NC
I'm a video editor and videographer, passionate foodie, and writer. My love of computers and the command line led me to open source software in the late 90's. Since then, I've managed to open my closed source world a little more during the day. At night, penguins rule the roost.
Authored Comments
What an awesome and richly technical story. I especially love that a user accidentally installed Linux and was able to navigate without realizing she wasn't in Windows.
I've been in the Linux world for about as long as I've been in the photography/graphics/video world. Graphical choices and UI issues in general kept me from committing to full time (personal) use until a few years ago. Aside from the reasons mentioned in the article, the short explanation for "ugly" open source design is that many power users value effectiveness over beauty. When your user base is mostly power users, "It works" will likely always trump "It works, but can it be prettier?". Window managers, desktops, and distros who have recently paid more attention to looks have been rewarded with more uptake of software by less technical users. I'm thinking Ubuntu and KDE for example.
There may additionally be a paradox where potentially contributing designers prefer to work in familiar closed source software (because it works and it's pretty :-D) and the OS community is not open to that possibility.
Overall, I think the word is out that OS design needs a makeover to continue it's reach to non-techies.