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[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 63 points 1 year ago

I have suspected for a while it is astroturfing. Same as with GIMP and Libre Office where inevitably someone will trash the UI as it's "soooo bad". If you say a lie, and repeat it enough, people start to believe it.

[-] sab@kbin.social 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Every time I introduce someone to LibreOffice I half expect them to hate it, and that I'll have to go through the alternative interfaces and try to make them accept it and potentially install OnlyOffice instead if that doesn't help.

Instead, I'm generally met with an "oh, this is nice", before they start typing away.

I get that some of the bigger nerds would prefer something different (I would personally love the power of LibreOffice inside a modern minimalist GTK app), but LibreOffice is working great for most users. Those passionate enough to see an issue with it probably prefer markdown or latex anyway.

[-] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 23 points 1 year ago

I honestly prefer LibreOffice to what Microsoft Office has become.

When I went to grad school, I was told MS Office was required, so I purchased it, but turned out we just used basic word processing and a handful of simple presentations, so I ended up using LibreOffice for everything instead.

[-] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 year ago

Same here. I found the Microsoft ribbon they introduced in 2007 to be a major anti pattern. It didn't make things easier, it made things way harder. Our IT department tried to bust me for not using the official Microsoft software (outlook, excel, word, etc) so I outright uninstalled windows and put fedora on there. Granted, I was trying to do partitions and fucked it up, but whatever. The point is I wanted to get away from their "antivirus" spyware so I could use what worked for me. I got the idea when I saw the Dean of academics was using i3 as her window manager

[-] hellfire103@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago

I can just imagine your IT dept. running into the Dean's office to complain, only to be met with yet more Linux. Hilarious!

[-] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 year ago

"Oh God our eyes. The non proprietary software we didn't buy licenses for. It burns!"

[-] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've only introduced LibreOffice to one person in recent memory, and her reaction was basically, “This is free?! I wish I knew about this years ago.”

[-] million@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

I’m a huge fan of open source but saying the only people saying Gimps UI is bad are astroturfing is insane.

It’s famously controversial and uses UI paradigms that don’t exist in any modern desktop environments.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm not, but it's not like it's an occasional thing. Every time it's brought up, it's trashed. Free software that does a better job than anything else free, and folk bash it. Either they like and are motivated by Adobe dominance, or they're useful idiots.

It's balanced to say "great program, but could do with a UI improvement". It isn't to say it's unusable because of UI. I cannot imagine any free software advocate should be proud of taking that line.

[-] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago

We don't need to praise the software specifically because it's Open Source. We need good Open source Software of which there are plenty of great examples.

Blender, Krita, Libre Office, Audacity. These are great. Better than the paid competitors in a lot for ways.

Gimp and scribus are simply not. That should mean we start developing good FOSS software to fill that gap, as a collective.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

Tenacity, not audacity. Audacity got took over by a company with questionable record and tried to add telemetry into it. Tenacity was the OS fork which stayed true to principles.

GIMP may not be your bag, but it's highly used and many find it has much higher quality features than the alternatives. UI may not be popular, but it doesn't prevent it being a solid bit of open source software.

Btw, what steps have you taken to improve open source graphics software? It's easy to bash, it's harder to learn and contribute.

Open source contributors > open source advocates > grateful open source users > almost everyone else > open source critics

[-] GizmoLion@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

One doesn't need to be a dev to have opinions about ease of use of a piece of software, don't be dense.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

That is true, but to get free software made by people in their free time and say "this is rubbish" is a little ungrateful.

"Here, have this free food...". " ewww gross, that is so bad".

[-] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm saying is that there is tons of open source software that isn't crap. Gimp has no excuse it should be as good as the others.

Especially one as mature as Gimp.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Considering I know many artists that use it as first choice, I know you're wrong.

It's good software, you just don't like it.

[-] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

Well, I guess your anecdotal evidence is as good as mine, because nobody in my design circle will touch the damn thing. Meanwhile Blender is the standard for 3d designers I know.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Blender is for models, not art. It's different software. It's great at what it does. Expecting that because one open source project can beat proprietary then all can is a pretty shallow view. A project relies on volunteers, sacrifice and funding.

You're saying it's bad because no one you know uses it doesn't suggest no-one uses it, just you don't know the users of it. Maybe your circle is as open minded to software as you are. Similar people surround themselves with each other. It says more about you than the software.

[-] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

Buddy, I breath open source.

Linux on every rig, third parry clients for every service. K9 mail, graphene OS, Linux.

Every damn app and program outside of my banking is open source. I love open source. Gimp just simply sucks ass. Its why Gimp offends me so much. Its the one weak spot in my entire open source life.

[-] GizmoLion@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Finally a voice of reason. I'm in the same boat. Linux everything, including any standalone products I can load it onto. I can count on one hand the number of non-linux programs I use. GIMP's interface simply sucks. They know that, they've been given feedback since 1995, they just don't care. @CrypticCoffee is in here acting like GIMP just needs some support from the community but the reality is that they've neglected decades of feedback and so they deserve what they get. If that's negative feedback, then so be it!

Blender's UI used to be a dumpsterfire too, right on part with GIMP in my opinion. They straight up redesigned that shit from the ground up and now it's an amazing and intuitive powerhouse program, and they're 7 years younger!

The fact that GIMP is 2d and blender is 3d works in gimp's favor if anything. 2D is a whole lot simpler, and blender goes into animation, mixing, audio, dozens of specialities.

TL;DR, GIMP has had decades to improve, they don't, and they deserve to reap what they sow, both positive and negative.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

https://www.gimp.org/news/2021/07/27/support-gimp-developers-sustainable-development/

GIMP getting around $2k dollars a month or a bit more:

https://fund.blender.org/

138,000 euro MONTLY contribution.

A wee bit of a difference in funding. There are alternatives to GIMP, not really as much for Blender. They cannot be compared. GIMP probably couldn't afford a UI developer if they tried. You're looking at least £3k pcm for someone who isn't punishing themselves.

Do you want to tell me what sort of voodoo magic GIMP do to match the resources Blender get? Your opinions are based in feelings, not reality. You may hate GIMP, you may hate the UI, you may want the project to fail and take that mission as keyboard crusader, but it's unfortunately just not a realistic position, but hey, your feelings can be unrealistic if they want to be. You can feel what you want. Some of us hate big corporations and injustice, others, it seems hate free software projects built by volunteers.

[-] GizmoLion@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Krita gets ~4000 euros a month and their ui is beautiful, functional, streamlined, and dare I say on par with much, much larger offerings. Until recently Zbrush was a 1-time license purchase for years and years. Their software is incredibly powerful and their UI is well organized and feature rich, and their entire net worth is like $100k total...

I'm going to let you argue with the wall, because you'd rather talk feelings than make a coherent argument.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

It's a different tool. Krita is for painting. GIMP is for image manipulation.

I'm assuming you're not a professional programmer though, as professional programmer salaries are much higher. If Krita does more, it's though sacrificing time, giving it away free. Not everyone is in a position to do that. You either pay for good developers, or hope for the sacrifice.

Maybe I'll try your approach and just bash projects, I'm sure that's productive and helps open source improve. Feels a wee bit negative though...

[-] GizmoLion@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're a one man logical fallacy machine just reusing the same lines over and over. Just go away.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Weak, you cannot debate any of my points, so you're going for the ad hominem. Ironic that you call me out for logical fallacies...

[-] GizmoLion@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're not interested in debate or discussion. You're a dedicated white knight for gimp and all it's jank, and you've no interest in engaging with the points made by others. Your best counterarguments are to either attack the person you disagree with directly, or what boils down to a "nuh uh because it works for me!".

If you want to actually discuss this do it in good faith or stop wasting our time.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

"dedicated White knight for GIMP", another ad hominem, and probably showing a clear indication of your erm... questionable views.

"Your best counterarguments are to either attack the person you disagree with directly". You cannot even see the hypocrisy.

"If you want to actually discuss this do it in good faith or stop wasting our time." Right back atcha....

[-] GizmoLion@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Alright we're done here. Go annoy someone else with your ranting.

[-] GizmoLion@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

You can die on this hill if you want to. Gimp has its reputation amongst the public, and it's not for it's user friendly UI. Maybe you like the jank, but that doesn't mean it's optimal.

Also, another thing open source projects need is feedback from the public. The UI being horrid is feedback, and just because you feel the need to white knight and feel personally offended by this feedback doesnt make the feedback invalid. You can complain about the phrasing used, but if you use that as reason to disregard the feedback or get defensive and accusatory towards the person (the "what have YOU done" bit was particularly irrelevant) then you're part of the problem regardless how much you feel you're the solution.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Most of the public don't know GIMP, the ones that do see the way it's communicated from the community.

You say I can die on this hill. I said 2 points in the post you responded to.

  1. Blender is great software
  2. That people use GIMP.

What did I say that is wrong in that comment? What did you disagree with? Are you saying Blender isn't great, or are you saying zero people use GIMP?

If you agree with both the sentiments I said, you either responded to the wrong message, or you're going out of your way to argue with me, and not the points I made.

I never disregarded the points about the UI. The UI could do with improvements. UI doesn't improve by people blasting a piece of software on the internet, it comes by giving your time to help improve it, or forking it, or donating to someone that can. If you're not doing any of those things, you're not actually helping to address the problem. It's not constructive criticism or helpful. It's just putting yourself on a sandbox as if your opinions mean more about the software than the people who take time to make it and improve it.

[-] Millie@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

I love GIMP's UI. It's clean, it's to the point, and it's stayed basically the same for ages!

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

Damn, this positivity isn't welcome in free software circles! How can I respect you? (Kidding, I think you and your positivity is awesome.)

[-] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

Woah, hold on now. Gimp actually is unusablly bad. I say this as Linux Graphic Designer who would rather use Krita (anillustration software) to do photo edits.

Libre Office is great tho.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

I'm involved in open source software, and of the artists I'm aware of, most use GIMP, not Krita, because it has better features. Krita is a great option, but it doesn't quite have the same features for producing quality art.

[-] Landrin201@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

"Other people who have bad experience ces with something just be asteoturfing."

Ivw consistently had an issue with Firefox that I described in a thread a few days ago that I can't seem to identify or fix. Am I just not allowed to mention it?

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Maybe their issue tracker is the best bet, or in a separate question thread about the issues. Raising it in every thread it comes up when people recommending it isn't going to solve the issue or help anything, is it?

[-] Landrin201@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

No, it won't. I bring it up in this particular thread for 2 reasons.

  1. I don't like the insinuation that anyone who claims to have problems with Firefox must be bots. I don't think that's at all true, since I've run into multiple problems with the browser myself that I haven't been able to solve.

  2. I brought it up in the previous thread because I think that if people are considering switching, knowing what problems exist is useful. It isn't meant to dissuade anyone, in fact I regularly recommend Firefox to my friends and family. But I don't personally use it because of a pretty major problem, and I don't think it's bad to mention it when the topic comes up.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"I don’t like the insinuation that anyone who claims to have problems with Firefox must be bots."

I did not say this, multiple people have interpreted it this way. It's a little defensive. I said there is a targetted campaign against it where every time it is brought up it is trashed. You may be be a genuine person who is also trashing it, but that doesn't mean there isn't also a targetted campaign at play. I just find it hard to believe that some folk hate FOSS projects so much they have to smash it every time it's brought up. Sounds exhausting.

There is a difference between "it's great software, but i've notice a few issues" and "this project is trash". The second is posted purely with the intent of trying to dissuade people from using it, and all they do is keep people using Chrome, which I think we can all agree has bigger issues.

[-] AnonymousLlama@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also talking about GIMP, plenty of people have said "there's heaps of Photoshop alternatives" yet legit everything on Ubuntu I've has been buggy AF and feature poor. Like I get that FOSS software is hit and miss but this has been really rough

this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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