What Open Source Can Learn From Apple 309
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by
ScuttleMonkey
from the good-design-always-a-good-idea dept.
from the good-design-always-a-good-idea dept.
Linux and open source have long struggled to gain acceptance from the wider (read: non-technical) audience. This has improved in recent years, but still has a long way to go. Columnist Matt Asay suggests that perhaps open source projects should attempt to emulate Apple's design philosophy, with whoever succeeds becoming the "winner" of the hearts and minds of the vast majority of users. "Some projects already accomplish this to some extent. The strength of Mozilla, for example, is that it has figured out how to enable 40 percent of its development to be done by outside contributors, as BusinessWeek recently wrote. The downside is that these contributors are techies, but the upside is that they're techies who add language packs, accessibility features, and other "niche" areas that Mozilla might otherwise struggle to deliver. This suggests a start: enable your open-source project to accept meaningful outside contributions that make the project reflective of a wider development community. But the real goldmine is broadening the definition of "developer" to include lay users of your software. The day that I, as a nontechnical software user, can meaningfully participate in an open-source project is the day that open source will truly have won."
That a single cohesive vision... (Score:5, Informative)
is actually better than a chaotic/bazaar mess that spins it wheels for 15 years? No shit!? Man, I mean while everyone blabs on and on about the bazaar and how great the chaotic development is, it isn't good enough for that central part: The Kernel. So why in the hell we keep fighting a cohesive and directed effort to build at least a baseline for the entire OS is beyond me.
This is why I gave up on Linux for all but my servers. One day it will happen, or Google/Ubuntu will do it first. At this point I don't even care, just that it happens.
One word (Score:3, Informative)
Polish.
Re:Linux users... (Score:3, Informative)
To be fair you're comparing apples to oranges. iPhoto is primarily a photo-management application; it's in the same category as Picasa or F-Spot, not GIMP. It does have photo-editing abilities but by their extremely-limited nature it should be obvious that that's not its primary intended use and that those are there for quick, simple touch-ups. It would be better to compare GIMP to Photoshop or Aperture, or iPhoto to Picasa or F-Spot.
Mac OS X can be better or worse than other Unices but first you need to get your comparisons right!
I call BS (Score:3, Informative)
I call BS.
bash is UNIX2003 standards compliant because of Apple contributions back to bash.
vim is UNIX2003 standards compliant because of Apple contributions back to vim.
I could repeat sentences of this format for about 80 different Open Source versions of UNIX command line commands.
Apple just doesn't make a press release every time it contributes a patch back to an Open Source project.
-- Terry