Benjamin Pollack explains why most open source software sucks. His essay on why those who say copying a Web site should only take a week or so are wrong is also worth reading.
These days, arguing that open-source software is crap seems dumb. How many websites are powered by a combination of MySQL, PHP, and Apache? How many IT applications, written in Eclipse, run on Java, using SWT widgets? How many design studios rely heavily on The GIMP and Inkscape for their everyday photo-retouching and page layout needs?
Er, wait. That last one. Doesn’t quite ring true. In fact, as good as most people seem to insist that Inkscape and The GIMP are, I’ve yet to see a major shop that ran on anything other than Adobe or Quark.
Okay, but, at least I can point to the many offices that run OpenOffice or KOffice! Or that have ditched FileMaker and Access for Kexi! Or that proudly rely on OpenGroupware for their scheduling needs!
…well. Except that I can’t.
I mean, yeah, there are some real businesses, here and there, that actually use those products, and some of them are successful. But, by and large, despite the success of open-source on the backend, open-source end-user applications have failed. In fact, when it comes to end-user applications that people other than open-source developers actually use, you’re pretty much limited to a single application: the web browser. (And even there, if you’re on Safari, then only your engine is open-source—and if you’re on IE or Opera, not even that.) And although I’m sure someone’s gonna say that open-source end-user apps are going to take over any day now, they’ve been claiming that since the height of the dot-com bubble, ten years ago. I wait with bated breath.
Why does open-source fail to reach critical mass anywhere but the server closet? Easy: because open-source software is, incontrovertibly, a total usability clusterfuck.
