> Extreme opinions are rarely correct.
this is the only thing I agree with.
some things should never be kept propietary unless there are widely availabe (FOSS) tools to reverse engineer them.
The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
21–30 of 247 posts
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
FOSS is something I aspire too, I still use some proprietary software but as I dream at a Star Trek world similar I dream that in future I would work only on FOSS. If there is a choice use FOSS app A or proprietary app B I will use A if it does what I need, as a developer I adapted the open source apps to my needs where with proprietary apps I could never done it.
The question is, will you choose FOSS even if it is a poorer choice?
Sometimes/often there is not even such choice. It would be great if we could even have FOSS alternatives for everything, but we are very far from such a situation.
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#23I had the same experience numerous times. It's great OP is standing up to this. When I'm attacked for writing non-free software, I now respond by linking to https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/ .
The link is completely irrelevant to the topic. The topic is libre software versus proprietary. The link defends paid software against gratis, or at least misleadingly conflates both aspects.
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#24I’m not a developer and I don’t have a strong opinion on open-source software either way, but I’ve always wondered: does the fact that developers and other technical people have (comparatively) excellent job security affect their attitude toward free labor and products? If developers had a job outlook similar to say, musicians, would open-source be as widely-used and praised as it is now? Surely some academic economi…
Free labor is distinct from free software and it is misleading to conflate the two. Plenty of people are paid to work on free software, and I'm not talking about Red Hat or SUSE either. See: 90% of the Linux kernel contributors.
As for musicians, plenty of them share their music (or flps, or whatever) all the time. Soundcloud, bandcamp, jamendo, magnatune, soulseek... the list goes on.
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read it but I'm not sure what you're trying to say really. Sure, there are people like Stallman, there are others who are more 'pragmatic'. World keeps turning. Do your thing. See how that plays out for you.
Key point is this: If more Linux people embraced proprietary software it would help spread Linux. Simple as that really. As a proprietary app, we have encountered quite a bit of resistance from Linux users, usually berating us for not being open source. I think that's short sighted. We need more pragmatists.
> If more Linux people embraced proprietary software it would help spread Linux.
Linux runs the world. I highly doubt it needs more "spreading".
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#26I had the same experience numerous times. It's great OP is standing up to this. When I'm attacked for writing non-free software, I now respond by linking to https://fman.io/blog/dear-comrade/ .
The link is completely irrelevant to the topic. The topic is libre software versus proprietary. The link defends paid software against gratis, or at least misleadingly conflates both aspects.
You did read the section "Maybe you also dislike the fact that my project is not open source" right?
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#27> If we do Open Source Hiri, there is nothing to stop someone from forking it and selling it for less /offering it for free.
Your license can easily stop that in a way that still respects user freedom. Even more than GPL does.
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#28>I believe the Linux community should embrace proprietary software with open arms. It would enable many more users to adopt Linux as their daily driver. Depending on your source, Linux accounts for somewhere between 0.5–3% of desktop users. It’s simply not having the impact it could. If you are passionate about Linux/Open Source software, it’s time to think of the ecosystem as a whole and embrace proprietary software.
You sell proprietary software, which is a perfectly fine and decent way to make a living. Why are you defending yourself and exactly what against? It's perfectly alright to make a living the way you see fit.
However, I'd rather not have the Linux community "embrace proprietary software with open arms", thank you very much.
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#29Ignore the naysayers. I loathe having to trust proprietary software for anything critical or anything I want control over, but there are things for which proprietary software got my money... So focus on your market segment - elsewhere, as all producers know, there will always be a chorus of negativity that you are better off ignoring.
Interesting. Do you mind if I ask what software (or category) have you bought if you don't trust proprietary software?
Re: The fundamentalist FOSS mentality
#30No one is entitled to a business model. If your userbase has a culture of being (rightfully, in my opinion) defiant toward proprietary products, that's for you to remedy. If you can't make any money from ancilliary uses of your product (support, hosting, whatever) maybe you should question why you're monetizing in the first place. Free software is strictly more ethical than nonfree software. Any attempt at arguing ot…
> maybe you should question why you're monetizing in the first place. I assume that the author happens to enjoy food and shelter, how strange of them.
Are you implying that the author is so much reliant on this specific business model that they would likely end up homeless and starving to death if they were deprived of it?