Corpses write no code. shrugs
> If it was just one company that consistently produced crap software, it would be easy to say that there's probably something broken at that company.
Anything below the top, say, 2-5% of software is guaranteed to be shit because all the programmers below the top 2-5% are shit. There is no grand movement or methodology to be had here.
It's a people problem.
>For example, I might be writing a Jooma migration tool right now to fix the stupid 1.5->1.7 issues, and I'd be happy to release it and even support it for as long as people need it, but first I have to figure out what the hell is wrong with the wireless drivers in Linux on the new laptop...
This is why I use Linux for workstations where it seems more comfortable, and my Mac for my mobile machine as it's more tolerant of network/display disruption. I'm not trying to troll or be a Mac fanboy here, I prefer working in Linux as I am simply more productive and it's my production OS. But, a laptop that is on the move plays to the strengths of OS X sufficiently that I am travelling right now and using my Mac instead of my Linux laptop.
You're going to have to accept that if you use the wrong software for the wrong problems, you're going to keep getting poked in the eye. You're using bad hammers and complaining about how bad hammers are.
There's a distinction to be made, an important one.
>Now, here's the other half of it: support people are not your janitors.
Open source projects don't have "support people", they have contributors and devs that volunteer their time. I worked for a MOTU and volunteered in the #ubuntu channel on FreeNode for years. I've done thousands of man-hours of support. I know exactly how bad software is, and how bad the situation is.
I'm on your side here, but until you start solving the problems one at a time, nothing changes.
My apartment gets cleaned one trash bag at a time.
>The harder my job gets, the less likely I am to contribute.
Something's gotta give. Stuff like Joomla registers as shitware in the circles I go in.
Complaining about things like Joomla, PHP, Drupal, Outlook, etc. doesn't really register with me.
Might as well buy a Kia and complain about how terrible the state of automobiles are. The author had much stronger points than you have. You work with some terrible stuff, period.