I think the issue with that last 20% of user facing software is that it's very expensive to run the marketing campaigns to persuade users that "it's really, really good" when in fact it sucks, especially when your competitors are working very hard at marketing their own brands of sucky user interfaces. Most software is very hard to use, you only get good at it by investing your own time in learning the ins and outs of tons of stuff that doesn't make much sense, and if you take some time off from using it you will lose the hardest earned skills and find yourself making the same noobie mistakes all over again as you rediscover how it "works". All the fanbois are right, all the other fanbois are deluded to think their preferred software is intrinsically better.
That said, it is quite amazing how much of the web is powered by open source. It would be instructive to have a browser plugin that checked for open source javascript inclusions and showed a little scoreboard for each web page visited. Scroll down to the Examples section at backbonejs.org and look at who uses it to build websites, though the list is probably sorely out of date.. -- rec -- On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 11:24 AM, Marcus Daniels <[email protected]> wrote: > "On that same front, Gary's right about that last 20%. But user-facing > software has a much harder last 20% than what happens behind the scenes > _because_ those occult tools are allowed to be very focused, tight, and > single purpose, whereas user-facing tools have to handle, ameliorate, > shunt, faciliate the myriad things a general intelligence can/will do. > User facing tools have to deal with morons and geniuses, whereas internal > tools can get away with well-defined contracts." > > Although there is open source software for office and accounting, I can't > imagine wanting to spend my free time on such a thing. It is just boring > and depressing to think about. I don't think it has anything to do with > it being hard. Hard is New Horizons.. Meanwhile, as Gary points out, > the commercial World of Boring circles the wagons around music streaming > and participation in mobile app markets, banking, and other such things so > that they can control prices. The software is coupled to the protocols > and one would have to buy-in (with $$$) to see how the pieces fit together > and make free alternatives. What a hassle. > > Marcus > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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