money for this, is beyond me.

[@NoneyaBidness-e9g]

I swear, there's gotta be some big tech money behind why there's so much anti-linux and anti-open source stuff on youtube. I've experiences some bumps in the road too, as one does when switching to new things that work differently, but my overall experience with anything free and open source, has been that of improvement in most areas that matter to me, compared to the expensive, bulky, spying, subscription only, online only, corporate world of alternatives.

[@Wahaller]

I don't think so. I think this is naturally what happens when people get fed up with a recent change in the proprietary world (this time the big one is MS forcing users to switch from Win10 to Win11) and then use whatever open source alternative there is (Linux). The problem is, they expect it to be very very similar to the proprietary product, and having to relearn literally anything is something they cannot cope with, so they whine about it on YT.

[@dalfvideos]

I remember back in the day at uni a classmate asked the teacher why they were teaching us photoshop and illustrator instead of open source tools since we probably didn’t have the money to adopts the licenses after graduation. The teacher just replied “man who cares, just pirate it unless your employer pays for your license” 😂

[@gclip9883]

Too bad that it has become really complicated. Adobe now forces you to give them your credit card details just to download their trial versions.

[@psiah9889]

​@@gclip9883Piracy is a service problem, and that sounds like a bad service. You can probably find somewhere to download a version of it without giving adobe any information.

[@HOVNA]

​@@gclip9883 You don't need trial versions anymore. Not even a crack. It's a simple install.

[@LukasFink1]

@@gclip9883 There does exist a patch that let’s you download them without credit card details.

[@alienfortytwo]

based

[@ThonyVezbe]

I don't think open source developers tend to "make something different just because they can" when it comes to UI, it's also a way to prevent lawsuits.

[@reed6514]

Yeah, I've heard Apple has a lot of frivolous patents that prevents gimp from adopting some no-nonsense features. In my experienced devving foss (libraries for other developers), many design decisions have come down to a need that is not met by existing software. Sometimes it is "heck this, it's good enough" though lol

[@tpat90]

@@reed6514 Adobe and Microsoft did also a bunch of lawsuiting, when it comes to UI or behaviour of a program.

[@reed6514]

@@tpat90 oops, i meant to say adobe! Though apple probably does it too, idk.

[@Vmac1394]

There's so many frivolous patents that when Windows was first developed, they had to call the file disposal folder the Recycling Bin because Apple patented or trademarked "Trash" for such a folder.

[@hakimehamdouchi7468]

Why do closed sourced programs get away with it then. Affinity UI is just adobe with extra steps

[@jademonass2954]

its not "FOSS is bad", its more like "FOSS is not being taken seriously enough, and get little support because of that" things like godot and OBS is a sign that people will absolutely support something if they are truly useful, and, in general, i think people are caring more about the software that are FOSS

[@dvsaleios]

@truegemuese I see. So basically leeching rats want their cake and to eat it too.

[@fast-eddie-clarke]

@truegemuese people prefer good software that does what it's promised. the big problem with gimp is it getting advertised as a photoshop alternative with similar features so people expect to get a photoshop alternative and get disapointed because it turns out to not be very good at basic everyday tasks..

[@dmitriyivanich1088]

@truegemuese There is OnlyOffice, UI is very similar to the latest MSOffice suites.

[@ryelor123]

Open source communities become very hierarchical. If you try to contribute something good to the code and someone above you doesn't like it, then all your work goes in the garbage. Just like Wikipedia where someone can do a ton of research and add their knowledge to the site only for some selfish loser to revert their changes and send them a threatening message. At least for-profit companies have an incentive for their software to actually work. For most FOSS, there isn't an incentive.

[@mosti72]

​@@ryelor123 bro entirely forgot about forking

[@darealjohnsmith]

I once attempted to compare Photoshop to GIMP. My PC back then was pretty low-spec, but Photoshop was unusable. Just running it at all lagged my PC terribly. GIMP was at least usable.

[@KasumiRINA]

Older Photoshop exists. Like you can always download legacy version of a program that runs on a potato. I prefer 2022 Premiere for legacy titles and 2018-19 Photoshop runs well on a netbook I got for blackouts.

[@darealjohnsmith]

@@KasumiRINA ...this was back in the XP and Vista days

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

Inkscape, Blender, Krita are amazing. GIMP needs help from the community. We all need to chip in.

[@DavidJonSpem]

I absolutely agree with this comment. Inkscape, Blender and Krita are actually amazing. GIMP on the other hand is ehhh... It just has a very strange workflow not only for users that use other software but also for beginners.

[@Bocsaphoto]

I legitimately love Inkscape way more than Adobe Illustrator, it just feels way more precise and uses a lot of CAD features that you won’t find in Illustrator

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

@@DavidJonSpem Well, wes hould get an announcement on GIMP 3.0 this week or early next as it should be release before the end of this month.

[@hammerheadcorvette4]

@@DavidJonSpem 1 think I learned from GIMP in a deep dive recently is the Filters are Node/Graph based. If actually put into practice, this can be a tremendous tool for NDR editing. It's fairly intuitive right now, but hopefull the new UI will help. The 2.99.19 Beta is available for download.

[@DavidJonSpem]

@@Bocsaphoto I agree I love Inkscape. It's really really good software. I've used it various times and also with ease, I got into it with 0 knowledge and it's been going fine. I've used Illustrator before and it was just a pain. I know a friend who uses both but for his workflow Illustrator is better. And that is fair enough you use the tool that you got and does the job.

[@gunt-her]

While I agree with the broader points, I don't think Illustrator vs Inkscape is a fair comparison. Inkscape is more of an "svg editor", and its features are very tightly coupled to the svg spec. I use it to enhance manual .svg manipulation rather than draw art.

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Fair point, it probably was never meant to be a 1:1 replacement for Illustrator. I've just had trouble in the past trying to use it for Illustrator-like tasks, and the problem is that its always advertised to new users as an Illustrator "replacement".

[@gunt-her]

@@EricMurphyxyz Also fair point. Because I'm a programmer, not an artist, I've never tried to use it as an illustrator alternative. But if others more interested in art than I am are getting the impression that it's something it's not, that's a failure in marketing.

[@shrivelling6877]

I'm a bit confused Illustrator is vector art software too so its not an art tool, 90% of digital art will be made in raster graphics rather than vector graphics.

[@AdamBelis]

nah its fair. i see inkscape as mostly replacemnt of illustraor . I contribute to project we cover 90% features that illustrator does . It would be 98% if i did not count printing output.

[@njnjco]

@@shrivelling6877 I think a lot of graphic design stuff is done in vector, so that it can be scaled up and down as much as you need. If you create something in raster graphics, but then want to put it on a massive billboard, you're kinda out of luck. It's just gonna look terrible at that scale. If you're just drawing something to display on a screen or print off at a specific size, then raster is the way to go.

[@stevethepocket]

I think just not being open to criticism plays a big role. For a counterexample, the creators of MuseScore made a big show of responding to all the criticism Tantacrul threw at them, eventually just hired him to overhaul the UI himself, and now it's the literal actual best score composing app out there. Attention GIMP developers: THIS COULD BE YOU.

[@Stratelier]

Speaking as someone who's often lurked the GIMP mailing lists, you're not wrong. Developer entrenchment is a real problem.

[@icgaming4508]

Yeah this update was amazing. Especially with the sounds they added in for each instrument. These sounds almost rival certain libraries from kontakt.

[@cubeofcheese5574]

The solution to open source software's problems is every OSS project needs to hire tantacrul

[@seanriedy]

MuseScore is quickly becoming a very competent notation software, but it still faces the issue of professional acceptance. There's definitely still a perception that, unless you're using something like Finale or Sibelius, your work isn't professional, which sucks for people who don't have access to those softwares, or those who, despite being proficient in the more "professional" options, prefer the workflow of MuseScore. Music notation software is the only field I'm really familiar with, but I'm sure the same is true in other fields where there's an industry standard that you're expected to use, even if the free alternative is just as good or better (which isn't always guaranteed, mind you).

[@stevethepocket]

@@seanriedy How much does that actually matter in a field where so many people work freelance and end up handing in their finished product in PDF form or even as printouts? That's one upside of the gig economy, fewer micromanagers breathing down your neck about how you're getting it done as long as it gets done.

[@Omio9999]

There's more to this, because - get this - there are *patents* on written code, meaning if you even use it for reference, it's technically intellectual property theft. It's stupid to me too, and that's why I want to support FOSS more than paid products.

[@poka26ev2]

0:07 Bro had the audacity to call Audacity bad

[@Zedek]

It is ugly, slow, single-core and struggles when I have 5 tracks open at once. 2023 it finally got real-time VST effect support (beta of course), just 25 years too late....

[@poka26ev2]

@@Zedek Fun fact, I never used audacity, I just made a dad joke

[@BigFatCone]

@@Zedek Sure, but if you only need to record one track, it's really fucking great.

[@SoyFaii]

it's not perfect, but it's pretty good and i prefer it to audition, although i only do basic audio edition

[@ardnys35]

audacity works well for just how simple and easy it is. i just plug my guitar and record it, add backing track, metronome, small effects and stuff. it fills a nice spot.

[@pauljs75]

The main issue with GIMP is that it was doing it's best to avoid a UI/Workflow design patent legal minefield left in place by Adobe. Once some of those things expired, GIMP was too entrenched in doing it's own separate thing to change much for the better. It's not that it's less capable, but it's been hindered by playing by the rules that are heavily favoring the company with a head start.

[@GeoffRiley]

This is an important point. Many open source packages were started amid 'look and feel' lawsuits, and they were forced to do things 'differently' to avoid being dragged into court. All the elements that people particularly want from commercial software are usually the elements that have been tied up through a patent. As for the open source package A, which does not look like closed source package B, that's down to the developers of package A needing an army of lawyers on tap to fight those look-and-feel cases. There's no money in open source-to fight the right to have open source.

[@Marth8880]

Easy answer is these applications are designed by programmers, rather than... product and UI designers

[@windws7137]

which explains why no one uses them lol. Workflow is trash

[@BurningSmith]

@@windws7137 The programmer disagrees :)

[@not_kode_kun]

Developers have fundamentally different standards and needs when it comes to UI and UX. A lot of programmers, including myself, would much rather a command-line tool than some big bloated GUI. we not only find the command-line more useful and practical, but often times also more aesthetically pleasing (probably because we've customized our terminals to look exactly the way we want, and that theming transfers over to any command-line tool we use).

[@randoguy7488]

@@not_kode_kun Your comment shows exactly the kind of thinking that holds the FOSS back. Programmers thinking that UI and UX is just making things pretty, meanwhile it's more things like readability, avoiding information overload, user flows, accesibility...

[@dannydanny2789]

@@not_kode_kun That's the reason why linux will never be anything bigger than a steam deck OS. Non-developers (95% of the user base) need good UIs with intuitive workflow.

[@ngwoo]

It so often feels like gatekeeping to me. Like a lot of open source projects are run by people ideologically opposed to good UX because it keeps the normies out. Look at how much backlash Ubuntu gets for being so "different" (nicer looking and easier to navigate for modern Windows users).

[@jez9999]

I'm a Windows user and I think Ubuntu's UI is a pile of shit. I don't have a super widescreen monitor and I don't want vertical icons. Mint is much better.

[@jaruizm1]

People don't want to learn GIMP, people want free Photoshop.

[@spagootest2185]

draw a circle

[@MrJoeMelenas]

​@@spagootest2185 Actually you can draw a circle in GIMP. XD I suppose that it's for the meme or maybe aint getting what you mean but yes, you can draw a circle in GIMP.

[@Servergmr]

Yeah, when I got to use Photoshop once or twice, it was pretty lit. I'm too poor to be able to continue to use it, unfortunately.

[@AnalogHorrorKdot]

​@@Servergmr piracy my friend

[@floresto]

@@Servergmr have you ever heard about pirated software bro

[@leeroyjenkns5182]

Blender did a UI overhaul and suddenly it's insanely popular and rivals industry giants. This is literally all you have to do. Swallow your tech pride and make a useable UI so those "disgusting normies who don't even know how to use a terminal" can work with your software.

[@yasashii_koe]

It will never happen. Linux is the number 1 example. Ask anyone who contributes to code in open source projects what they think of "normie" friendly distros like Mint Linux. And that Distro still looks like it came 20 years ago with a black coat on top. I would rather sell my data to some corporation just to get shit done than dealing with the ego of the open source developers.

[@hermask815]

Yeah. And I’ve heard of a concept “moron in a hurry”. Make it understandable in that way and add a big “experienced” button to switch on the full features for the RTFM folk who don’t mind the interface to get things done. And gamify it so features are made accessible if a user has achieved a basic skill in that field.

[@XavierLignieres]

@@yasashii_koe I as like wait Mint looks like Windows 7 and it was not THAT long ago .... double checks and sees its been 15 years OH HELL NO ! But on a serious note I do not think what you are saying is true , I work in the I.T department of a large VFX studio and there are a lot of people there that contribute to FOSS projects and most use Ubuntu , Mint , PopOS and laugh at those Arch elitists ... that part of the Linux user base is one of the reasons a lot of people are afraid to try Linux .

[@f0kes32]

​@@yasashii_koe gnome ux is ten fold better than windows

[@akarimarisa9675]

@@yasashii_koe Linux is a kernel. And cinnamon desktop exists for a reason.

[@toastedchoom4347]

Honestly I tried to watch this video with out being negative about it because I agree that "just switch to open source" isnt always a viable alternative, but this literally feels like one of those "content for contents sake" videos.

[@CYB3RC0RP]

I've now watched two of this guy's vids and got that same impression, he has nothing to say, I think he's just trying to work the algorithm by lazily covering topics that generate clicks.

[@noccy80]

Same here. GIMP and Photoshop do not have the same workflow, nor does Inkscape and Illustrator. Same with Blender, Lightwave, Maya etc. Not even office software has the same workflow, although you tend to have more overlap there. Whenever you switch software, you need to learn a new flow, be it over a day or a month. This video sounded more like "I tried GIMP and it didn't look like Photoshop, so it sucks".

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I have Photoshop, FL Studio, Vegas and Microsoft Office right next to GIMP, Audacity, FreeFileSync and Libre Office. Because I'm neither a FOSS tiehard nor a lazy "I just pay for a license" guy. I use the tool that does the best job for the task I need it for. If that tool is FOSS, great, but I have problem running proprietary solutions. Like when I remote into my VMWare VMs using TightVNC.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@noccy80 I have part of my workflow that takes 10 seconds in Photoshop and multiple minutes in GIMP. Simply because it is not possible to select and delete multiple layers at the same time. A very simple and intuitive task that works the same way as in any file explorer. First you select the objects, then you press the delete key. Done. In GIMP you have to select each layer individually, then delete them individually through the context menu. There is no hotkey for deleting layers in GIMP, there is no hotkey to select layers in GIMP. You can't select multiple layers in GIMP. I've spent about a week finding out how to do it in GIMP. And the answer to "how do I...?" was "you can't! It is not a feature" And no, there isn't any fork, plugin, etc for it either.

[@noccy80]

@@HappyBeezerStudios You can select multiple layers in GIMP 2.99 (what will be 3.0), without plugins. Hotkeys for deleting layers can be set already in 2.10, but there is no default hotkey set.

[@Iskelderon]

Even Blender's UI was atrocious for a good two decades and people fought tooth and nail against calls to finally fix it, but eventually it happened near the end of the 2.x range and since then it is a lot more cohesive. Prior to that it was just shortcut hell.

[@gunt-her]

Everything is open source if you're a reverse engineer.

[@ninjanerdstudent6937]

ReVanced. Lol.

[@ttrev007]

i thought the quote is that 'everything is opensource if you code in assembly'.

[@srijanraghavula]

Low level programming

[@tätt_ninjahr]

Haha

[@RodrigoTakehara]

Reverse Engineer aka Reenigne

Being a programmer myself kinda cursed me because when I use open source software I think "this was obviously done by someone that is a programmer but has no idea about usability and user experience". It creates a whole class of problems when the UI doesn't comunicate well with the user, and it happens a lot with people that go from Windows to any Linux distro and can't figure out how to use stuff and specially solve problems. I see people who are Linux beginners having problems that I can't help but think "this whole struggle would simply not exist if they were using Windows" and this is the reason why.

[@SecretAgentBartFargo]

Those of us who have known this for some time already keep Windows installed alongside Linux, or we can run Windows from within QEMU at near native performance. Windows has a hypervisor, but it's nowhere near as fast or stable as Linux KVM. So what now? My Linux can run Windows like it's native, and it's been able to do that for many years now. Take that closed source.

[@blahorgaslisk7763]

There is also the research of usage that doesn't exist for any FOSS I'm aware of. A now very old example was Windows 95. The research for the GUI design was huge. They had people use unfamiliar software and documented hand movement, mouse use and even eye movement to see what they tried and where they looked at the display. This was compiled to show what the genera use was for people and some uncommon things were learned. Not all of them got to actually be used in the GUI. For instance it was documented that people looked far more to the right of the screen than they had believed. Here on YT the right hand side has the list of videos the algorithm thinks you might be interested, but in Win 95 there's not much happening to the left. But the thing is the research was huge, and it resulted in Win 95 having several ways of doing a lot of things. I remember that I thought is was frustrating at first that there were no "one right way" to do some things but rather three or even four ways to get there. This was done to make the system easier to use for more people. Each way was following how some people thought when they were looking for a certain setting or funktion. This kind of research has continued and large companies spend a lot of work at trying to use the results to make their programs easier or better to use for more people. Very little effort of this kind is put into most free software.

[@revimfadli4666]

Well unless the FOSS alternative is written in Java, Python, or other infamous ways of wasting your hardware, the usability and user experience of proprietary software become _very_ undermined by performance issues

[@redheadsg1]

"Has no idea about usability and user experience." How hard is to open Photoshop and copy its UI ???? I mean, Krita kinda does it to a degree.

@@SecretAgentBartFargo I do the exact opposite, Windows 11 is my main OS and I have QEMU installed through MSYS2 and have been using Windows Hypervisor Platform as my accelerator (WHPX) for a while, it is as fast as using Linux natively. At least, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Manjaro and Mint work flawlessly. The issues I have are mainly with QEMU itself, like having to use GTK as my display, but no issues with the hypervisor itself. And I can just use WSL2 and it works well for what I do, so this is not an actual problem.

[@yu-sama]

I find that Krita is just like Blender in that aspect, is very noticeable when the ones working on a project are designers AND programmers. While i hated using Gimp, I am totally in love with Krita, is just so well crafted, didn't feel like using CSP or Photoshop anymore.

[@artguy3414]

Krita is so good, I have buyer's remorse from having CSP, lol

[@TheExileFox]

Blender 3, yes. Blender 2.79 and older? there was not much of a design effort there most of the time

[@haydenlee8332]

omg same! Krita is such an amazing tool and is sooooo much better than GIMP!

[@alguem5996]

@@artguy3414 The only reason I don't have full buyer's remorse from CSP is because the text tool in Krita still absolutely sucks. Celsys beginning to roll out a subscription model, however, has guaranteed that I'll probably jump ship and swim straight to Krita the moment Krita has an actually good text tool. Maybe they'll even have comic-centric functionality just like CSP by then, which would be a huge bonus. If so, I'll miss almost nothing save from some stuff that's nice to have, but not really needed, like 3D stuff.

[@Moony1568]

Glad to see some love for Krita! It’s so damn good

[@busimagen]

❝A huge portion of Linux's problems is due to the fact all of the people who develop it use Linux for nothing more than... developing Linux.❞

[@Felipe-rn1gf]

fr 😂, I use zorin, it is the only one of the few systems that appears to have a design team and that already comes with .exe support pre-installed

[@cewla3348]

@@Felipe-rn1gf you mean you don't need to add *one* repository and install *one* program? that's a selling point? it having bloat?

[@reiniermoreno1653]

Basically FOSS projects are worse because they ARE hobbyist/side projects unlike of most propietary commercial software, the reality is that blender is not a hobbyist project like gimp like you pointed out, the same as thunderbird and firefox

[@Dave102693]

This!

[@sluxi]

there is lots of free software that is not hobbyist/side projects and there's lots of proprietary software that is. This isn't really a FOSS vs. proprietary thing. Especially nowadays when most proprietary software uses an open source component or twenty...

[@TriVoxel]

A couple are actually better. Notably, Blender has basically the best cutting endge features thanks to their new path tracer updates, robust addon system, Eevee, and geometry nodes, color management, among others. Inkscape also takes the cake imo. I hate using Illustrator only to be like, oh, they can't generate barcodes, they can't sample a circular selection to pick a color, their grid system sucks, this and that is missing when I go to use it. Inksacape has some seriously killer tools, and is mainly lacking CMYK color spaces and maybe some raster tools, oh no. It's actually better IMO so even if Adobe did one day support my OS, I still wouldn't buy their illustration software. Like, where's their path effects come on adobe!

[@reiniermoreno1653]

@@sluxi i said it

[@stevethepocket]

Almost every open source success story started out as a hobbyist project at one point, and had to Git Gud before anyone wanted to invest in them. Firefox was objectively the best web browser out there for several years: at a time when the newest version of Internet Explorer was three years old, Firefox came out swinging with features it didn't have, on top of a rendering engine that was easier to program for, and continued to evolve while Explorer continued to be its same old self for ANOTHER two years. If it hadn't been for that, even the Linux nerds would probably still be split between Mozilla's browser and some modern version of Konqueror.

[@revgen11]

Programmers tend to hate UI, so that's not news. In many ways I agree with the sentiment, since a commandlines and hotkeys are often way more efficient when you learn them. But for software like Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve, and others that require an intuitive UI, commandlines and hotkeys won't suffice.

[@MrFram]

No it's more that operating systems deliberately made UI development as painful, expensive and non-portable as possible to make it expensive to make cross-platform apps and lock users to their operating systems. Contrast this with the web which was meant to be easy and cross-platform. Now Electron comes in and brings web technologies to UI development and suddenly all the apps look much better, even the open source ones, as long as they're willing to waste hundreds of megabytes of RAM and disk space on Chromium.

[@arrangemonk]

ui frameworksall painful or slow or both

[@Maddin1313]

If any fellow GIMP users need some outlined text: use the drop shadow filter, 0 blur radius.

[@0MVR_0]

the alpha channel solution is adequate of course, pasting to a raster layer and just selecting the contrast is always an option. or outline a quick curve selection brush on a logo.

[@Zedek]

"Warped text" please within 5 minutes of explaining :))))

[@0MVR_0]

@@Zedek layer distortion from the in-built filters

[@kantorghor]

In GIMP you can draw shapes you just don't know how to do that.

[@modley_the_m_guy]

The fact that he used Inkscape as an example along with GIMP. AT LEAST INKSCAPE IS ACTUALLY GOOD

[@andrewsawesome]

I've used Inkscape and it works very well

[@jangxx]

Last time I tried using Inkscape to make a diagram it couldn't even edit arrows without the arrowheads getting messed up. It's not in the same universe as Illustrator.

[@Random0890_]

Yeah, I actually like it better than illustrator.

[@gen-zboomer]

fuck you I like gimp

[@Bossfightmedia]

Sounds like a skill issue.

[@Omapk]

Creating a UI isn't just code, it's art. People since the beginning of time have desired tools that aren't only functional but look beautiful, from engraving imagery on a sword to fancy animations and styling on OS GUI. A purely functional program works, but one that is aesthetically beautiful is used. In a day and age where artists seem to be most vulnerable, they never have been more needed.

[@lanceevans1689]

No. It's only the MEDIOCRE artist that's so concerned with the UI, and what's on the bulletin board in their cubicle. Real artists, like real mechanics or carpenters, etc., just use the dang tools and get the work done. Not all artists are as effeminate as you. Some us come from the Jackson Pollock school of art.

[@chrisxdeboy]

Can't outline text in Gimp? That's weird, because I've been doing exactly that for years.

[@TheExileFox]

skill issue :)

[@idowhatiwantdowhatisaygoog2361]

How do you achieve the effect? I can think of one way to do it, but what is the best way?

[@chrisxdeboy]

@@idowhatiwantdowhatisaygoog2361 Right click on text layer > Text to outline, then go to your paths tab, right click the path > stroke path.

[@m3lar]

how? the only way I know to do it is a nonsense and does not look like the correct way to do. I do it by: alt + click in the text layer -> create a new layer -> [Select] menu >to path -> [Select] menu >grow -> put the number of px i want the outline to be -> paint/fill with the color i want the outline to be and if for some reason i want to modify the text later i have to do it all again (and it gets worse if you have also rotated and/or scaled the text)

[@gabira10]

you can also do it like this: right click the text layer -> click alpha to selection -> go to selection -> click create border (or grow) -> put size in px -> fill with paint bucket

[@lpfan4491]

I love open source. Not because the software always gets everything right, but because one can see progress instead of just being told that there is progress. I constantly visit the dolphin github despite being essencially code illiterate and the technical side telling me nothing, it is just great to see the number of merged commits going higher.

[@superioropinion6421]

Wdym open source software isn't as good as closed source software that backed by multi billion dollar companies 😂

[@yrmuq]

Yeah, you need billion dollars to make NOT ugly interface 😂😂😂😂

[@satyampandey2222]

😂😂😂😂😂😂 so funny

[@barry5]

@yrmuq there's a reason people get paid to design ui. It's hard.

[@defaultdan7923]

i feel like these kinds of comments miss the point tbh

[@SecretAgentBartFargo]

@@barry5 The last sentence. That's what she said.

[@richardblair3021]

Another problem I have observed is when programmers get emotionally attached to their “product”. I have pointed out legitimate UI issue to be told I’m wrong or not using it properly. No amount of discussion will change them from the line “this is the best of all possible designs”. I always cringe at a release when developers gush about how “beautiful” their interface is.

[@nevermind4328]

a) Maybe with the code they were using, it was the best "possible" design, in terms that they would have had to rewrite a considerable part of the code to make it better and b) how do you know - as legitimate as they could be - that your suggestion was better? It was better for you, that's for sure, that doesn't make it better for everyone. Of course, this applies for the developer too. But ultimately it's you saying black and them saying white. It's free software, you have options: look for software that suits you (whether free or not) or write your own, the developer doesn't owe you support, it's his or her project and they do it for free, which is followed by: they can get attached to it as much as they want if it servers their purposes, they only share it with you because they want to. And, while I'm not a developer, I do work with a lot of technical stuff, 90% of the time when people asks me about a problem the answer is: you're doing it wrong. So maybe you are, 90% chances you are.

[@DJ_Kuroto]

@@nevermind4328 You must be the one receiving the legitimate UI issue report in question.

[@MangaGamified]

my gripe in some apps that doesn't have them, is no search function in their app if you are looking for a setting/function, like Mihon app for example. I rarely if not ever complain about UI as you said, they can be pretty be something about it, especially if they're the only one who made such app, so it's not really worth my time. Just for the record I'm not talking about GIMP nor use it, was even surprised how many people complain about it and about the devs.

[@cbnewham5633]

"You aren't using it properly". No, it's "you've designed it poorly". A good UI makes it obvious to a user how to use the software. If anyone uses that weak excuse of blaming the user then they need to have a good look at their design - or preferably get someone else to look at it and provide constructive feedback.

[@LabelsAreMeaningless]

You're saying people shouldn't be proud of their work, and should make it how you want it, not how they want it. You may want to rethink that. Beauty is also very subjective.

[@ionsilver557]

My personal attitude is that if there's any feature that I rely on heavily, the kind that its absence would seriously affect my productivity, and I can't find it in open-source alternatives, then that means it's time for me to pay for what I need. I'm not against paying for what I really need, I very much hate predatory monetization, especially subscriptions. That hate is often enough to motivate me to put up with the inconvenience of open-source alternatives.

[@MangaGamified]

TV-paint, Spline and Redshift(there are sometimes like once in 1~3 years) are the only ones that rarely has a crack and ones that used some dongle, if you are talking about some CAD, soil simulation software, soil penetration software, some engraving or 3D printing software, I think I didn't seen a few that haven't been cracked already. If you earned some good doe, I think you should give back to the good guys(except to adobe & autodesk and unity) tho I understand the pain of using it once a month and have to pay 4-digits per month.

[@KrzysiuNet]

This + when results are simply bad. Like Hugin. Sorry, but I don't have 2 hours to get bad looking photo stack or panorama. Helicon Focus for stacking or Microsoft ICE [freeware] for panoramas is basically config-less and produces way better results in the fraction of time.

[@KasumiRINA]

Careful with paid software: we had half the accounting industry lose their data to ransomware in Ukraine because they used paid software due to idiotic company policies. Licensed software that nerds in suits use auto-updates and WILL break your work, in best case needing to download an old backup and in worst case locking up all your data like infamously with Petya virus. Goes without saying NEVER pay for russian software. Or install it in general, a PC infected with Yandex Browser or Kaspersky virus basically needs to be burned as it's unsalvageable - good luck deleting those "programs". But yeah if you pay for software you kinda out yourself as a mark to companies so that's on you.

[@davidlewis6728]

there is another option.

[@flubnub266]

I often choose open-source software specifically BECAUSE the paid version could disappear one day. If I'm heavily dependent on that software, my work is just over now unless I can find an open-source alternative and hopefully everything I've made can be converted to the new workflow. At least with open source someone else can pick up the ropes if it gets abandoned, and that's often what happens in those cases.

[@boredandstoned13]

Dont you dare go bad talking Inkscape. We love Inkscape ❤️

[@firebadnofire9768]

FOSS is a hobby thing. For 99% of consumers, "It's open source!" Is NOT a selling point by any margin. Most probably don’t know what that means

[@SethbotStar]

I think a better selling point would be that it's cheaper, but I don't know how much that matters and how sustainable that would be for everyone.

[@akeem2983]

Yep, some of the most succesful open source projects (Blender, Linux) don't win because their clients know that it's open source, they win because they're genuinely good

[@firebadnofire9768]

@@akeem2983 i use Linux day in and out for my job and just about everything at home. If i can’t run it in Linux I run it in a Windows VM (with GPU passthrough if needed) I do this because I am a professional sysadmin and hobbyist Most consumers aren't either and wants something that "Just Works"™️ My systems are better than most consumer systems, but that's for my workflow. Most people's entire computer could be replaced with a bootloader for chrome and nothing would change. In fact, Google made a bootloader for chrome and it's very successful with consumers

[@psmv3]

I would say the only OSS projects with good functionality & UI are Krita and Blender. FOSS isn't what brings food home for developers, it is working for big corporations that does. For OSS developers, it is rather a passion project; which explains why the "Cathedral" is so prevalent in open source and the consequent stagnation and group-think of these projects. They built it from the ground up, and they don't want others to ruin it.

[@firebadnofire9768]

@@psmv3 imo KDE's apps have the best UI and they're open source Gparted (not KDE dev'd) is my goto disk partitioner and it's open source with a phenomenal Ui

[@kuba4ful]

The title should say something along the lines of "Why So Many Open Source Alternatives Fail Against Giants", with the thumbnail showing GIMP and Blender with two captions, respectively "Why did this fail?" and "When this succeeded?" Right now the current title seems not only clickbait-y, but also biased. I know that's not the point of the video, but both of it's presenting factors, thumbnail and title, indicate otherwise. It would invite much more people to watch the video, and potentially subscribe and stay for longer, if the forefront presentation seemed less criticizing and more explanatory (is that a real word? did i just make it up? lol). The suggestion I gave is just what first came to my mind, sure the title doesn't sound as catchy and is too long, but the important thing is that it doesn't give a bad first impression. You make some good points in this video, but with the current title most of the audience you're inviting (that is going to watch it, not just leave a reaction and leave), are either those that have no stakes in open source projects, or those that are up for defending open source projects against what they assume to be an attack, not a good-hearted criticism and feedback, which the video is in reality. Sometimes generating less impressions but getting the video watched by relevant people is more important than getting more impressions from clickbaity title, but alienating some of the actual targeted audience of the video. Wish you good luck in the future.

[@reed6514]

I love your title suggestion, and it would necessarily change the nature of the video. Because a big part of the answer to why they "fail" is broader societal context. Yes, many of the feature and GUI criticism are valid (some of them are overblown), but at the end of the day the main answer is money. And governments invest many many millions, probably billions in software. But they invest in closed proprietary software (& hardware). My school district has ipads, private maintenance task management software, google classroom, and tons of other private for-profit closed software. My county recently spent like $26 million on new court software & hardware. Most the gov desk jobs use windows. My city uses NovUsAgenda for meeting documents and another private service for meeting videos. There's also market factors, overzealous patents, corporations lobbying ... like the whole answer is more about how we fund and support and regulate tech as a society, rather than about individual gui and feature decisions.

[@captaincommando9839]

It made me click but I didn't bother watching the video, instead I just went ahead and downvoted it for the statement in the title and made this comment.

[@captaincommando9839]

The title is literally saying "Open source = bad" which automatically registers in my mind as somebody making a stupid video gas-lighting and wasting everyone's time. I feel the same way about videos with similar titles.

[@benjaminparker5044]

Yeah, it’s kind of wild to have a video about open source softwares that doesn’t even mention Blender.

[@sarthikg]

Open-source projects works like a charm until they require a dedicated GUI of some sort, because that requires designers. There's too many good OSS projects like linux, git, tor, and even almost all the programming languages. As soon as we look at projects which require a GUI, they start falling apart unless & until there's big corporations/govt donating to the cause. If you see, most of the donations that comes in for these successful open-source projects like mozilla or tor are from corporate or govt. Sadly, its hard to keep a GUI project alive for long just with public funding.

[@TheExileFox]

Git has GitAhead - it isn't perfect, but it is rather good.

[@francisquebachmann7375]

I think the reason might that the UX /UI designers are already underpaid and the last thing they want is to normalize their work as free labor. While Devs are very well paid in the industry that coding some small projects for free won't affect them that much.

[@Leonhart_93]

It's ironic that programmers work for free basically all the time to make open source possible, but designers don't 😂

[@Aeroxima]

@@francisquebachmann7375 I don't know about others, but I've wanted to contribute for a while. There just isn't a road to it. It feels like (figuratively obviously) I'd have to go through the weeds and backroads and knock on somebody's back door and beg to redesign it, with no idea how they'll take it. Like no open avenue, just have to make your own.

[@turolretar]

@@Aeroxima this is 100% true. I suppose most maintainers would either say redesign is not needed or not on the roadmap. I’ve seen that a couple of times before. Though maybe some would welcome it

[@DileepNow]

Every opensource art software that I use has atleast one major weakness that they simply refuse to fix. Blender cannot sync viewport visibility with render visibility. Viewlayers are painful to work with. Inkscape has no CMYK. Krita has no eraser tool (I am an experienced Krita user and you are all wrong). Pencil 2D has no lasso selection.

[@bhavyakukkar]

please do not use Pencil2d, this is a request

[@too_blatant]

"open source alternatives are bad" >blender >krita

[@mizu_7422]

VLC, linux, obs, firefox etc...

[@tendanium]

​@@mizu_7422VLC's UI leaves a lot to be desired, but it's the only issue

[@TheExileFox]

Kicad, Audacity...

[@novakk86]

You didn't watch the video, did you?

[@zhulikkulik]

Both are sponsored by giants. Krita by Epic and Intel and Blender's list of corporate sponsors is huge: Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Epic, couple AAA game studios and even Volkswagen and BMW. They are so good because they are backed by huge companies. It would be weird if these people invested money and Blender or Krita still had horrible UI/UX.

[@DienerNoUta]

bad? i use mostly only open source programa not because they are open source, but because I feel that they are better and more complete (and free, I prefer to donate to the creator instead of pay monthly for a program)

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Some are, but there's a lot that just can't compare to the proprietary alternatives imo

[@ilonachan]

​​@@EricMurphyxyz and for some purposes there literally is not an alternative (to the open source). It's like how I will never move back to windows, because for software development there simply is not an alternative to linux. (I guess there's mac, but I don't wanna be locked into THAT ecosystem no thank you)

[@qlx-i]

Yeah, but as soon as you need a DAW for example, there IS, of course, an option, but it's far from a perfect one. The base suite is quite good (talking about libreoffice, etc.), but it gets quite stale once you move t some industry-specific things

[@jonatansexdoer96]

Have you used gimp and photoshop before?

[@couch9416]

Sure, if you only pick the examples that fit your world view Open Source is always great

[@Yoru05]

i am just thankful we have these good alternatives compared to these corporate shit products

[@somedude5951]

Same same.

[@turolretar]

your computer is not open source

[@phanirithvij]

@@turolretar it's getting there slowly with riscv and more efforts

[@Takyodor2]

@@turolretar Weird argument. Ofc it's better to strive for a larger percentage of FOSS, even if 100% isn't possible?!

[@keithmanfredi]

In the name of the Kubuntu, the Krita and the holy Godot - Amen.

[@prjct.no_name]

If buying isn't owning then piracy is the answer

[@tuxidoyt]

You're Buying the License not the Product

[@BoxEnjoyer]

There is actually a pretty major reason why gimp can't just do what photoshop is doing: Patents.

[@CRanunculus]

are docked windows patented? honest question.

[@imeakdo7]

​@@CRanunculusgimp is not user friendly

[@imeakdo7]

​​@@CRanunculusgimp is not user friendly and neither is Photoshop. It's just that people learn Photoshop because everyone uses it because they were first to market so suddenly Photoshop is user friendly but Gimp isn't

[@holleey]

@@imeakdo7 Macromedia Fireworks was user friendly. then Adobe came, bought and archived it.

[@manformerlypigbukkit]

@@imeakdo7huh? I picked up photoshop and learned the basics pretty easily, where’d you get the idea that it isn’t user friendly?

[@nebula8072]

Old looking doesn't necessarily mean bad to use. Not everything needs fancy animations and effects and flat design. If it works it works, the appearance of the program shouldn't matter to you unless you're really insecure about how programs on your computer look for some reason.

[@lazer8776]

It’s unusable. Not just the looks but the functionality.

[@Chronor]

the design is important. imgine if you wanna close a browser without the x button. you have to do alt+f4. its simply easier and more convience to use the x button

[@lazer8776]

@@Chronor funnily enough I’ve disabled both because I have accidentally closed windows and tabs thereby losing data.

[@SteinGauslaaStrindhaug]

Gimp isn't particularly good, but I think the main issue is expecting Gimp to do the exact same things as Photoshop. Both Photoshop and Gimp used to be primarily photo editors; i.e. virtual darkroom stuff, colour correction, photo manipulation etc. And we had separate software for other kinds of graphics like Illustrator or Inkscape for vector graphics; but at some point they started adding a bunch of illustrator features into photoshop and Illustrator got harder to use while Inkscape kept improving. So if you want to work with text and vector type graphics; just use vector based software. With filters you can even do a lot of raster-like effects in Inkscape too, so if you're mainly combining pre-existing elements like photos and text with graphical elements, it's way more efficient to use Inkscape than try to do it in Gimp. If you primarily want to do digital painting and drawing, just use Krita, that's what _it_ is optimised for. I haven't used photoshop myself for about 20 years, but my impression of it from seeing people use it is that it has become a very complex and bloated software trying to do everything that you'd normally use several different programs for. And while I get that it's sometimes nice to use software that can do several things at once; I'd much rather prefer to use software optimised for the kind of work I'm currently doing. I'm a web frontend programmer, so for work I mostly use text editors for my SVG needs, though if I need to change something that is awkward to do directly in code I will use Inkscape. I also have Gimp, but I very rarely use it, mostly just for scaling down large images once in a while. At home I use Krita for my digital paintings. I have Gimp and Inkscape too, but I very rarely use it. But if I want to do some classical photo manipulation, rubber stamp tool etc. and filters I might use Gimp; and if I wanted to do some layout stuff (more complex than what I could easily program in HTML) for print etc. I probably use Inkscape.

[@RealFlicke]

It wouldn't make sense to cut anything related to vectors out of a pixel editor. Vector curves are important for masks (eg. to knock out the background of a photo) or to create text.

[@Shiftarus]

Honestly when I use GIMP its not a lack of features that frustrates me. Its counter-intuitive UI design. Photoshop has been filling with "bloat" for many years but no matter how big the software gets I can count on simple actions to be easily executed. I respect GIMP but that doesn't mean have to lie to myself about its problems. Adobe has its own problems too. But as of right now, UI prevents me from staying on GIMP

[@lowellthoerner1209]

Inkscape is arguably better than Gimp at what it does, but it's still very subpar in terms of UI and such. I don't know if this is the case on other operating systems, but on MacOS, the UI is *incredibly* inconsistent in the way it reacts to clicks and keypresses, and it makes it borderline unusable.

[@SteinGauslaaStrindhaug]

@@lowellthoerner1209 neither Inkscape nor Gimp works particularly well in macOS. I think the horrible performance is worse than the UI inconsistencies. Inkscape works well on Linux and Windows though.

[@bigmanmccheez5342]

You use the software you need to get the work done, wild idea. I wish people could be like this for Photoshop because as you said, Photoshop is very bloated now and people expect anything remotely close to Photoshop (ie Gimp) to work exactly the same way.

[@boahneelassmal]

this is what frustrates me tbh... I'm frustrated with how much apps are phoning home nowadays for absolutely no reason. So I turn to FOSS/FLOSS but more often than not the design of the apps is really quite bad. f-droid alone is enough to make me question whether I should continue. how anyone finds anything in that app is beyond me. I do completely understand and respect that many projects are one-man-bands and they're doing their best, and sadly, while I have a design background, I am no UI/UX designer so I wouldn't be much of a help. I do wish there were more designers like those floss programmers out there that would join a project, give it a good(enough) ui (it doesn't need to be perfect by all means) and help adding worth to the open source scene...

[@daninogil]

i used it and found a good guitar tuner that's a plus.

[@ls.c.5682]

If you're into drawing/painting, Krita is easily as good as PS. If you're into modelling or sculpting, Blender is taken way more seriously now than it was and I'd rather use it than 3DS Max or Maya. ZBrush is still marginally "better" for sculpting but honestly there's not enough of an improvement for the price tag

[@GeoffRiley]

Re: Z-Brush… that's especially true since they changed the pricing scheme to a 'rental' basis. I miss the old Pixologic structures; they were so much friendlier before Maxon took them over.

[@MENTOKz]

So i got u bro: There isn't a built-in way to select multiple layers with a click-and-drag motion in GIMP, like some other image editing software. However, there are a few effective methods to select multiple layers: 1. Shift-Click: Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. Click on the desired layers one by one in the Layers panel (usually on the right side of the window). This will add each layer to your selection while keeping the previously selected layers active. 2. Rectangular Selection: Click on the rectangle selection tool (the square icon) in the toolbox. Alternatively, press the h key on your keyboard. In the Layers panel, click and drag the selection tool to encompass the desired layers. All layers completely within the rectangle will be selected. 3. Select All Visible Layers: In the Layers panel, right-click on any layer. A context menu will appear. Choose the option Select > All Visible Layers. 4. Select Linked Layers: If your layers are linked (which groups them for transformations), you can select one linked layer and the entire group will be selected. To link layers, right-click on a layer and choose Link Layers. These methods offer flexibility for choosing the layers you need in GIMP.

[@dxcvvxd]

in this way gimp is much more complex and allows control in any way you want

[@KrzysiuNet]

@@dxcvvxd and for me that's one of the biggest pros of software* - I don't want to change my habits for software, I want them to act exactly I want. Sometimes in very weird way. * originally I wrote "FLOSS", but the truth is that many floss isn't that configurable (like VLC, where at first glance you can customize a lot, but then you find out some things need a lot of work, like play/stop with click on the screen or are just impossible) and there are prop software known from its amazing customization, like ones I love - XYPlorer (don't try it tho, if you'd configure it to your needs, create zillion customizations, you'll be stuck with it forever, nothing comes close), foobar2000 [freeware] or FileMenu Tools.

[@markcorrigan3930]

🤔

[@WZen0]

ChatGPT ass answer

[@nBp4tB12]

At some point I stopped using non-open source software, and now I don't have the knowledge to compare open source and closed source software.

[@nasfoda_gamerbrbigproducti5375]

Most times the differences are little details, in the end you will reach the same result.

[@роскомнадзор-д8я]

my condolences

[@Terryotes]

Depends on what you either are suffering pain and agony or doing fine

[@Shiftarus]

@@nasfoda_gamerbrbigproducti5375 eventually

[@robmacl7]

Good points, but also people don't really appreciate how old Gimp is and how that has led to its quirky interface. At this point there are Gimp users who have been using it for 25 years and don't want it to change. It was originally targeted to Unix and I suspect that the developer community still heavily tends in today direction. At that time the Unix window user interfaces were very diverse and all quite different from MS Windows. What happened is that the Gimp UI was pretty much frozen in a long time ago. Yes, a stronger organization with a design vision would have made a difference. But Gimp was not doing it different just for the heck of it, what is now the Photoshop standard didn't exist or at least wasn't clearly dominant. I bet today's Photoshop users would be pretty baffled by ancient Photoshop.

[@McClainJ]

Open source software is on average better than its competition. Examples of open source software that are better than any direct competition: VLC, Inkscape, OBS, Kate, (95% of the GNU and Linux command line utilities), most Linux shells(there are like 2 that suck), GCC, Git, KDE Plasma, Firefox (Personal preference may apply), Linux print drivers, Linux keyboard drivers, Metasploit, Nmap, and the Linux Kernel.

[@Ledplous]

I love KDE plasma it's simply a superior version of the windows desktop environment.

[@novh4ck]

Krita and Godot Engine are also amazing.

[@yektaagra741]

I recently switched from VLC to PotPlayer, i recommend it

[@ekszentrik]

Open source is on average not better than proprietary for tools that non-IT users could care for. Take any task a non-IT person could care about, and compare them. Making a presentation? Powerpoint is best. etc.

[@McClainJ]

​@@ekszentrik If you want to make the non-it user argument. A chromebook is probably the best choice and google apps are going to be the most user friendly.

[@eliabexp]

it is not a rule, there are some exceptions, like OBS being the best broadcast software and AnyType being better that notion

[@precisedime1377]

OBS isn't even that great, but it's probably the 'best' - the whole recording/broadcasting software market has been surprisingly scarce, there never really was any *GOOD* 'proprietary' program they all kind of sucked. So all OBS had to do was to be the first 'good enough' one to dominate the market. Thats kind of why it took off in popularity so easily, it's a no-brainer choice.

[@MastermindAtWork]

There are some open source software that I love and rely on as alternatives. Krita, Darktable, KDENLive, and Blender are great examples but man GIMP is so garbage man. It's crazy that the software hasn't evolved in the last 20 years...

[@NathanielClay]

Krita is amazing!

[@CathrineMacNiel]

I would say Gimp doesn't have to evolve any further toward PS, since it doesn't aim to be a PS contender. Its a Image Manipulation Program (based on Gtk) and for that its pretty great. For drawing though you better use Krita.

[@ZeerakImran]

@@CathrineMacNielthats what photoshop is. Image manipulation. thats a very general term that covers it all but both gimp and photoshop are direct competitors (not saying gimp is good). Both of them output the same formats too and deal with the same formats.

[@beni2am]

they did evolve, but on the unreleased dev version, the current one is still based on the version that was released 20 years ago, that's why it feels 20 years old

[@ZeerakImran]

@@beni2am i have tried the gimp 2.99 development version and it hasn't evolved. You said unreleased dev version which may be a future version 3. I hope that does evolve. In truth, the development version I tried looks really good in the sense that yes it requires a lot of ui work, but that UI work doesn't seem too hard to do. They have a software that's almost complete and ready, the UI doesn't have to change massively either. It can remain the same but it needs small changes which will make a huge difference to the overall feel and workflow of it. Currently, there is a horizontal scroll bar on the bottom of the left panel which looks silly and requires you to scroll to see the rest of the panel. I'll make the panel bigger, no biggie. Ahh. When you do that, the icons in the top section of the panel also rearrange and expand to fill the wider panel and now they look like a mess. A way to separate the expansion of these 2 elements would work or better yet, a redesign of the bottom section of the panel so that the horizontal scroll isn't required when the panel is at default width and a redesign of the top section of the panel so that the icons for the tools don't look like a mess at almost all panel widths except the thinnest one. Even just small general alignments to be improved/corrected would go a long way. Btw, for some reason, when I opened GIMP recently on my mac, I was like woooee. The retina really hit hard. It was like seeing oled for the first time. I'm used to the retina display but I think its from having used GIMP in the past (many many years ago) on Windows laptops running Linux. And the jump from that because its the first time I saw GIMP look like this.

[@lacroustinette5299]

Resizing a large picture in GIMP can take 10+ seconds, while it takes less than a second with other software. Even the code is bad it's not just the UI. Also browsing directories is painfully slow when they contain a large number of image files. GIMPS makes you feel your $2k PC is a toaster.

[@Pichelinou]

3:25 "git a **simple** command line tool for version control" KEKW

[@ark_knight]

as long as you arent rebasing

[@michaelhoffmann2891]

@@ark_knight rebase is where we separate the Men (or your humanoid gender of choice) from the Mice (or your preferred rodent of choice) 😆 I have no need for "energy drinks": I get my jolts and kicks from a nice interactive rebase that is going haywire and my code suddenly looks like what I did after `git commit -am "first commit"` 😆

[@joergsonnenberger6836]

git is what happens when you give a home work assignment to students with a week deadline and don't tell the other people where it came from.

[@robertharris4129]

Yeah, that's when I knew this dude had absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Git is still the best tool at what it does, but a simple tool with very little features? Lmaooo

[@fuzzywzhe]

I've worked with a ton of revision control systems. From Rational Rose, to Perforce, to CVS and Subversion. Git has its problems, but it's hands down the best overall system for large projects. Git is superior to Perforce, and Perforce is vastly superior to the rest, although they are all fine for small projects. Except for Rational Rose, I hated that.

[@lydierayn]

On that note, Shotcut has been the only open source video editor that i didn't get dissapointed in.

[@_S_P_A_C_E_M_A_N_]

Another vote for shotcut. It's my go to whenever someone asks for a simple video editor

[@mikespangler98]

I couldn't get iMovie on a Mac to work at all, but Shotcut worked just fine.

[@musicman3569]

Agreed. I have formerly done video production using everything from Video Explosion (later to become Sony Vegas), Premiere, to Final Cut Pro since the early 2000s. I don't do it professionally any more, so I looked for free/OSS video editor alternatives. They were all downright terrible! For example, I remember reading articles on the "awesome" power of Cinelerra, and I'm pretty sure they never actually used it on a full project because even after thoroughly reading the documentation and following proper procedure it was a clunky, laggy, buggy, crash-ridden mess. I tried several others, equally bad or so basic as to be nearly useless. So I gave up and paid for Cyberlink PowerDirector, which was infinitely better than that mess, and still cheaper than Adobe. A couple years ago I decided to check again for new options, found Shotcut, and found it to be of similar quality to PowerDirector, and happily switched to it. I use it all the time now and I can actually get the job done in a reasonable manner. And it works on both Windows and Linux which is awesome for portability since I use both!

[@dhombios]

I think that one of the major reasons why FOSS (and professional engineering software) have ugly UIs is that most C and C++ cross platform GUI libraries can be quite hard to use. As a result, making a good ui requires a lot of effort, while being less interesting than programming the actual functionality of the software (some of them completely changed the way in which the language works) On the other hand, JavaScript and html seem to be better suited for developing cross platform GUIs as they were designed for that purpose. Electron apps usually have nice GUIs (but their performance isn't usually particularly good) Maybe a library designed to make it easy to integrate figma or penpot gui designs in C++ code could help improving GUIs of open source projects. Lack of standardisation in GUI apis makes it also difficult to improve this situation (UI is still treated as an addition, not a main component of the language, which could be one of the reasons why most open source programs just provide text based interfaces)

[@lucemiserlohn]

I'll take shitty 90s UI over the colossal waste of computing resources that Electron / any Web-Tech is any day. It's meant to do work, not look pretty and eat up half my RAM on _any_ given machine, tyvm.

[@dhombios]

@@lucemiserlohn , even though electron performance has improved in the recent years (at least opening vscode no longer causes my computer fans to work at their maximum speed), the amount of resources it uses is a problem. The problem is that the lack of modern cross platform GUIs and the importance of UX in marketing have caused a raise in the amount of apps that use electron. On the other hand, the lack of standardisation between operating systems makes it difficult to develop cross platform GUIs (I know that including a basic graphics output API in the standard library of languages would limit its performance compared to using the newest framework available, but many programs don't need rendering at 140 FPS and it would still be more performant than electron while ensuring cross platform support). Hopefully, more apps start to use frameworks like flutter, which seem to have better performance than web apps bundled as desktop programs

[@AlphaGarg]

I mean, yeah, what you said, making a library. Game companies (big and small) do this all the time - take an engine like Unity, which has very bare minimum features in terms of common tasks for your specific game, and make an SDK for your games on that engine. Functions upon functions of reusable code. Wanna make a UI window with N textboxes arranged in X ways? Just write a function for that and call it later. Oh no! You wanna do it completely differently now? Okay, just rewrite those parts to use a *different* function you used somewhere else. But like the video guy said, that requires some sort of a unified vision. Which a lot of open source projects don't seem to have, beyond slightly improving the existing thing.

[@RealFlicke]

This is a good point. I would add that many programmers are just not interested and don't have knowledge about UX design. The combination of programmer and designer seems to be quite rare but it is what you need if a one person project has to have great UX.

[@dhombios]

@@RealFlicke, I think I'll need to learn some UX design hehehe Converting the UI provided by the designer can sometimes be quite tedious and repetitive (and usually gui code is not the easiest one to read as a consequence of that). Maybe that's one of the reasons why there aren't many designers that code, nor programmers that know UX design

[@p_mouse8676]

There are two issues here. For most open source programs it's just lack of focus with a mix of often very personal subjective ideas that are hindering the entire project. The second one is just the fact you can't switch if you're a professional. Clients or coworkers simply expect a certain standard.

[@Soulwrite7]

I have only used GIMP, Inkscape, and FreeCAD; having never touched the competition. As such, watching you use GIMP and clicking on an object in a non-locked layer (the backdround), mis-licking on the shear tool rather than the rotate was painful, I am sure you can edit rotated text, though will double check and reply to this if you are correct. Having not used the 'normal' products, my expectations and workflow suit the tool I am using. A workman does blame the tools. If improvements can be made with what you suggest, then I welcome the change, but free software should just seek to be clones of their competition either.

[@Stratelier]

At least as of GIMP 2.x, no you cannot perform basically ANY non-text edits to a text layer if you want to be able to go back and change the underlying text afterwards. GIMP necessarily needs to render the text into raster form (hence it being a layer) and every other tool only operates on this raster "copy", meaning that if you want to change the text later, it needs to re-rasterize the text _from scratch_ (hence the warning about losing edits). This is not like Inkscape where the transforms/effects are preserved/editable separately from the underlying text.

[@Soulwrite7]

@@Stratelier Ah, thank you for the clarification. I used to use GIMP extensively, but since we started working directly with the laser printers Inkscape has become my go-to (also had to transition to CMYK). I must have been thinking of Inkscape, as it has been a while since using GIMP. Thank you for the correction.

[@AuxHex]

@@Soulwrite7 Inkscape in general is a much better software than GIMP. UI is better, most features work as expected, etc. It might not be Blender quality, but it's usable for actual work. GIMP is a bloody joke, I'd rather use MS Paint than GIMP.

[@razeredits6303]

I totally agree❤️❤️

[@jonah1976]

It's better if you don't use anything else or you'll discover how slow GIMP is. I'm not just talking about the lack of GPU acceleration. Every filter and every possible operation (file saving, undo) is slower than anything else ever made, including a rusty copy of JASC Paint Shop Pro from the late 90s.

[@UliTroyo]

6:50 oh, you actually say it! Yeah, I was gonna comment, it’s usually a lack of designers that make FOSS so clunky. Let me tell you though, as a designer, Inkscape is definitely better than Illustrator now. I still prefer Affinity Designer, but probably not for long now that they’ve been acquired, and because Inkscape is still improving.

[@akeem2983]

I do use Inkscape for a long time, but I'm not a designer, I just draw diagrams and some other casual things in it, because it's free and seems good enough for me. But I didn't knew that designers also respect it!

[@iokwong1871]

Very much true, Illustrator is OK.... But OK, there are much better and inkscape is one of those.

[@pipeliner8969]

Inkscape is awesome!!!

[@skyworm8006]

I'm not sure this plays a part. I use propriety software and websites like KZbin all the time that are constantly poorly designed or made worse and worse for no reason. It is those designers making it worse and making it impossible to find things. Lots of FOSS has no worse or better design than propriety software. I've been using logseq and obsidian recently, and logseq has better design for menus and stuff, though it's a small/irrelevant thing. I would say GIMP is worse, but Photoshop is bad too, only a bit better.

[@MangaGamified]

I knew these western "lifetime" licenses would just want to be acquired private equity, anyone remembered Allegorithmic Substance Painter?

[@pw6002]

For video editing : DaVinci Resolve. Not exactly « open source » per se - it’s developed by BlackMagic which is the manufacturer of the professional digital RED cameras. But free and very complete.

[@salmonsushi47]

Gimp needs an UI overhaul like blender had

[@1pcfred]

No it doesn't. I don't want Gimp to change. I've been using Gimp ever since it first came out. So I'm quite used to it now.

[@salmonsushi47]

@@1pcfred Yeah but A little organization wouldn't hurt anyone maybe if they made it easier on eyes tweaked the menus a little changed some minor things those annoy people it doesn't have to be big I dont think gimp's UI is bad its just confusing at times for new comers

[@1pcfred]

@@salmonsushi47 you just can't please everyone all of the time. But if anyone doesn't like Gimp it does come with a double your money back guarantee. You can't beat that.

[@salmonsushi47]

@@1pcfred I like gimp that's why I'd like it to be used by more people and that's only if its more user friendly

[@1pcfred]

@@salmonsushi47 Gimp is software and being such it is not friendly or unfriendly. It is just a program. I really don't care what other people do either. As long as they're not bothering me while they're doing it.

[@joeroeinski1107]

Blender is a prime example of what open source CAN be had there been the funding and diligence for it. Most open source projects are run by contributors and get paid little to work on these projects, and don't have expectations on feature sets that the industry requires. Because of this, they tend to be massively inferior to their industrial counterparts which are developed by full-time employees funded by the company themselves. You are literally comparing the work of a fully paid company with millions at their disposal to a github project run mostly by contributors as a hobby in their spare time (again, not saying all FOSS projects are like that, but most are). The design choices come from individuals who aren't trying to appeal to large companies but just providing alternatives that individuals can use on their side which explains their questionable design choices (again, blender's UI is awesome to use, so it's not an inherent reason). Very appalling comparison to make.

[@ryuukeisscifiproductions1818]

Blender does get a lot of support though from a very extensive and large community willing to contribute and donate to make it better. something that a lot of smaller open source software doesn't get. Of course Blender is also helped by the fact that its major competitors are all insanely expensive to get, as in costing thousands of dollars a year in licensing.

[@kazegarasu4704]

I don't get it ... What's the purpose of this video ?

[@steve16384]

To pick and choose specific software that suits the argument that some free/foss software isn't as good as equivalent software that you have to pay for a licence to use.

[@Game_Hero]

to be a wakeup signal that open source apps can be much better with successful exemples to follow.

[@danielelewis9303]

We need an "open ui" system and let designers improve open source software to build their portfolio in the same way developers do.

[@franklsuarez]

Businesses have enough money to gaslight customers. "Did you know that software crashes are a sought after feature? Advertisements enhance the user experience."

[@ryelor123]

Businesses have a financial incentive to get things right even if that means going against the vision of the lead programmers. In FOSS, its the lead people who get their way at the expense of the software. I'm sure there's some greasy nerd living on welfare who's been programming GIMP or some other software for 20 years and gets his enjoyment from trashing every good idea that's brought before him.

[@franklsuarez]

@@ryelor123 "a financial incentive to get get things right" Right...hmm, okay... kzbin.infoLV9zC2svwDE

[@gexxel]

2:12 was this intentional?

[@authorminator1579]

LMAO. How did we miss that?

[@Epinardscaramel]

WTF! Edgelord sneaking in slurs 🙄

[@user-a0d9w0ec9wiej]

Died 2007 Born 2024 Welcome back U R MR GAY

[@grumpycup4762]

As someone who started out opensource with blender+gimp back in 2009, went to university to become a 3D artist, and now over a decade later, is a senior 3D artist... You lose a lot of illusions as you grow. I was just about to say: Blender is the one exception, in that it handily beats some of the biggest 3D softwares (lightwave, 3DS MAX (easily lol) and Cinema 4D) while even rivalling the big one; Maya. In many many ways. Maya is still industry standard in a lot of places, but that's simply because of many integrated plugins. A lot of companies the coming 5 years will start asking themselves; Why are we paying Autodesk a 4000 dollar license fee (per person) and then 1k per year to keep that license alive, when we can do "most things" we need in Blender to satisfactory result? That's what Ubisoft did and now they're rendering all their cinematics in Cycles. Money talks.

[@LeadHeadBOD]

Industry inertia is a real thing. Those Maya and 3DSMax plugins ain't gonna re-write themselves to Python, so studios keep using them, even though long term financially they lose out.

[@Rama-q6c2g]

This is kind of mind-blowing to me that anyone has the opinion that open-source is worse... The only real downside i see is that open-source is often a bit more complicated to learn, but if you know how to program, you can do so much to customise and improve your workflow.

[@jjc2896]

but if you don’t know how to program, like most users, you can’t. And the software remains incapable of solving the problem at hand.

"In the open source world, the nineties never truly ended." This was a hard statement.

[@michaelhoffmann2891]

And guilty as charged. Because to this day, Forms is still easier to use - and STILL WORKS - than whatever flavour-of-the-day UI tools Microsoft comes up with and discards. Silverlight anyone?

[@nikoraasu6929]

because 90s were just better

[@weused1]

Yeah that was hard to digest especially when you look at most up to date open source projects and their UI is absolutely beautiful. Although it might depend on the team building it but most of them adhere to the system themes and allow tons of customization. Gnome for me is the biggest example of how good ui design can be on free software.

[@nick15684]

@@michaelhoffmann2891 I mean yes, I *_could_* build a new app using WinUI3 if I really wanted an ultra-modern-looking consumer-friendly application, but I don't really build for consumers, and the newer UI frameworks often lack the tools the older ones have (forms designer for example) which makes developing for them 10x more difficult for no reason. Not to mention, the newer frameworks are often full of bugs for years and years on end which makes creating any serious project with them questionable.

[@Zedek]

Yep, look at Audacity - blue and grey. Like Windows 3.1/95.

[@untemi0]

I am surprised that not a lot of people know of the Olive Video Editor. It's amazing that the project needs support.

[@hidafluffminer]

the problem is is that not enough developers have stripy thigh-highs, arm warmers, shaved, and have removed all of their body hair. those are the developers that actually make good worthwhile code and programs.

[@treelineresearch3387]

Good Lord, pretty much describing someone I once worked with who was a sharp, yet erratic programmer. He also lived in a floor of an old factory building and did meth.

[@hidafluffminer]

@@treelineresearch3387 ? that's not worded very clear.

[@treelineresearch3387]

@@hidafluffminer The factory part? He leased a whole floor of an old kinda derelict factory building as his residence. The meth part means he did meth.

[@hidafluffminer]

@@treelineresearch3387 is he a femboy?

[@strawhousepig]

Eh... even the best proprietary commercial alternatives suffer from crap UI/UX, a lack of "pro" features, and a deaf ear to users. Thunderbird was fine from the get go. Anyone who used the Netscape/Mozilla suite around the turn of the millennium knew exactly which way was up. It's now that their UI is turning to modern craptastic change for the sake of change.

[@pointblankeloquence9578]

I've been trying to help them improve but here's the issue: UX design isn't priority. Paid software provides better UX because there's someone invested in your adoption of the package. The open source software's teams are usually impossible to find - they use obscure communication channels that are hard to get into, and their contact info is out of date. And even if you do get in touch with them, they don't respond or are too busy to deal with your query. You can't even volunteer well. And any participation areas are not user friendly to get into.

[@Stratelier]

Yeah, this is as true as it is unfortunate.

[@mardus_ee]

Most FOSS developers provide an e-mail or site address in their manual pages. Lots of projects have been moved to repositories, such as GitHub and GitLab, or have their own bugtracking systems based on BugZilla.

[@NeOnFighterr]

The problem is proprietary youtubers

[@Capewearer]

Aka "proprietards" (proprietary + r3tards). These are people who can't develop logical thinking a bit just to adapt for a new software, because all their memory slots are corrupted with paid closed-source traps. Gamers tell such people "Git gud, casul".

[@TacoGuy]

As a hobbyist programmer with a small team, I can tell that it's hard to manage people all the time. I guess as the team grows to infinity (and beyond) - it's unbearable and results into a huge mess. Listening to all of the opinions is hard, especially if software is only made by lots of random, though skilled programmers rather than a team which have a director/designer or similar roles, leading the development ideas and defining the project vision. I heard multiple times takes like "an authoritarian leader can make the open source work" and it kinda makes sense in the end, Linux is a great example, but I believe that the root of the problem is still in the whole core team and lack of the final vision, feedback, experience in the topic (not related to programming skill) and interest in doing anything but programming. And hey, refactoring and reworking the old software is hard, so that adds up too.

[@ZeerakImran]

That programming programming programming aspect is an issue and it’s quite clear to most of us that it’s more impulsive than conscious, thought through, smart or appropriate. Sometimes there’s also a lack of maturity or lack of skills for anything other than programming which contributes to that. I want to emphasise, this is not always the case and I don’t mean to offend anyone. But as a programmer, understanding that your job and your level of skill in programming is not that special, is pretty important. You’re a part of the team, not the team. Thinking no one else can get anywhere without us (programmers) ends up in the software not getting anywhere too. This doesn’t apply to a lot of people including professional programmers who have been doing their job for many years and greatly make everyone else’s experience better, understand that there are in fact much more important aspects of the work and that programming is the easiest part of it. It’s do-able. You just have to do it. Whereas other decisions are much more difficult because there is no guarantee that any of it will work. In other words, if you want a program and you have the budget, it will be programmed. If you want the product or business to be successful, best of luck. There’s no guarantee. This is also the case with a lot of creative work like design. No guarantee you will get there. To a great design.

[@treelineresearch3387]

Most good software in general has a single visionary or a closely coupled small team behind it making all the important decisions, and the further it gets away from that model and into overmanaged multilayer meetings and committees the more crap it seems to become.

[@MorbidEel]

@@ZeerakImran I think you have completely missed the point. In many cases there is no team. It is 1 or 2 core people with a pile other people adding stuff they want added and doesn't conflict with any existing thing. It is software development by evolution rather than purposeful design.

[@robertofratello5203]

You usually find quality open source for: - single purpose, vertical tools that can be developed by 1-2 people - system libraries, software languages and other foundational stuff that Is usually sponsored by multiple enterprises. Video/image editing software friendly to non tech-savy users isn't useful at all for big companies, and it's hard to develop without a big team. So It's rarer to get quality products

[@Etienne_H]

There was a time where open source software was competitive, but nowadays all the companies have obtained so much complex technologies and a lot of them patented, that it's almost impossible to keep up the pace as an open source developer. In general programs are so complex nowadays, as complex as entire operating systems used to be. Personally I use Davinci Resolve for video and Affinity as Adobe alternative - the price a lot more palatable and fair and it's almost as powerful as Adobe programs.

[@emko333]

yet Darktable is ahead of LR and C1 ? there is always cases where OSS is better then commercial software

[@gaspump]

"Ah yes, I am a normal person looking for a non-MS operating system" "What the fuck is GIT?"

[@kalinmir]

GIT good

[@ChillaxeMake]

ubuntu

[@grossly_incandescent]

@@ChillaxeMake I give you one better, Wubuntu XD

[@meinerHeld]

i have literally never used git and i've used libre operating systems almost exclusively since 2012.

[@steve1978ger]

you say Wubuntu, I say UWUbuntu

[@Joe_Yacketori]

I think mentioning FileZilla is a bit strange in this video. It's not meant to be grandiose, it's literally only meant to do one thing: copy/delete files from and copy files to a remote server. What about it would you streamline? I could maybe think of a few small details, like maybe the server list, but nothing significant. It isn't really an "end user" type of software, so it doesn't have to be pretty, just functional.

[@BPo75]

End user stuff having to be "pretty" is a fallacy we suffer for severely today. Just take icon design... they don't *need* to be pretty, they need to fill the function of being distinct and easily recognizable from each other. You should be able to look at a screen full of them and immediately be able to find the one you are looking for.

[@DJR3H]

Just to mention it: Opensource software on the server side is powering a large percentage of the internet. I agree that the desktop software has its limitations.