NOTE: This article was written in a VERY pre-Claude Code world, and may not reflect accurately now

Somewhere along the way, we started to treat open source as such a moral stance. People will tell you to use GIMP instead of Photoshop "because it's free (both libres and gratis)," ignoring that GIMP has been a massive PITA to use for 20 years. They'll recommend Linux for your laptop because "Windows is spyware," then not give a fuck when you can't figure out why your printer isn't connecting and then blame you for your obscure software choices.

This happens because we have turned our software choice into an identity. Picking Firefox over Chrome or LibreOffice over Word is now a form of virtue signaling that creates a cult around showing that you're ethically superior or simply more technically sophisticated. But software really is just a tool, and treating it like a lifestyle just leads to some very bad decisions.

I've learnt a long time ago to just use what works. The reality is that funded software generally beats unfunded software, regardless of license. The indie, volunteer-driven open source that gets romanticized is rarely competitive, and the exceptions only prove why funding matters. While open source software is often praised for its transparency, flexibility, and community-driven innovation, these advantages do not always translate into better user experiences—especially for complex, consumer-facing tools.

Corporate-backed open source is, for projects that matter, the only viable open source

Everyone loves to hate Chrome, but Chromium's Blink engine is objectively excellent, it's fast, standards-compliant with developer tools that crush the competition. It's open source, but it's fast because Google needs it to be (they bet billions on the future of work being on the web). It's fast because Google dedicates entire teams on it, not because of community volunteers.

The open source software that actually powers the world works the same way. Linux dominates servers because IBM, Google, and Meta pay developers to work on it full-time. React is everywhere because Meta supports it. Kubernetes, Go, TensorFlow, Android, VS Code, TypeScript—all funded by tech giants with dedicated teams.

This isn't "community" open source. This is "we open-sourced our internal tools" or "we fund this to commoditize our complements." The code is open, but the development still remains professional and salaried.

The exceptions that prove the rule

"Wait," you say, "what about Blender? OBS Studio? VLC? (I won't get to VLC here, but VLC hasn't been great for years). They're volunteer projects with great UX!"

Yes, they exist. But look closer at where they came from. Blender was built by professional commercial animators working at a company.

Ton Roosendaal co-founded NeoGeo in 1988, a Dutch animation studio that became the largest 3D animation house in the Netherlands, creating award-winning work for Philips and other corporate clients. Within NeoGeo, Roosendaal was responsible for software development, and he started building Blender in 1994 as an in-house tool to solve real commercial production problems.

When NeoGeo wound down, Roosendaal founded Not a Number (NaN) in 1998, a commercial company with a freemium business model that raised €4.5 million in venture capital and employed 50 people at its peak. Blender only became open source in 2002 after NaN failed and the Blender Foundation raised €100,000 to buy the rights—with help from several ex-NaN employees who had already spent years developing it as commercial software.

Blender is great despite being open source, not because of it. It carries the DNA of two commercial companies (NeoGeo and NaN) and only achieved its current polish after securing millions in grants from Epic Games, Apple, and AMD to hire full-time developers. You need money to beat the odds.

This pattern repeats everywhere. The best open source tools are built by people who learned their craft at proprietary companies on salary. OBS is not only sponsored but also developed by Logitech, YouTube, Twitch, and AMD, who all have vested interests in OBS succeeding.

There's nothing noble about struggling with bad software

Now look at what happens when open source is actually built by volunteers in their spare time. GIMP has been the "Photoshop alternative" for two decades and still has a UX that sends new users straight back to Adobe. LibreOffice has been hailed as the Word or Docs alternative, yet still refuses to parse .docx and other industry standard formats, however proprietary, accurately.

The free software movement/FOSS community is one of many communities (e.g. 3D Printing, coffee) where some extremist members pride themselves with conviction on how hard and complex the things they use are to differentiate themselves from the "noobs" in a obnoxiously strange show of intellectual superiority through pity asking and ego stroking.

But software should not be hard to use. Software should be used to drive productivity. Software that is hard to use is, simply put, bad software.

Burnout

The worst part of the romanticization is how it treats the people building the software. Users adopt volunteer open source for their business, make money off it, then demand bug fixes. When the unpaid maintainer doesn't respond in 24 hours, they leave angry comments about "unprofessional" abandonment.

You can't have it both ways. Either accept that free tools come with no guarantees, or pay for software that includes support. The result of this entitlement is burnout: 60% of open source maintainers have considered quitting because users treat them like employees while refusing to pay them.

Just use what works

Sometimes open source is the right choice. If you're running a web server, you probably want Linux and nginx. If you're building an application, you probably want Postgres and Python. These are genuinely best-in-class tools that merely happen to be open source. Furthermore, if you are relying on single-purpose libraries, focused CLI tools, or one-off apps, the volunteer-driven FOSS model works flawlessly. Small-scoped tools built by developers for developers don't need corporate sponsors to succeed.

But when it comes to massive, complex, user-facing applications, the rules change entirely. If you're a professional photographer using GIMP instead of Photoshop because of "principles," you're just costing yourself money. If you're forcing your company onto LibreOffice instead of Word or Docs, you are allowing your productivity to tank and support tickets to skyrocket for the sake of ideology.

Software is a tool. Proprietary applications are tools that are sometimes better because money pays for development and polish and support. Open source programs are tools that are sometimes better because transparency, privacy, and community matter more for infrastructure. The license is irrelavent (for most people)—it doesn't make you a good person or a bad person for using it.

Software is a utility, so pick the tool that actually does the job you need it to do.