Author Topic: Sign of the times for OpenSource software? (Read 25093 times)

Renegade · « **Reply #25 on:** November 09, 2012, 08:16 PM »

I think in the end it comes down to a simple equation based on the two most limited resources people have - money and time. Whichever one of those wins out will dictate what they gravitate to- everything else is just framing that argument.
-wraith808 (November 09, 2012, 10:32 AM)

I'd add in Stallman's position there. There are philosophical reasons to use freedom software. They're not really affected by price so much.

wraith808 · « **Reply #26 on:** November 09, 2012, 08:27 PM »

I think in the end it comes down to a simple equation based on the two most limited resources people have - money and time. Whichever one of those wins out will dictate what they gravitate to- everything else is just framing that argument.
-wraith808 (November 09, 2012, 10:32 AM)

I'd add in Stallman's position there. There are philosophical reasons to use freedom software. They're not really affected by price so much.
-Renegade (November 09, 2012, 08:16 PM)

That's a matter of time. Usually philosophical reasons make you take a less efficient and less convenient route, i.e. cost you more time.

Renegade · « **Reply #27 on:** November 09, 2012, 10:10 PM »

That's a matter of time. Usually philosophical reasons make you take a less efficient and less convenient route, i.e. cost you more time.
-wraith808 (November 09, 2012, 08:27 PM)

I think that's a point where we'll never agree. I see no reason why philosophical reasons can't make you more efficient or lead you down a more convenient route, costing you less time and money. It can go either way.

wraith808 · « **Reply #28 on:** November 09, 2012, 10:42 PM »

That's a matter of time. Usually philosophical reasons make you take a less efficient and less convenient route, i.e. cost you more time.
-wraith808 (November 09, 2012, 08:27 PM)

I think that's a point where we'll never agree. I see no reason why philosophical reasons can't make you more efficient or lead you down a more convenient route, costing you less time and money. It can go either way.
-Renegade (November 09, 2012, 10:10 PM)

Not saying that it couldn't... especially in the long run. But in the short run... show me a case.

Renegade · « **Reply #29 on:** November 09, 2012, 11:02 PM »

Not saying that it couldn't... especially in the long run. But in the short run... show me a case.
-wraith808 (November 09, 2012, 10:42 PM)

Well, for an abstract position...

David Hume's empiricism and on to rational maximization with John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism. That pretty much fits the bill for reducing costs and time investments.

For a more concrete example of preserving freedom and saving time/money in the FLOSS universe, 7-zip. It's faster & cheaper to download and use 7-zip rather than to take the time to purchase a license for a commercial compression utility. You save both time and money there.

For normal people, it is far faster and easier to use something like Paint.NET rather than Photoshop. The learning curve on Photoshop is pretty steep, whereas in Paint.NET it's much simpler and easier to use. You save money and time there. (I'm not saying that professional designers should use Paint.NET - I mean regular, normal people that do not do design and just want to draw a bit or do some simple image manipulation - those people outnumber professional designers by quite a bit.) The philosophical attraction to freedom there ends up saving time/money.

We could go on at length, but I think those examples should suffice.

wraith808 · « **Reply #30 on:** November 09, 2012, 11:36 PM »

Taking the devil's advocate position:

The 7-zip vs. commercial is actually disingenous, because the easier route would be to just use Windows. You might counter with the Linux argument, but you've already gone out of the way to go the Linux route- no matter what else you might say about it, it's *not* as easy to install as Windows.

For the paint.net vs photoshop example- If you need the facilities of photoshop, then paint.net (as good of a program as it is) won't fit the bill. (And of course, there's that whole bit with FOSS that I don't agree with that makes Paint.NET not free software... but that's a tangent)

I do, however, get what you're saying as far as there is a happy convergence at times, which is why I said usually. However, I think that the usually still applies.

Renegade · « **Reply #31 on:** November 09, 2012, 11:56 PM »

That's one nasty Devil~!

For the Windows ZIP utility... It's so poor and awkward to use that I wouldn't consider it worth using under any but the most dire circumstances. It just takes too long to use - it's miserable. The most usable one I've used (and I've used a LOT of them), is still ALZip - it's just all that much easier to use. But it isn't FLOSS - it's freeware.

For Paint.NET vs. Photoshop - that's why I specified for regular people. It's more than enough for *most* people. But, like you said, if you need more, then it just doesn't cut it. (I still love my Photoshop~!)

And yes - for convenience/time/money, it's often easier and faster to go for commercial software as in some spaces the FLOSS software that's available is simply too miserable to use. I'm not a command line fan... at all. If people want to prove just how "hard-core" they are, why don't they stop using human languages and just start typing in 1's and 0's.

(The command line has a time and place, but those situations are becoming fewer and fewer.)

iphigenie · « **Reply #32 on:** November 10, 2012, 01:35 AM »

Most "professional FLOSS software" lacks a good QA. At least the software I tried so far.
-Tuxman (November 09, 2012, 09:17 AM)

That is a challenge of the volunteer nature of many projects & the attribution of status and respect. Because in the industry QA is considered a lower status job (as is support and documentation), then in a project of a volunteer nature people would much rather do higher status tasks. This is one of the reasons why methodologies which bake more of the documentation and QA process in with development are especially valuable.

Projects which change this dynamic (either having QA provided by a company as a donation, roping in users en-masse for QA, or changing the dynamics and status balance with "marathons" or better recognition for QA) end up beating commercial software.

Tuxman · « **Reply #33 on:** November 10, 2012, 06:02 AM »

Projects which change this dynamic (either having QA provided by a company as a donation, roping in users en-masse for QA, or changing the dynamics and status balance with "marathons" or better recognition for QA) end up beating commercial software.
-iphigenie (November 10, 2012, 01:35 AM)

Are there any?

Renegade · « **Reply #34 on:** November 10, 2012, 06:39 AM »

Projects which change this dynamic (either having QA provided by a company as a donation, roping in users en-masse for QA, or changing the dynamics and status balance with "marathons" or better recognition for QA) end up beating commercial software.
-iphigenie (November 10, 2012, 01:35 AM)
Are there any?
-Tuxman (November 10, 2012, 06:02 AM)

Does Apache count?

Tuxman · « **Reply #35 on:** November 10, 2012, 06:40 AM »

I would not say Apache is a good example of quality. The reason why it became so popular is that it has unique features like .htaccess support and MOD_REWRITE.

Renegade · « **Reply #36 on:** November 10, 2012, 06:47 AM »

I would not say Apache is a good example of quality. The reason why it became so popular is that it has unique features like .htaccess support and MOD_REWRITE.
-Tuxman (November 10, 2012, 06:40 AM)

Well, as the most popular web server, they're probably doing something right, and probably good enough to run most web sites. (I primarily use IIS.)

Tuxman · « **Reply #37 on:** November 10, 2012, 06:49 AM »

The most popular daily paper in Germany is the "BILD", some rainbow press which is full of lies, except the sports part.
Don't mix up popularity and quality.

40hz · « **Reply #38 on:** November 10, 2012, 06:50 AM »

Projects which change this dynamic (either having QA provided by a company as a donation, roping in users en-masse for QA, or changing the dynamics and status balance with "marathons" or better recognition for QA) end up beating commercial software.
-iphigenie (November 10, 2012, 01:35 AM)
Are there any?
-Tuxman (November 10, 2012, 06:02 AM)

Servers.

Take your pick.

----------------------------------

Alternatively there's the QC/QA approach adopted by something like OpenBSD which I'd characterize as a challenge or bounty system. The developers there do their thing, and then put their work out in the wild with the challenge to break it. Ongoing and completely independent code auditing is one of the trademarks of the OpenBSD development process.

I think it's very telling that OpenBSD is arguably the single most secure OS ever created - and very likely to remain the only ultra-secure OS available to the general public.

If there's anything more secure than OpenBSD, the NSA is keeping it for themselves.

A similar approach was used when developing their OpenSSH companion project. OpenSSH is the single most secure implementation of the SSH protocol currently available. It is also the single most deployed version last I heard.

Renegade · « **Reply #39 on:** November 10, 2012, 06:59 AM »

A similar approach was used when developing their OpenSSH companion project. OpenSSH is the single most secure implementation of the SSH protocol currently available. It is also the single most deployed version last I heard.
-40hz (November 10, 2012, 06:50 AM)

Boom! Nailed it! OpenSSH is THE go-to for that. Any time you look into the topic... you ALWAYS end up with OpenSSH pretty much no matter what. Pretty much every time I ever need to do some kind of encryption, even if I'm using a third party component, I end up using OpenSSH.

For OpenBSD - dunno - I don't know it, but I'll take your word for it. I have no experience with it.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #40 on:** November 10, 2012, 07:31 AM »

The most popular daily paper in Germany is the "BILD", some rainbow press which is full of lies, except the sports part.
Don't mix up popularity and quality.
-Tuxman (November 10, 2012, 06:49 AM)

Unfortunately often popularity is *inverse* to quality, because of that "aggregate the middle" effect. Did y'all see the *geographical* space of the Presidential race? If you didn't understand the population distributions you'd think Romney would have crushed it. So if you were just doing a "driving poll" and not by phone, asking people their candidate, the result would have sounded like the Badger song for Romney.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #41 on:** November 10, 2012, 07:41 AM »

That's one nasty Devil~!

For the Windows ZIP utility... It's so poor and awkward to use that I wouldn't consider it worth using under any but the most dire circumstances. It just takes too long to use - it's miserable.
-Renegade (November 09, 2012, 11:56 PM)

From the Unzip side that's what led me to my unzip coding snack from Chris G here. I get it, from 2001 when unzipping was new to the masses, they needed those dialogs. But when it came to "here's 10 files to unzip", 10 clicks each became a bit much!

Renegade · « **Reply #42 on:** November 10, 2012, 07:52 AM »

The most popular daily paper in Germany is the "BILD", some rainbow press which is full of lies, except the sports part.
Don't mix up popularity and quality.
-Tuxman (November 10, 2012, 06:49 AM)

Well, when it comes to mainstream media, I think the purpose *IS* to lie. Does anyone actually believe anything on CNN anymore? They've been outted for being PAID to air "stories" as "news" - yes it is as bad or worse than it sounds. So, BILD is probably doing a pretty "good/quality" job.

But yeah - I take you point that popularity and quality aren't the same. Windows is the most popular OS after all.

(It's a lot better now than it used to be.)

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #43 on:** November 10, 2012, 08:06 AM »

The most popular daily paper in Germany is the "BILD", some rainbow press which is full of lies, except the sports part.
Don't mix up popularity and quality.
-Tuxman (November 10, 2012, 06:49 AM)

Well, when it comes to mainstream media, I think the purpose *IS* to lie. Does anyone actually believe anything on CNN anymore? They've been outed for being PAID to air "stories" as "news" - yes it is as bad or worse than it sounds. So, BILD is probably doing a pretty "good/quality" job.
-Renegade (November 10, 2012, 07:52 AM)

Changing slant slightly from "cotton candy stories" to the "political poll stories" side, murmurs have indeed begun to emerge why so many of the analysts were wrong, and one theory is that they were trying to create their own self fulfilling news. It's like the old movie villain trick saying, "just give up, Mr. Obama, you'll never win." (Right after Team Romney notices they blundered and hoping that Team Obama doesn't notice!)

Renegade · « **Reply #44 on:** November 11, 2012, 01:27 AM »

Just for reference, there's another post over here (DC) about the same basic deal in the commercial/proprietary world.

f0dder · « **Reply #45 on:** November 11, 2012, 08:02 AM »

Boom! Nailed it! OpenSSH is THE go-to for that. Any time you look into the topic... you ALWAYS end up with OpenSSH pretty much no matter what. Pretty much every time I ever need to do some kind of encryption, even if I'm using a third party component, I end up using OpenSSH.
-Renegade (November 10, 2012, 06:59 AM)

Do you mean OpenSSH or OpenSSL, renny?

40hz · « **Reply #46 on:** November 11, 2012, 09:42 AM »

Just for reference, there's another post over here (DC) about the same basic deal in the commercial/proprietary world.
-Renegade (November 11, 2012, 01:27 AM)

The significant difference being that since Aviary is a closed proprietary product, once the developers elected to kick it to the curb, that was the end of it. If it were F/OSS there would have at least been the hope other interested developers might have adopted it so it could live on. Or that somebody else could have hosted it and kept the current functionality and community intact.

Renegade · « **Reply #47 on:** November 11, 2012, 10:04 AM »

Just for reference, there's another post over here (DC) about the same basic deal in the commercial/proprietary world.
-Renegade (November 11, 2012, 01:27 AM)

The significant difference being that since Aviary is a closed proprietary product, once the developers elected to kick it to the curb, that was the end of it. If it were F/OSS there would have at least been the hope other interested developers might have adopted it so it could live on. Or that somebody else could have hosted it and kept the current functionality and community intact.
-40hz (November 11, 2012, 09:42 AM)

Ahem...

Yes. That is EXACTY why I posted the cross-post.

It was to make a point there.

Boom! Nailed it! OpenSSH is THE go-to for that. Any time you look into the topic... you ALWAYS end up with OpenSSH pretty much no matter what. Pretty much every time I ever need to do some kind of encryption, even if I'm using a third party component, I end up using OpenSSH.
-Renegade (November 10, 2012, 06:59 AM)
Do you mean OpenSSH or OpenSSL, renny?
-f0dder (November 11, 2012, 08:02 AM)

Yeah, yeah.... Let's just go make fun of Renegade because he posts drunk all the time and makes stupid mistakes/typos~!

This time around, I'm blaming some pretty damn good Australian wine!

40hz · « **Reply #48 on:** November 11, 2012, 12:35 PM »

Just for reference, there's another post over here (DC) about the same basic deal in the commercial/proprietary world.
-Renegade (November 11, 2012, 01:27 AM)

The significant difference being that since Aviary is a closed proprietary product, once the developers elected to kick it to the curb, that was the end of it. If it were F/OSS there would have at least been the hope other interested developers might have adopted it so it could live on. Or that somebody else could have hosted it and kept the current functionality and community intact.
-40hz (November 11, 2012, 09:42 AM)

Ahem...

Yes. That is EXACTY why I posted the cross-post.

It was to make a point there.

-Renegade (November 11, 2012, 10:04 AM)

Yup. I got it. I just wanted to put my two cents in to point out the obvious in case anybody missed it.

Boom! Nailed it! OpenSSH is THE go-to for that. Any time you look into the topic... you ALWAYS end up with OpenSSH pretty much no matter what. Pretty much every time I ever need to do some kind of encryption, even if I'm using a third party component, I end up using OpenSSH.
-Renegade (November 10, 2012, 06:59 AM)
Do you mean OpenSSH or OpenSSL, renny?
-f0dder (November 11, 2012, 08:02 AM)

Yeah, yeah.... Let's just go make fun of Renegade because he posts drunk all the time and makes stupid mistakes/typos~!

Ok!

Nyah! Nyah! Renegade! Yah! Boo! Sucks!

This time around, I'm blaming some pretty damn good Australian wine!

Really? I'm open to recommendations. (My GF and I both like Aussie wines in general.) What were you having?

f0dder · « **Reply #49 on:** November 11, 2012, 01:39 PM »

Yeah, yeah.... Let's just go make fun of Renegade because he posts drunk all the time and makes stupid mistakes/typos~!

This time around, I'm blaming some pretty damn good Australian wine!
-Renegade (November 11, 2012, 10:04 AM)

I'll make fun of you for drinking aussie wines - but as long as you're staying away from french, we can still be friends