Let me start with a warning. This might become a long rant that invariably none of you will commiserate with. That's fine. But I'll lead off with the fact that I love open source projects.

But it pains me to say that I've seen way too many times the words "I don't use that, so it doesn't affect me" about very normal things only to find out they're poorly implemented or done up in a way that only another engineer/programmer could use it.

I won't name names; there's really no need. No matter the software or type - mobile, open, closed, desktop - the likelihood of whenever it's open source or not, you're treated to a laundry list of workflow changes between applications that (which might are not in a suite) was made because somebody thought their way was better than the other.

At the bottom of these changes is ego. I've no time for ego that assumes that your way is better than either a way that I'd rather do my work or have done my work in the past. Evolution is one thing. But to take a known and modern enough workflow and alter it to where it'll require a complete relearning of the software to get the same job done as before. Or because you hate how an UI has a rounded button motif and you like squared off buttons instead. Or because you want to add a ribbon across the top because you think that'll tie in your task bar (MS Office reference). How about actually trying to reform your workflow and do so in the interest of an UI/UX that benefits more users than just yourself.

But people do things their way too often. "I don't use bluetooth to transfer files" which means... yep, you guessed it, it'll be improperly implemented or won't have the proper profiles. "I don't use a calendar on my phone" which means... the Calendar app won't have all of the modern expected features like create, edit, copy/paste from e-mail and so forth.

Some UI's are just plain horrible but the developer will just scream that it's the best and most efficient. Did you ask your users if they agree? Probably not.

But I get it. If you don't use it, it's not important to you, right?

You can't be more wrong.

tl;dr

Stop imposing your will on folks without asking them. It annoys the hell out of the users and only boosts your ego. Which is the anti-thesis of open source and community and closer to closed source and dictating.

I like that tl;dr but this time around I read it all :P