>I've read similar comments on vlc, audacity, etc. The amount of complaints and lack of appreciation of OSS projects is absolutely mind boggling to me, yet we keep getting new amazing software for free.

I find the worst is with OSS projects that are intended to replace professional software. Software that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars.

Gimp, shotcut(and other video editors), libreCAD, libreoffice, OSM, Ardour, inkscape, Krita, even linux itself.

I've seen some of the most vitriolic and nitpicky comments towards that and other similar software, over sometimes the stupidest things like ui differences to the commercial equivalents or something equally as shallow.

Myself, I'm just happy there's so much professional quality open source software. It may not have the bells and whistles of the fairly expensive commercial equivalents, but compared to only 15 years ago or so, the amount of software these days that will let you do professional quality work at home completely free is incredible to me and the quality of OSS offerings keep getting better, while in a lot of cases, the commercial versions seem to have focused almost entirely on converting as many of their products to services as possible.

If they are intended to replace professional software, there is a reasonable expectation that it can actually do just that. I'm thankful that there are some really amazing open source projects that allow many people access to applications capable of producing professional results "for free" (while being "free"). They are fighting an uphill battle with less resources for the "professional" users, though.

> I find the worst is with OSS projects that are intended to replace professional software. Software that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars.

The price of software isn't ever really going to be a consideration when it comes to software that is supposed to be "professional." Obviously when you have direction and strong incentives (make more money) products tend to gain capabilities and polish at a rate that an uncompensated OSS project can't match. But none of that matters to someone trying to edit a video or score a soundtrack or create illustrations or whatever else they're trying to do with their "professional" software.

> I've seen some of the most vitriolic and nitpicky comments towards that and other similar software, over sometimes the stupidest things like ui differences to the commercial equivalents or something equally as shallow.

Except user interface is extremely important for professional software. You are committing a lot of time to learning the way around an application that is extremely complex. This is why people get stuck on a particular digital audio workstation or nonlinear editor versus another. There is an extremely steep learning curve to switch. Free software should be trying to lower the barrier to entry which means replicating user interfaces of popular commercial software. UI differences aren't stupid, they're really important, especially for software that you're expected to be using day in and out every day.

> Myself, I'm just happy there's so much professional quality open source software.

I'm also thankful for it. Not everyone is a professional who can afford the high prices of commercial software and having access to such powerful tools for free is incredible. When I was a kid I pirated a lot of software. Macromedia Dreamweaver and Photoshop were really important to me at the time but nowadays exploring interests is much easier (and safer).

> The price of software isn't ever really going to be a consideration when it comes to software that is supposed to be "professional."

I don't think this is really true. When choosing between say, python and Matlab, the price of a license absolutely weighs heavily into the discussion.

I'll readily admit that in certain fields (particularly programming, but also programming-adjacent ones) open source software is good enough and arguably better than commercial offerings. In those cases yeah, people are going to maybe have discussions on the merits of using the free software over the commercial closed-source ones. That's how it should be. That's not how it is for a lot of creative fields, though.

These things are being made by people mostly for free. I know there's corporate funding and donations amongst bigger projects, but they're being made by people, for free, so that a free alternative to expensive software can exist.

It's one thing to complain about software you pay for negatively.

When I used alphaCAM and Park Industry software I expected to be able to phone them any time and they'd hop on TeamViewer and help me with any and every minor problem, but alphaCAM costs $10,000/year. For that $10,000/year i have every right to complain or ask for any bit of customer service I want, for $0/Ever, I can deal with it, make a polite suggestion and hope for the best, or submit a patch.

You'd be surprised how little most people think about this. People outside the programming bubble just google programs and install them. For them there is no difference between open source, freeware, shareware etc. They have a task, they look for a free-as-in-beer software and then have an opinion on its quality. They have zero idea of how software is made or financed. For all they know or care, it could just fall out of the sky or grow on trees.

Perhaps projects should include a "don't be an asshole" addendum to their license of choice that allows revocation in cases of abuse by users. It's a small thing to ask, but I'm not sure I like 2nd order and higher consequences of such an addendum.

But man, it would probably feel great to reply as @shotcut, "Your license to use shotcut has been revoked under section 8.3.4 of the license agreement. Please cease use of shotcut until remedies under section 8.3.4 have been made (public written apology for abusive behavior)".

It's more magnanimous to just ignore such users, and listen carefully to the users who care about (but not necessarily understand well) the software.

That goes counter to the spirit of Free Software.

"Commercial equivalent" might be more clear than "commercial version" - at first I thought the program was dual-licensed.

I'm sorry you had to handle that, but it's the nature of the world that some people are uncaring ingrates. Don't fixate on them. Most people do appreciate the work and effort.

I honestly think Shotcut drove Black Magic Design to release a mostly complete free version of Davinci Resolve. It is just so good, that the leader in editing software had to make the tool free to most users.

The “leaders in editing software” are arguably Avid’s Media Composer, Adobe Premiere pro, and Apple’s Final Cut Pro X, none of which have free versions.

The free version of Da Vinci Resolve was released back when it was still a color-correction tool, before it started adding meaningful editing capabilities. So, no, I don’t think Shotcut is relevant.

Consumers who don't know how a software is built, tend to take it for granted, have the attitude like software grows in trees and end up selling their data, soul and future to Big Tech which seems to give them everything 'for free'.

There's a reason why we haven't had successful kickstarter, indegogo like platform for software; People on average just don't want to pay for intangible stuff even if it affects every aspect of their lives.

I'm enormously grateful for high quality, open source software.

The haters know what to do: complain on forums, send in angry bug reports, etc.

What should we grateful ones do? I could email the author(s), if their email is available, but I worry that they don't want more spam.

Show what software you use to produce your content and recommend the software to others.

This problem has a known solution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plonk_(Usenet)