it crashed on me occasionally and/or felt sluggish.
I am surprised to hear this. I have used Inkscape for years, and I do not remember it ever crashing on me or it feeling anything but snappy. But I am using it on a very capable machine. I am not saying what you say is untypical (or untrue), just that our experiences with it are very different, and that could explain our different views on it.
Do you remember how much free RAM Inkscape had to work with when you used it?
Maybe that could have been a limiting factor for Inkscape that caused the sluggishness and the crashes.
Sometimes developers simply do not know about bugs or limitations that only happen with specific hardware, that they just do not own. That is why they really value people telling them about these things.
But then why use Inkscape at all?
The value of Open Source is more than just “it is free” and “you can look at the code”. It is the only software that you truly own. It is the only software that humanity truly owns, forever. It is the software that emerged from humanity, yours to use however you like. Nobody (not even the developers themselves) can ever take it away from us, not even a little bit.
Developers contributing to FLOSS often just want to help make really good software. That is their end goal. Not profit, not user numbers. Just good software. Is it going to be the best software there is, right from the start? Of course not. But when you keep working on something with the sole goal of making it good, it will become better than anything that is made for profit.
I believe that in the long run FLOSS becomes un-compete-able. Free and Open Source Software can have years or decades of hard work put into it. Trying to compete with that is an uphill battle right from the start, even within the Open Source world. Proprietary software trying to compete with established Open Source Software? Forget it. Nobody would switch to a proprietary for-profit SSH, even if it were faster. What if something breaks? How do you maintain it? If something breaks 10 years from now? 500 years from now? With Open Source Software, people can look at the code, and fix it. Unlike with proprietary software, where you rely on the original developer maintaining the software.
why switch to Linux in the first place
For me it is reliability.
Something that can be maintained and patched by anybody is much more reliable than something that can only be maintained by a few. Open Source can always be fixed. Does Open Source Software break? Of course it does. Every bigger piece of software has bugs, or develops bugs with changing hardware. But with Open Source Software anybody can fix the bug. Being able to rely on this, is very valuable when you need something to work, and can not afford it to break forever. This is why Hollywood loves Open Source Software.
free software has a quality problem.
I am reading this as “a quality control” problem.
I do not think FLOSS has a quality control problem. The most reliable software in the world is FLOSS. It has a lack of variety in contributors problem (including bug reporting for when something does not work on specific hardware!). Most contributors to FLOSS are software developers, not UX/UI designers. I do not want to say that software developers can not make good UX/UI designs, but the limited time that FLOSS contributors dedicate to this results in users experiencing a lack of polish in many smaller projects.
I am surprised to hear this. I have used Inkscape for years, and I do not remember it ever crashing on me or it feeling anything but snappy. But I am using it on a very capable machine. I am not saying what you say is untypical (or untrue), just that our experiences with it are very different, and that could explain our different views on it. Do you remember how much free RAM Inkscape had to work with when you used it? Maybe that could have been a limiting factor for Inkscape that caused the sluggishness and the crashes.
Sometimes developers simply do not know about bugs or limitations that only happen with specific hardware, that they just do not own. That is why they really value people telling them about these things.
The value of Open Source is more than just “it is free” and “you can look at the code”. It is the only software that you truly own. It is the only software that humanity truly owns, forever. It is the software that emerged from humanity, yours to use however you like. Nobody (not even the developers themselves) can ever take it away from us, not even a little bit.
Developers contributing to FLOSS often just want to help make really good software. That is their end goal. Not profit, not user numbers. Just good software. Is it going to be the best software there is, right from the start? Of course not. But when you keep working on something with the sole goal of making it good, it will become better than anything that is made for profit.
I believe that in the long run FLOSS becomes un-compete-able. Free and Open Source Software can have years or decades of hard work put into it. Trying to compete with that is an uphill battle right from the start, even within the Open Source world. Proprietary software trying to compete with established Open Source Software? Forget it. Nobody would switch to a proprietary for-profit SSH, even if it were faster. What if something breaks? How do you maintain it? If something breaks 10 years from now? 500 years from now? With Open Source Software, people can look at the code, and fix it. Unlike with proprietary software, where you rely on the original developer maintaining the software.
For me it is reliability.
Something that can be maintained and patched by anybody is much more reliable than something that can only be maintained by a few. Open Source can always be fixed. Does Open Source Software break? Of course it does. Every bigger piece of software has bugs, or develops bugs with changing hardware. But with Open Source Software anybody can fix the bug. Being able to rely on this, is very valuable when you need something to work, and can not afford it to break forever. This is why Hollywood loves Open Source Software.
I am reading this as “a quality control” problem.
I do not think FLOSS has a quality control problem. The most reliable software in the world is FLOSS. It has a lack of variety in contributors problem (including bug reporting for when something does not work on specific hardware!). Most contributors to FLOSS are software developers, not UX/UI designers. I do not want to say that software developers can not make good UX/UI designs, but the limited time that FLOSS contributors dedicate to this results in users experiencing a lack of polish in many smaller projects.