It's not true that just because a product is open source, it will be of good quality. I don't have enough knowledge to say the following is true or that i'm not just suffering confirmation bias but it does appear to be true that at the extremes, the best quality software delivery processes are from open source projects.
I would shoot holes in my own argument by pointing out specific projects from NASA.
Open Source provides a way for some authors to publish software optimized for quality, rather than optimized for profitability of a commercial entity.
Back in the day physical products might have amazing engineering that in fact undermined profitability because products were designed to last forever. Nowadays product designs need to incorporate planned obsolescence instead, optimizing for profitability by ensuring that products break down in a timely manner and encourage repurchasing.
Open Source can provide an escape from such pressures. Releases can deliver features only when they are ready, not when marketing needs them.
Open Source doesn't guarantee that will happen, because companies can still publish half-baked products under Open Source licenses (Firebase SDK anyone?). But for Open Source projects governed by individuals or by stakeholder communities, it's at least possible to optimize for quality.
>Open Source provides a way for some authors to publish software optimized for quality
This is literally true because of the word "some" in there. But if you mean that it especially leads to quality, rather than just "some quality happens", open source programs are notably deficient in many ways. Programmers don't like writing and don't need documentation for their own program; are familiar with the program's functions so they don't need a good UI; and they have different needs from average users, so their programs may not meet those users' needs very well. Whether you want to call that quality is, I suppose, up to you.
Yes, I was very deliberately not generalizing to all of Open Source. I was exploring these assertions:
> It's not true that just because a product is open source, it will be of good quality.
> [...] it does appear to be true that at the extremes, the best quality software delivery processes are from open source projects.
To turn around your argument, I think your generalizations about "programmers" are too pessimistic. Many of the best Open Source authors enjoy designing good user interfaces and writing good documentation because they want to make something awesome and beautiful. And commercial entities generally won't/can't give software developers free reign to do that because of marketplace pressures to optimize for profitability and value (which are awesome and beautiful in a different way).
It's not true that just because a product is open source, it will be of good quality. I don't have enough knowledge to say the following is true or that i'm not just suffering confirmation bias but it does appear to be true that at the extremes, the best quality software delivery processes are from open source projects.
I would shoot holes in my own argument by pointing out specific projects from NASA.