[gravity_123]

Sorry for being snarky but genuinely curios : Why does it matter that anything is open source in that case if the criterion is that it should work and be useful? In this case, this is equivalent to a chrome extension being closed source. Sure its better than nothing but I would actively prefer an open source one over closed source.

[bayindirh]

Using/preferring open source software has some facets.

- First one is the stance. If I'm developing open source software, I want to build it on open source pillars. This ensures that I can just share the project file with the repository.

- Second one is access to source. I've chatted with a guy who had a problem with Eclipse CDT. He also reported a bug. I reproduced the bug and reported to bugzilla under his report. Someone looked to it in 24 hours after my reproduction and it's fixed and pushed.

I'm using Linux and open source software most of the time for the past 15 years. Open source tools gave me a better overall experience because being able to diagnose and workaround a problem makes my life much easier. If I can I'll push a patch, otherwise I'll report.

I have some closed source applications inevitably and if they're a bit complex and have some bugs, I'm a sitting duck waiting for answers to my e-mails and updates which fix bugs. This doesn't happen all the time because every developer has a time budget and will rightly spend its time on higher impact bugs. If you hammer a piece of software enough, you'll probably hit a bug which is not a big impact for most people but affects you in a big way. These kind of problems turn your relationship sour with that app.

This is why I use Eclipse for last 16 years or so. Yes it's not the prettiest, it's not the fastest but, it's well polished under the hood, I can access the devs and the source and it's overall stable and extremely feature rich.

[millimeterman]

Counterpoint: OSS usually lacks polish and only works well if your workflow is sufficiently similar to the developers' workflow. Linux is great if all you're doing is developing software with popular tools/languages, but if you want to use your computer like a normal person for a change, it's pretty bad. I've consistently had issues with basic functionality like HiDPI scaling, trackpad and wifi drivers, power management, and just general polish. That's not to say that Windows and macOS are amazing and perfect - they aren't. But they're a whole lot better than Linux for normal use.

[bayindirh]

> OSS usually lacks polish and only works well if your workflow is sufficiently similar to the developers' workflow.

On the polish side, you're not entirely wrong, but it's debatable. On the UI side, most of the applications doesn't have the level of polish of paid applications however, some of the open source software is extremely capable and stable at the foundation level.

Amarok can handle ~350GB music archive with its metadata without even sneezing but, JuK shivers and dies when encounters the archive (both open source). Eclipse is a very robust piece of software while its UI is old, dated, and relatively ugly (I like it as it is though). Similarly Digikam is probably the best large photo management application out there with some very nifty features. There are not many multi-TB capable photo libraries out there. All of these software is free software. Also, Darktable, while is not the best, I use it more than my many paid and expensive photography applications because its tools and results are so good. These are the ones I use regularly. Not any of these applications force you to use it in a particular way because many people have provided feedback to it and they have large development teams and user bases.

I think we can say that software without big user bases force the workflow of the developer because, developer(s) cannot think any other way. Genuinely asking, can you provide some examples to such software? I may be biased since I'm using this thing 15+ years and may have lost some perspective, honestly.

> Linux is great if all you're doing is developing software with popular tools/languages,

I want to politely disagree with this. I'm an old school C++ developer who uses Eclipse and takes some photos and postprocess/edit them with purely free software and, I think it works better than most Mac tools that I paid substantial money.

> but if you want to use your computer like a normal person for a change, it's pretty bad. I've consistently had issues with basic functionality like HiDPI scaling, trackpad and wifi drivers, power management, and just general polish.

I didn't recently install Linux to any modern laptop built in ~2 years but, I have an HP EliteBook 850 G2 at office. This thing is running Debian since day one and almost everything (Trackpad, WiFi, power management) is working out of the box (I didn't compile anything or fiddle under the hood) and it runs solid 7 hours before its battery depletes. In your defence the fingerprint reader was unsupported at that time so I didn't fiddle with it and since I was not doing any hard work, I disabled its discrete graphics. I only reboot it when I install a new kernel to it.

My office desktop has a 2K display and, everything scales on XFCE4 and GTK out of the box. I didn't do do any tweaking. On the polish side, out of the box DEs are all ugly. A good theme and a good wallpaper makes them top notch I think. I personally use XFCE4 on my desktop and KDE on my laptop (and home desktop) and, I can say that, KDE can boost productivity of an average user 3-4x just with included search & indexing facilities and usability features.

> That's not to say that Windows and macOS are amazing and perfect - they aren't. But they're a whole lot better than Linux for normal use.

Nothing is perfect. Neither Linux, Windows or macOS. they are all tools. I love Linux because I believe what it stands for and I can work blazing fast with it but, I also have a Mac and support my families Windows systems. macOS is the most time-efficient system out there. Linux with KDE is a very close second. Well, windows is the same experience for me since Windows 95 (productivity wise, not stability).

Progress is only possible if we're honest to each other and ourselves. I'm not a Linux zealot and if I sounded like one, I'm genuinely sorry.

[stnmtn]

Why is open source so much better at handling bug reports in your eyes than a dev team working on closed source? Both of those options are able to fix reproducable bugs within 24 hours, that's not something exclusive to OSS Plenty of open source projects just shrivel up and die without any more changes

[bayindirh]

Short answer: Because this is my experience over the long term.

Long Answer: I didn't say that only open source can fix bugs in 24 hours but, in order to get your bug fixed in 24h in a closed source software, you need to pay some top dollar for that service. Otherwise you'll most probably wait for the next point release which may or may not contain a fix to your bug.

In most closed source software, the process is completely opaque after your bug report is acknowledged. You don't know when will it fixed or ever be fixed. That's not a joyful wait sometimes.

OTOH, you're absolutely right. Not all bugs in OSS is fixed in 24h straight. Some got never fixed or fixed out of the tree. Also, an awful lot of software dies. OSS projects probably die more because they are one man shows most of the time unless they get a loyal following and they are very very good. However, you can compile and patch a dead open source project. You can't revive closed source software once it's dead and bit-rotten.

I want to give a couple of fresh examples, from Intel.

I have an HP Spectre X2 detachable tablet PC which runs Windows 10. This PC has an embedded Intel Wireless Dual AC 7265 card. Out of the box, thing works great. Rock solid. Windows updated its driver in some point and that driver which, has WHQL seal and everything, crashes that wireless card. You need to reset the card every time the card goes low power mode and comes back.

Intel has an even more recent driver, which does not fix the issue. The PC has a full fleet of updates too. BIOS, ME firmware, board FW and what not. Nope. The problem is still there. What's the best solution? Roll back that driver to initial version. Now it works. Can Intel fix this? Of course! In 24h? Why not? Will they fix it? Of course not! Why? AC 7265 is EOL, so no incentives. However, on paper all of these drivers support 7265.

2nd example is e1000e Linux driver, again from Intel. This is an open source Intel Ethernet card driver which supports whole fleet of cards. From lowish-end to top end silicon. Intel added a new feature to this driver and some cards started to crash, incl. mine (relevant bugzilla is [0]). Patch is isolated, distributions rolled it back relatively quickly and many people are back on track. Kernel people are still looking at it without rush since, everything is working without the latest patch.

Who wrote the last crashing patch? Intel. Can they fix it? Of course! Even in 24h? They may if they really want to. Will they fix it? Of course not! Why? Not enough incentives.

Bonus: While unrelated to both, I've waited a company to change a string comparison to case insensitive mode (or just capitalize the first name of the file they bundle) for a software that I bought for over a year. I reported that thing 10+ times! They didn't fix it ever. I changed the name of the file on every update. Over and over.

[0]: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=205047