I use a lot of open source software, Open Office, Ubuntu, Fedora, Chrome, Firefox, Filezilla and the list could go on and on. Many of these apps work great, others not so well. So I tend to voice my opinion as to why I won’t use the product cause it won’t work or because they are simply copying their propieretary siblings. This tends to get me a little backlash, which is fine, but I have one issue with these comments:
“and what exactly have you done instead of just whining/blogging about it?” – Joe
I’ll tell you what I have done about it, absolutely nothing. Nor should I. I am what you call an end user, and as an end user I expect things to work correctly. I should not have to go through hoops and jump in and out of holes to get something to work properly. Yup, I know it is open source, I am aware of the fact I can edit the hell out of the program without the Microsoft police coming after me. I should not have to as an end user worry about learning how to code in C++, Python, Java, C# or whatever other language to have a functioning program. Here is a comment that sums it all up:
Not all of us are programmers or software developers, and most of us don’t want to be. But we are users. And as users, we want something that works right and does the job we need done in the most efficient manner possible for us. It is the user’s duty to provide functionality and usability input to programmers so that they can improve their product. One problem with open source developers is that they seem to forget, or don’t care, about the users and only develop to meet their own personal needs. – Kaho
Well said Kaho, well said.
