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Programs you can use during a financial meltdown!
40hz:
I'm not sure that FLOSS is automatically better.
Lots of FLOSS is really dross, and a lot is not well maintained. Big "commercial" enterprises tend to be needed to maintain large and very complex apps (and I do include the 'not for profit' OSS groups here) and most of the apps I really like are developed and maintained by one (or a very small team) of programmers - and many of them like to keep control by maintaining ownership of their code even when they are committed to keeping everything free.
-Dormouse (October 04, 2008, 04:23 PM)
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Spot on! :Thmbsup:
I'm very glad someone pointed that out. There is a certain faction in the FOSS world that makes the dubious argument that all "open" software is "better" merely by virtue of it's being "open."
There are many instances where commercial software is better in terms of functionality, user-experience, and support. But that is also not automatically true.
I have had several bad experiences with very expensive and well established software when it came to tech support and customer satisfaction. One was with the de facto industry standard desktop publishing app, and the other was with a very well known financial accounting package. Both boasted of how good their support was, and even saw fit to charge for it on a per incident basis.
I'll be polite and call their claims exaggerated, and let it go at that.
One of the things that does annoy me about some commercial software publishers is what I see as an abuse of the term "free." The FOSS world may be a little off the deep end (for some people) with their insistence that there be no secrets or restrictions on anything. But at least they have a published definition of what they mean by the word "free." I am personally sick of downloading something billed as "free" only to discover it is critically feature limited (i.e. print or save disabled), time or use restricted (15 days, 20 records, etc.); or even worse, installs as a non-functional flash demo.
And then there are those organizations that benefit from the FOSS movement by using its work in a commercial product without adhering to the provisions of the GPL. One of the favorite dodges I've been seeing lately involves the availability of source code. Under GPL, source code must be made available - but it doesn't say precisely how that has to be done. There are some so-called "OSS" products that make it extremely difficult for you to get source code. Some only make source available on disk (for a fee). Others only make it available in pieces via their version control system. And some simply don't make mention of source code at all, forcing you to badger them until they comply with the GPL.
Paul Hawkins wrote an interesting article on setting up profit sharing for your own company. He said that you should only do it if you really intended to share. He cautioned that, if you weren't motivated by a fundamental sense of fairness, you'd be far better off not doing it at all. Then he made a wonderful observation: People are more willing to respect greed than they are hypocrisy.
I think that insight is equally valid for software publishing.. 8)
Carol Haynes:
The Free Software Foundation's definition of "free" goes beyond being free of charge. To be considered "free" in the FSF universe, a product would have to be released under GPL. Any licensing restrictions would make it "not free" even if it were otherwise given away.
-40hz (October 04, 2008, 07:33 AM)
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Using that argument if I write a piece of software that has no license whatsoever beyond 'its yours do what you like with it' then it isn't free ??
It's a bit like saying I'll buy you a drink but the drink isn't free unless I provide you with the keys to the brewery.
FSF approach is just plain stupid (IMHO).
4wd:
The Free Software Foundation's definition of "free" goes beyond being free of charge. To be considered "free" in the FSF universe, a product would have to be released under GPL. Any licensing restrictions would make it "not free" even if it were otherwise given away.
-40hz (October 04, 2008, 07:33 AM)
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It's a bit like saying I'll buy you a drink but the drink isn't free unless I provide you with the keys to the brewery.
-Carol Haynes (October 05, 2008, 04:25 PM)
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Actually, it's more like: I'll make you a drink (program) but it isn't free unless I provide the list of ingredients (requirements, eg. libs, etc) and mixing instructions (program code).
It's up to the end user to provide the equipment for mixing it, (ie. compiler, etc).
You're implying you'd being giving away the compiler (brewery) as well to qualify as FSF free.
Now I'm getting thirsty.....
FSF approach is just plain stupid (IMHO).
-Carol Haynes (October 05, 2008, 04:25 PM)
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IMHO, it isn't. Simply for the fact that if I have a piece of GPL software, (assuming compliance), that has stopped development and that I use, I know that if I require a bug fixed, feature added/removed, etc I can:
1) do it myself, (even if I have to learn the language - something I've done before);
2) get a friend to do it;
3) ask on the internet if there is someone willing to do it;
4) offer a donation/money to someone at DC to do it;
5) pay a programmer to do it;
6) etc, etc, etc.
A far cry from trying to get closed source, non-developed software modified or having to create a program from scratch.
Give me a program that does what I want and I have the possibility to adapt to my needs over closed-source any day.
40hz:
FSF approach is just plain stupid (IMHO).
-Carol Haynes (October 05, 2008, 04:25 PM)
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Yes, there are those who will agree with you.
But I also think it's worth noting that the people who brought you Linux, Apache, MySQL, BIND, DNS, Sendmail, the TCP/IP protocol stack, the Ethernet protocol, HTML, CSS, XML, Python, Perl, C++... (oh the list just goes on and on and on) - and continue to contribute to their development and maintenance don't agree.
And I think the world is a far better place for it.
IMHO. ;)
Darwin:
Hmm... IMNSHO, this discussion/argument is really about semantics. I *think* this is why people take such pains to differentiate between "free", "open-source", "donationware", etc. Witness some of the inane threads we've had here over the years in which someone will drop in to lambaste our beloved leader for what they perceive to be his incorrect use of the term "free" in describing the cost of using one of his applications... It would be nice if everyone would just get together to come up with universal definitions for these things: free means you can use the app without paying for it, Open Source means you can monkey around with the innards of the application, donationware means use it and if you like it shoot the developer some shekels for his or her hard work (but no one is going to hold your feet to the fire to make you do so), etc.
40hz, I am with you on the issue of commercial developers/vendors describing crippled demos as "free". But then, that's us, right back to semantics :D
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