free open source software needs fewer engineers and more designers and product people

[m000gletje@app.wafrn.net]

tbf if said request comes from someone who actually has the capability and skills to contribute themself that's a reasonable thing to say

but of course that's only a minority of cases where that happens

[j0ebaldw1n@mastodonapp.uk]

@m000gletje @TodePond Yeah like literally the first bullet point in the thing I’m writing is just “not everyone is or can be a nerd”

[j0ebaldw1n@mastodonapp.uk]

@m000gletje @TodePond Yeah “use our software! It’s inconvenient!” is very obviously a bad sales pitch nobody will listen to - often motivated by the strange idea that you should, as a moral imperative, suffer to use technology

[m000gletje@app.wafrn.net]

look, i've had my ride with trying to be a sysadmin, sure it's fun to have your own services you can fuck around in without the approval of anyone

but it shouldn't be a necessity and rather something you can get into if you want

actually foss/generally tech nerds should be forced to go outside, touch grass and interact with the normies so they can get off their imaginary selfhosted planet and get a grip on reality

[yaxu@post.lurk.org]

@TodePond I guess without large amount of state funding it's not going to happen, especially from an accessibility standpoint.. Until then I guess we have to make do with people mostly making software for themselves

[todepond@mas.to]

@yaxu strongly disagree! there are huge incentives for designers and product people to get involved with volunteering, just like programmers.

and yes accessibility is a huge factor of this. getting design and product-oriented people involved means software becomes accessible to more people

[gwenthefops@transfem.social]

@TodePond@mas.to and technical writer

[mgclgrl@transfem.social]

@TodePond@mas.to FOSS engineers at the very concept of UX: ​​

[yaxu@post.lurk.org]

@TodePond Fair enough, I should be more optimistic!

[arcade@merveilles.town]

@TodePond this is true in many fields

[flpvsk@mastodon.social]

@TodePond what are the incentives?

[todepond@mas.to]

@flpvsk the same incentives that keeps bazillions of engineers involved

[boggo@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@yaxu @TodePond Lots of examples in game dev of open source tools having excellent product design, e.g. Blender, Godot. These tools did get some state funding but also because the tools are good a lot of professionals use them and companies often donate to fund them.

[todepond@mas.to]

but okay, how do we fix this?

we need to make space for design and product work within collaborative open source software somehow. there's PLENTY of space to walk into if you're a dev: make an issue / make a pull request / make a fork / use a package / blah blah blah

but there's none if you're a designer / producty person. what do you do??????

[froos@post.lurk.org]

@TodePond prill scropt is overrated, people should realize it's much simpler to just dweedle their stingmesh like a normal human being. not sure what all the fuss is about. you don't even need a fuzzlebus in most cases

[todepond@mas.to]

the industry does not work like this at all! but open source completely omits product design

[todepond@mas.to]

THIS THREAD IS FACETIOUS AND TONGUE IN CHEEK AND OVERZEALOUS IN ORDER TO SHAKE UP AND CHALLENGE EXISTING NORMS DO NOT TAKE IT ALL AS 100% ACCURATE AND COME FOR ME

[hopeless@mas.to]

@TodePond You could put the bully pulpit down, and show us the FOSS discord alternative you and your designer buddies have been working on for free that is good enough for your highness?

[todepond@mas.to]

@hopeless found the dev

[hopeless@mas.to]

@TodePond No FOSS work, just posts on social media?