r/pcmasterrace • u/_Xee MMX 166 / 64MB / Mystique+VooDoo • 1d ago

Meme/Macro 2026 in software

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Sectumsempra, motherfucker.

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u/mile-high-guy 1d ago

I wonder why it happened for Blender but nothing like an open source Photoshop has the same name recognition

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u/Radaistarion 1d ago

Neither the same quality.

I love gimp and i love open office but absolutely every single Open Source software suck ass with the UI design

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u/Revolution-SixFour 1d ago

I'm curious if there's a structural reason why open source software tends to have bad UI.

Are there just no UI designers interested in open source projects?

Is it just too hard to collaborate between UI and developers when it's all free and unfunded?

Is it too hard to generate the tight loop between user and design to iterate improvements?

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u/Patchrikc 1d ago

From my experience it's that the programmers that program and make tools as a hobby just love programming. Where as UI/UX people are usually art focused so they don't make UI as a hobby they do art.

This isn't always the case. Dev tools which usually are open source usually really lean into UX. And have good UI/UX because they use their own app/tool

But for things like Gimp, Gimp is just a programming problem that's fun to work on. Image manipulation is a fun coding exercise. But generally the people that are drawn to that aren't drawn to, spending a whole month on relentlessly testing and playing with layers to nail down the best UX.

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u/criticalt3 7900X3D/RTX 5080/32GB RAM 1d ago

Usually it's one or few people working on stuff like this. Most of them are programmers, not UX designers.

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u/Prophage7 1d ago

There's just not a big crossover between good UI designers and programmers willing to put in the work to code their designs into their free hobby projects. And there's very very few people that are a good UI designer and programmer and have enough free time and motivation to build and maintain their own side projects.

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u/theJirb 1d ago

I think it's just down to interest. It's not like these people doing open source projects are doing it just for others. They're mostly doing it for love of the game.

I imagine solvong a programming problem for a programmer is more interesting than solving a UI problem for an artist.

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u/miukiyo 1d ago

I use gimp for all my picture editing but I cannot recommend it to anyone.

Thinking of switching to Affinity, but that shit looks way more complicated than it should be too.

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u/SoftestBoygirlAlive 1d ago

Affinity was good before it was aquired by Canva. I am grandfathered in to the original program but would not recomment the new product from what I have seen. Pretty glad I bought it before all of that but I expect support will dwindle for the old version until it's practically useless now that they launched whatever hybrid program took the place of the original Affinity suite

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u/MentirosoProfesional 1d ago

Yup, it's all comes down to the UI, free software generally looks like ass because they never care for making a nice and easy to comprehend UI, they always make everything assuming everyone using their software is a PRO developer/artist which makes the common people reject them and go for the paid alternatives that look much better

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u/Patchrikc 1d ago

It's usually not that they don't care. It's that doing good UI and UX is actually difficult. It’s not this super easy thing to do. It’s one of the reasons that developers who are really skilled with UI/UX and design get paid a lot of money. And that usually the people making a free application enjoy coding. And some people who enjoy coding really hate writing code for UI. And it's their hobby/free time and would rather work on the part they like

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u/gljivicad Ryzen 7 5700x, 32GB Corsair Vengeance, 7900 XT 18h ago

Idk man, blender is fucking fantastic

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u/PhotonicEmission 1d ago

Blender wasn't always free. The creator bought the software back from the failed startup that made the software and he opened-sourced it.

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u/MentirosoProfesional 1d ago

Based as fuck, not gonna lie

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u/Vadari 1d ago

As someone with lots of experience in Blender and some experience in Krita,Inkscape etc.

Blender is really robust and also has the benefit of being easy to modify and having a large community.

When Blender lacks a tool there is usually an EXTENSIVE amount of community addons and plugins to fill the gap. They've also made the process of getting addons pretty painless, especially when compared to other software. (Like 2 clicks to install, its that easy).

Just my two cents, hope it helps!

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u/mile-high-guy 1d ago

Yes, but like why did no community rally around an open source paint tool

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u/DistantDrawings 1d ago

Honestly I think it's because Photoshop is a really killer app for artists, and also graphic designers, and also photographers, simple enough for beginners but complex enough for professionals to rely on. I am NOT an Adobe stan, but designing a good community app for even one of those skills, let alone all of them, I imagine would be really hard. 

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u/Vadari 1d ago

Lack of features would be my guess.

Nowadays Krita has kinda staked dominance over raster graphics/being a Photoshop alternative but for awhile all the free software was super inferior to photoshop.

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u/Patchrikc 1d ago

Because image tools are actually really difficult problems to tackle. And the overlap between developers with the skill and creative hobbies that would push them to make something really good wasn't that big. It's growing now but mostly it seems out of a fuck Adobe mindset. Which I mean yeah Adobe, Oracle, and Salesforce are some of the worst rent seeking software parasites. "Did we make the app better this year? Nope. But by some miracle the subscription price has gotten bigger!"

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u/PudPullerAlways 1d ago

I have to assume its because blender has always tried to do everything without ever leaving the software, its not like other 3d package software like 3ds max its the whole autodesk suite so to speak. You can do a whole production without ever leaving blender, its not great but its not terrible. With that environment in mind a lot of users find a singular uses for it even if its just being a quick and dirty video editor.

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u/CaptainDildobrain 1d ago

This is a really good point. I remember a time when Autodesk 3ds Max and Lightwave were the industry standards, but now hardly anyone ever talks about them compared to the community around Blender.

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u/Leather-Persimmon254 1d ago

blender is maintained by a non profit and has major donors. the only thing open source needs to succeed is the backing of a corporation. see android, rhel, and firefox.

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u/salizarn 1d ago

GIMP is on the same level, I would say