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As one of calibre's volunteer contributors who uses and develops on a Mac, I'd like to chime in.
When I discovered calibre I was looking for something, anything that would let me create content for my Kindle other than Mobigen. When I first discovered calibre my reaction was that the functionality and extensibility was just what I was looking for, but the UI left something to be desired. Finding nothing else in the cybersphere even remotely close in capabilities, I started peppering Kovid with feature requests.
Some of the requests were implemented, others were not, but he invited me to try my hand at submitting revisions. He helped me come up to speed at every step of the way, generously answering stupid newbie questions offline.
A year later, I've contributed several chunks of functionality to the calibre code base, each one of them carefully reviewed and improved by Kovid, all in the interest of creating a more usable tool. And a year later he still answers my stupid questions.
I didn't know anything about Python when I started, and didn't believe that cross-platform development was a realistic goal until I dove in. If it were up to me, sure, I'd love to see the OSX UI spiffed up, but absolutely not at the cost of the development time that would be necessary. My code runs in OSX, Windows and Linux. I have never touched a Linux box, and yet Kovid's design makes it possible for my code to run there. I am always amazed when I try my code in Windows and It Just Works.
I find it astounding that folks could feel compelled to make negative remarks about a FREE product that's maintained and updated far more frequently than any paid product I've ever used, with an open-door policy to suggestions and code contributions. Really.
When I proposed an iTunes interface so I could use calibre with my iPad, Kovid was absolutely supportive, regardless of his feelings about Apple. He has helped me improve and polish the iTunes functionality, in spite of the fact that I'm quite certain he will never use it.
As someone aptly put it, "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
G
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