That's why I like open source projects. People writing open source might not write perfect code, but often they at least have opinions and beliefs about how things can or should be. Even if you disagree with decisions, you'll learn something.
Corporate code just mirrors corporate structure after a while. More and more lines, where other people are or were responsible, where any reason has been driven out (your learning experience by asking "why is this written or designed like this" gets short circuited with a quick "well, who knows") - which slowly but surely spirals down quality, engagement and fun.
I think I've encountered more vitriol on corporate software than corporate things (related to code). Much of the battle is often not about code, but about process, other parts of the organization, etc.
Or at least I should say a lot of OSS projects are corporate, so they feel the same way. The for-fun stuff can be, but it can also wear you down. There's a lot of hate among users of projects that you are directly exposed to, where a paying customer can often be a lot easier to talk to. It's weird.
It's ok and fun when you have a few users, but when you have lots, you find they can be really hard to scale -- so many different points of view, so many different conflicting needs, "managing" people you don't pay, trying to break up disagreements, many more points of compromise, etc.
I prefer open source applications for this reason. If the code is ugly it's less likely to work, and if you write ugly code publicly you are less likely to get work.
Corporate code just mirrors corporate structure after a while. More and more lines, where other people are or were responsible, where any reason has been driven out (your learning experience by asking "why is this written or designed like this" gets short circuited with a quick "well, who knows") - which slowly but surely spirals down quality, engagement and fun.