>The resistance to UI change is huge among die-hard users so the projects tend to get stuck in whatever UI language they had a decade ago when they started
Oh, worse: stuck in whatever weird, half-baked UI decisions that were made because someone had a great idea that they did not test at all, or because they hated the industry standard approach that everyone else uses. It's no secret that Blender adoption exploded when they added normal menus, and then made right-click select an optional function, and then finally added an auto Maya-like interface option.
But that's one instance where we lucked out. Not just because they fixed it, but also because the thing that needed to be fixed was in users' face and obvious.
I don't think it's that people want a certain nostalgic UI. It's that most of these applications are built by volunteers, for free, and are already understaffed. From an individual's perspective, it's much more important, and possible, to fix bug #155 or implement a new feature than to try to overhaul the entire UI. In order to do that, you'd have to get everyone on board and everyone would have to agree with the changes. A lot of projects are too flat as organizations for this to go smoothly.
> LibreOffice is a UI time capsule..more archaeology than productivity.
I agree. Seeing the comments here claiming the outdated UI is a good thing, actually, brings up one of the big problems with a lot of open source and/or Linux soecific software: The resistance to UI change is huge among die-hard users so the projects tend to get stuck in whatever UI language they had a decade ago when they started
When I introduce people to open source versions of different software I find myself starting with “The UI has a steep learning curve, but…”.
It would be so much easier if we could give people apps that were targeted at familiar UI patterns of today, even if it angers a vocal minority who want every UI to look like it came out of the 90s or early 2000s when they first discovered their love of computers.