The Conflict at the Heart of Open Source

It's not just these large corps. sending funds to the devs but having their own devs looking at the code of key software. They just want something for nothing...

Quoting:It's not just these large corps. sending funds to the devs but having their own devs looking at the code of key software. They just want something for nothing...

The article focused on "corporate users' unreasonable refusal to help pay" which, of course, is "want[ing] something for nothing."

But I'm confused by your comment. How does sending funds to OS devs or paying their own devs equate to nothing?

If the corporation is actually dependent on the Open Source code, it behooves them to have their own developers working on it.

as a general rule, never depend on a piece of software that you are not prepared to maintain yourself. sure, if you are a small company then you may not have a choice, but if the software is mission critical and your products functionality depends on it working, and it can not replaced with alternatives then what do you do if the original developers stop working on it?

you need to be prepared to step in and continue development at least to cover your own needs.

greetings, eMBee.

@2MBee --

So nobody should be using Winders, Orifice, Quackbooks, Owreckle or an of them darned pieces of software.

Can't argue with that.

> So nobody should be using Winders, Orifice, Quackbooks, Owreckle or an of them darned pieces of software. > Can't argue with that.

I'm pretty sure that is RMS's point exactly.

As soon as you start relying on proprietary software, you are effectively making yourself beholden to the companies that write them.

Exactly the same case is made regarding closed hardware, phones and tablets that are designed specifically to be impractical to repair or modify, video and book media that is distributed encrypted etc. Proprietary software is no different in this respect.

Some in the US might call me a commie for that view. Well sue me.

dinotrac: right, at least not when a change in functionality or lack of updates breaks your business. it's one thing to use windows as an office tool or word to write printed letters, both functions you can easily replace with alternatives should the situation arise.

but if you build such software into your server or application that pays all your bills and depend on it in such a way that replacing it is costly (at least more costly than having your engineers fix bugs on the code)

switching from a windows stack to a linux stack could force you to rewrite the whole application for example...

greetings, eMBee.

My wife got a windows computer a few months ago.

I may speak to her one of these days. I may not.

Hopefully, she does no banking or shopping on that Windoze computer.

> My wife got a windows computer a few months ago.

Windows 7 or Windows 8? If 8, she has my sympathy.

Even if 7, she still has my sympathy, for being in such a detached mental state...

@NoDough The point is, they do neither.

> The point is, they do neither.

Then they deserve what happens. And management either learns from their mistakes or the company goes away.

Windows 8.

It's kind of cute, and I do like the touch screen, but...

> Windows 8.

As her tech support, you have my sympathies too, Dino.

Windows aficianados tell me that supposedly underneath the atrocious interface, Windows 8 actually has a lot of improvements over 7, but I take that with a shaker full of salt. That's been claimed for every version of Windows ever released.

Dinotrac, my wife plays a couple of Windows games on Wine in a Linux machine that is never connected to the internet........Does that count ? May I have "halting conversations" with her ? :-)

Is that "conversations about the halting problem"?

RC --

Only if you incorporate a sufficient number of "Yes, dears" and don't mind the large and punitive Honey do list that is sure to follow.