When I wrote the first version of this article six years ago, I called it “Why Free Software usability tends to suck”. The best open source applications and operating systems are more usable now than they were then. But this is largely from slow incremental improvements, and low-level competition between projects and distributors. Major problems with the design process itself remain largely unfixed.
Many of these problems are with volunteer software in general, not Free Software in particular.
Matthew Paul Thomas discusses free software development, why it has poor usability, and what to do to fix it.
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