I guess I should say something positive about Audacity, but... in terms of overall user experience it is so typical for open/free applications to look and feel just horrible, especially on the Mac. (Inkscape also comes to mind.) Every time I need to do something in Audacity I catch myself thinking, I should do my job as quick as possible and close the hideous thing.
Of course you will say but it does the job, and as a free app it's pretty unique. Oh and there are these people who work on it voluntarily, they are not paid for it! That's okay, I contributed to open source myself and I think I know what it feels like to be criticized for not doing enough for your project or being too slow.
But I have just one question for the Audacity team and all those who work on some significant open source GUI apps: why isn't the user experience your top priority in the first place?
Of course you will say but it does the job, and as a free app it's pretty unique. Oh and there are these people who work on it voluntarily, they are not paid for it! That's okay, I contributed to open source myself and I think I know what it feels like to be criticized for not doing enough for your project or being too slow.
But I have just one question for the Audacity team and all those who work on some significant open source GUI apps: why isn't the user experience your top priority in the first place?