I know of a few free software projects out there that are "beautiful" as you
say and not "retro". The good thing about free software is that we can decide
to make it beautiful or modern if we care to do so. non-free software is not
always modern and beautiful and if you as a user wanted to make it beautiful,
you couldn't.
if free software was sold more often, we might be able to clear up the
preconception that free software must be also low quality. part of the reason
why i brought up this topic, was to discuss how we can make free software
more immediately and obviously more valuable than proprietary software. is
locking down the source code the only way to make money from software?
This is important to reflect on.
