No, GIMP does suck.
It has the same problem as most FOSS packages that are too wide in breadth and have multiple contributors with their own hobby horses pulling in all different directions, and to this day does not actually provide a feature-complete whole, nor an interface that actually makes sense. And itās not a matter of the workflow just being different ā it categorically fails to replicate functionality that is core to its commercial competitors. Numerous other ābigā productivity packages have the same problem including FreeCAD (boy does it ever), LibreOffice, etc. I say this as a staunch supporter of FreeCAD, by the way. Itās the only CAD software I use even though itās a pain in my ass.
The shining exception to this I see is Inkscape, but it is still significantly less powerful than even early versions of CorelDraw.
For 2D graphics work these days, I hold my nose and just use Corel. I use it for work. Like, actual commercial work. That I get paid for. It is at least a lesser evil than doing business with Adobe.
And if you want to stick it to the man, it is easily pirated.
In FOSS most people can program, but only a hand full of people can design a decent UI.
I always wondered if I could contribute/volunteer to a FOSS somehow with some UIX stuff, but I donāt even know where to start. Would you just draw a concept ui for the team to work out or something?
Not that Iām great at it, but man, we gotta start somewhere, right?
This is probably common. The people that work on UI often arenāt the people who do pull requests. But I think if you want to contribute it would be best to get in touch with a maintainer on the chat of the project. Projects often have a matrix/irc/discord on the git page.
Thereās also two main plus one lesser issue that are less commonly discussed:
- Lack of manpower. FOSS devs often doing it as a side project on top of some other and/or a full-time job, so that even lowers oneās ability of concentrate on stuff like the UI, when youāre already working hard on fixing bugs, looking up things (which is getting harder and harder thanks to AI slop - I once managed to destroy a Linux on my Raspberry Pi while trying to adjust the path variables).
- Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable parts of your application. There are many times I havenāt noticed a a very uncomfortable part of my GUI after months of use, then I had to refactor things, which obviously took time away from other things. This also affects the users already in the userbase.
Elitism is also a factor. A lot of people like the feeling of being part of a special group, and for them, the steep learning curve is a feature, not a bug. Iāve seen Blender users being angry at the devs for āspoonfeedingā the normies, and letting in all kinds of people. Also just look at OPās image.
This never ceases to amaze me.
My old best friend and I used to be a programming tag team that worked pretty well; heād slap together w semi-functional version of the idea we had and then id go in and make the UI make sense and fix all the logic bugs and typos.
Iām not saying Iām some perfect UI guru or anything but the way he (and other people Iāve met) seem to have no internal base knowledge of shit like āsimilar settings probably shouldnāt go on completely opposite sides of the screen under different menusā or ā5-deep nested drop-down menus hurt peopleās soulsā
So, why do UI people not use and contribute to FOSS then? Are they all on Mac? Then go complain to them or contribute your desired UI improvements. FOSS isnāt an all you can eat buffet.
Personally, I think UI people are less idealistic and I do look down on them for that.
Itās super hard to get involved as a UI person. If youāre a developer, you can just rock up to a project and fix bugs, and if you follow the coding style theyāll probably get accepted.
If you want to successfully contribute as a UI person you have to convince a bunch of developers that you know what they should be doing better than they do. It basically never happens.
Iāve worked professionally both using and developing (proprietary) CAD software, but even I have trouble getting FreeCAD to do what I want.
