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04/14/2005: "The Great Open Source Unwisdom"

NewsForge posted an article recently discussing what proprietary software can teach open source developers. Now the article had a somewhat faulty premise (that proprietary software is more popular than open source), it did have some valid points that us open source developers should at least think about. Sadly, the initial response was entirely predictable. To paraphrase, "We don't have anything to learn from your stinking proprietary garbage."

People, GROW UP! Besides being unhealthily arrogant, it's an extremely unwise thing to believe. We always have something to learn from everything we encounter. Now, it might be trivially small, or it might be earth-shakingly huge, but if you stop trying to learn from others, you might as well go home. Wisdom begins when we begin to comprehend our own ignorance.

I understand that I am likely talking to quite a number of very talented, and occasionally educated, people. However talent alone isn't enough to get you very far, and some education is only good for making you stop asking questions. In the case of open source software developers, our whole philosophy is based, in a large part, on learning from others. Sure, we can't see into the inner workings of proprietary software, but there is a reason that people willingly spend money on it, and it's not always because they don't know any better. Why? That's a good question, and worth pondering.

I am not presumptuous enough to think that popularity should be the primary concern of open source developers. I do think that we should be giving more thought to the people who will be using the software. What could we do to make it more appealing to them? I'm not speaking of adding endless features, as that way lies at least some amount of madness. I'm thinking more about presentation, integration, and documentation. That is, what will their first impression be, how well will it work with their existing tools, and how will they find out more information? Very few are going to care how well the software works if it's hard to find information, or hard to put it into place. Most open source packages are severly lacking in most if not all of these issues, and I cannot claim to have any shining beacons of my own.

Next time, before you shake your fist at the 800 pound gorilla proprietary software makers and blame them from stealing people away from your software, consider why the people are choosing what they are choosing. It might be vendor lock-in, but it might be the perception, correct or otherwise, that the open source alternatives are crap. Most people who use software don't care how well it was written, they just want to get something done with it. Help them.