I ran across this blog post that pretty much sums up my feelings on the pitfalls of application development, not only with FOSS but with many commercial apps as well.

In addition to Grub, KDE and now Gnome, a couple of commercial apps come to mind that have fallen into this trap: Paint Shop Pro and Microsoft Office (with Firefox possibly being next?).

Is there a term for an application that has suffered a misguided and disastrous rewrite or has been updated and upgraded so as to make it everything to everyone, yet in the the end it becomes so clunky, bloated and convoluted that it's no longer useful to anyone? If there isn't, there should be. How about a dunsil?

So far, I think the GIMP developers have done a fine job in keeping the package progressing forward, without the pitfalls. Let's hope that continues to be the case.

Nothing is more bloated than Windows products. I don't see GIMP ever reaching that level. One of the finer features of GIMP, in my opinion, is the ability to add (or subtract) scripts on an individual basis, allowing each user to "customize" the GIMP experience. There are several terms for applications which take on more of a market niche than that for which they were originally designed. Most I cannot type here due to profanity-laced acronyms. I think keeping the development of GIMP limited to a select handful of very talented and helpful individuals has aided as well.

Maybo so Tux, but I would definitely like to have the option to do node editing once GEGL ever gets mature enough. That said, I too don't really like change and still remember when they revamped between 1.2x to 2.0 and even revamped more (Script-fu) between 2.0 and 2.2x. Change is inevitible; hope that that change at least adds cool features (like 16/32 bit editing, node editing, etc.). I still remember how big a thing it was when they finally made GIMP color aware. Definitely was a blessing for me.

Gimp is still very, very usable. I'm using 2.7.3 and like it more and more. It has quirks, sure, but less than most of the graphical apps I know (including Photoshop).

Refactoring code generally and community ambition without necessary skill/labor pool may be problematic issues. But if you feel that you're disappointed with FOSS software quality, try B2B software (SAP and it's ilk, largely all corporate intranet tools etc.). You'll come screaming and crying back. They're not just bad. They're embodiment of evil to user *and* to developer.

I use Gimp, Inkscape, Blender, Mypaint in Ubuntu Linux environment. They restrict me a lot less than my own pitiful skills do. I just did a short video DVD with Cinelerra and DVDStyler. Cinelerra has very bad reputation for some reason. It was my time with Cinelerra and I was almost proud what I achieved. Not professional quality, sure, but then I could have polished with the tools I had; not tools fault, there were no restrictions there. I found one configuration error in 3 hour session, nothing major. In same manner, Gimp almost never crashes. Blender practically never fails, even with multimillion polygon models.

What am I saying? I feel that we should not worry. Also, FOSS software has on obvious advantage. If you have broken or inadequate software and necessary skills, you can always improve it by your own work. Try that with commercial software.

I think if it ever got really bad, the project would be forked. That is one nice advantage to open source. Everybody I know who uses MS Office still hates the ``ribbon,'' but it's pretty much the only option.

I see Gimp getting better as time progresses.
I see a faster than Adobe rendering engine in Gimps future also.

Thanks for the link GnuTux.
I use Gentoo Linux and from time to time I install a binary distro on a spare partition.
WHY must they use Grub2????
I think to use the latest and greatest (crap).
KDE I couldn't agree more.
I use it and feel exactly the same.It's so unstable that they added a "Lock Widgets" knob.
If you don't you risk getting config files overwritten.That's one way to solve bugs!!!
I can't comment on Gnome.Used it for a short while years ago didn't like it and went with KDE.
Firefox:It used to be easy to add actions for certain kinds of files,not anymore.
Gerard.

I used to use Gentoo and really liked it. It was my intro to Linux. But keeping it updated was a headache and a half. With commercial software, I think the main problem is finding a selling point for the updated version. This appears to be the case with MS Office. All things considered, it's a good product. So why would I need the next version? When your OS has >90% Marketshare, you're going to eventually run out of new customers. I don't know why the same issues arise with FOSS. The blog post didn't seem to provide an explanation. XFCE was a good desktop environment when I used it. I miss it, but Ubuntu comes with Gnome and it works well enough that I don't see the need to switch. I've never used KDE4, but I've heard mixed reviews. As for Grub, I don't do anything fancy, or even dual-boot. I wasn't aware it was having issues.

@merrak,
Gentoo has grub2 in it's list of packages but they advise not to use it.
And you can't boot w/o a boot loader.
I started with Gentoo dec 2003 after having tried most major distro's.Never looked back.
You only install what you need,no unnecessary bloat.
Gerard.

Why are numbers so important? I have all in 2.7.3 I expect 2.8 to have. If I'm not using official stable, then what? 2.7.3 *is* very stable.

Would you be terribly happy if you'd get Gimp 987.55.957 tomorrow?

People get so excited about certain promised features that I always wonder what kind of masterpieces the are going to make with them. Then those features come out and nothing happens. Like Adobe Photoshop Content Aware Fill and Gimp Texturizer (equivalent) new features. So much hype and so little actual use.

I use Gimp a lot, daily. There are HUGE amount of features in Gimp. I think I use about 25 % of Gimp functionality. I like new features as much as next guy, but what I really need to do is improve my use of already existing features.

Sort of already forked it when they created Film GIMP which later became Cinepaint. Haven't really kept up with this project (they abandoned gtk for ftk as I recall). It is 16/32 bit capable but to be honest, I have no idea how good it is since I've never played with it. There's been other forks too (like GIMPShop), but this one was the one that stuck to my mind since it was adding high bit features.

In terms of commercial apps, we know that one of the main motivations for making changes is companies want to sell everyone the new version. That's fine, if there are cool new features that everyone needs. More often than not though, the upgrades are superficial or they revolve around changing the GUI everyone is used to in favor of a GUI that is in many cases, less efficient. I don't have a problem with a learning curve, as long as the time and effort results in better efficiency.

In the FOSS world, it seems some developers decide they want a "cleaner look" so they rewrite an application with very little input from the end users. They make grand claims that the new version will change the world but in many cases, they end up driving away the user base. KDE4 is a prime example of this. I believe Gnome3 will do the same. In an effort to reduce so called "clutter", developers design an interface that requires more mouse movements and more clicks to get the job done. I think it's absurd.

Case in point; Firefox 5 was just released, only 3 months after the release of Firefox 4. There are no major improvements over Firefox 4. How could there be in only 3 months? Firefox is afraid of competition from Opera and Chrome so instead of a normal bug fix maintenance release, they slap a "5" on it and claim it's new. In an effort to reduce "clutter", they've done away with navigation buttons such as the home button in favor of a new so called "Home tab". I loaded up Firefox 4 a couple of months ago and found it to be slower than Firefox 3, not faster. The navigation buttons were hidden and/or rearranged and it took more mouse movements/button clicks to do the same task as I did in Firefox 3 with less clicks.

But hey, I hear the new Firefox 5 has better integration with Facebook.

Needless to say, I'm back to using Firefox 3.

I run Firefox 5 under Windows XP. I still have all those nice old features because the way they implemented most of the new interface "features" isn't supported by XP.

Despite that, I'm still strongly considering going back to Firefox 3.

Apparently it's happening to Gimp.
Lots of plugins and scripts that made life easy using Gimp don't work in 2.7.3.
They changed the syntax!
Maybe for good reason, I don't know but I hope they make a program that will change the offending terms.
Gerard.

The ultimate in clean interfaces is the Macbook Wheel.

Macbook Wheel


It happened with Gimp 2.4. There was a big scramble to update all the scripts. There ended up being a bunch of versions of the same script floating around. Script-Fu really needed updating though.


I think you've hit on the key to keeping applications from suffering bloat and feature creep. You build the essential functionality into the application, keeping it fast and tight, while providing a flexible plug-in manager for those who need extra functionality. Wordpress is a pretty good example and more developers need to design applications from the start, using this approach. Having a flexible plug-in manager is one area in which GIMP is deficient.

Everything is just a few 100 clicks away

I love the Onion

Sort of reminds me of those futuristic commercials where a lady brings up a floating virtual wheel like interface the navagate the web. I'll stick with my qwerty keyboard thankyou very much (or maybe speech recognition technology) before I use a wheel.