No, I don’t think you’re missing anything. That’s the issue at hand here: creating proper, usable software takes time and effort. FOSS-developers tend to prefer pouring their time and effort into functional code, with the UI primarily shaped by their own needs rather than a thorough analysis of what other users could want. Often, tools are the result of someone building something for themselves and figuring they’d share it with others.
To properly design for a broad audience is an extremely selfless ask, and for all that these devs donate their time to the public, they only have so much to give. I think it’s fair that they’d prefer working on things they benefit from too, but that means sacrificing general usability for personal expediency.
And that’s why so many tools are clunky: they’re “good enough” for the developer, and nobody cares to also make them good enough for the rest of the user group.
No, I don’t think you’re missing anything. That’s the issue at hand here: creating proper, usable software takes time and effort. FOSS-developers tend to prefer pouring their time and effort into functional code, with the UI primarily shaped by their own needs rather than a thorough analysis of what other users could want. Often, tools are the result of someone building something for themselves and figuring they’d share it with others.
To properly design for a broad audience is an extremely selfless ask, and for all that these devs donate their time to the public, they only have so much to give. I think it’s fair that they’d prefer working on things they benefit from too, but that means sacrificing general usability for personal expediency.
And that’s why so many tools are clunky: they’re “good enough” for the developer, and nobody cares to also make them good enough for the rest of the user group.
Confirms what i thought, thanks. Maybe we need to make a better process for this, or champion it if there is always one.