171–180 of 247 posts
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Yes, it's a small part that provides "I think I can't make it" as the only argument. That doesn't really bring anything into the discussion.
That's another of these developers who benefited greatly from FLOSS, yet write condescending posts. Ironically, the author of fman makes use of Qt, which is a great example of how to make a business and still have a copyleft licensed codebase.
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Nobody is going to use software for anything critical that doesn't have someone "waiting around" to fix any bugs that appear, even if they are several years down the line from the original release (and yes, this happens a lot ). So, what you call "rent" is, in actuality, the cost of keeping the lights on and the original developers around so that such long-term support can be provided. And yes, these same developers…
> Nobody is going to use software for anything critical that doesn't have someone "waiting around" to fix any bugs that appear This is exactly why you're often able to make money and sustain yourself out of free software.
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>have suffered from proprietary software companies not supporting their OS/distros (Adobe, Microsoft, just to pick a few) And here lies the main point - they believe that many users will simply reject their proprietary software on principle. If the community was seen to embrace proprietary, which is what I'm calling for in the article, they might just support Linux. Also worth noting that the largest contributor to t…
> many users will simply reject their proprietary software on principle. Yes, because we've grown tired of companies abusing their relationships with customers: abandoning products and leaving them useless, charging more and more for the same or less levels of support, removing features, suing users for repairing their own property... The list goes on. Sure, similar issues can happen with FOSS, but at least you have…
Which aren't properly any FOSS angels, when we examine their product portfolio.
Actually IBM is the king of patent submissions.
I'm the author of this particular blog post. Curious to see how this is received by the tech community.
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.
I'm the author of this particular blog post. Curious to see how this is received by the tech community.
These are the same tired arguments being made for almost 3 decades now. Sure, go ahead and do your own thing. Just don't expect FOSS users to sympathize with your point of view. To wit tho', I'll try and explain why (I'm sure ineffectively, but if you were really interested, you'd have already made the effort to understand). A lot of people often confuse FOSS users and users of proprietary software. The difference is…
Very few manage to do a living from FOSS unless being hired by some big corp.
The complains about FOSS fundamentalists coming from proprietary software dev' (which I am) always seems a bit hypocritical to me. The reason is, you probably use a lot of FOSS software that were made possible only because a lot of people dedicated time and effort to it. Your servers probably run Linux, if not, the services that you use everyday probably do. Your compiler/language is probably FOSS too, if not, the so…
Proprietary software which restricts its distribution and "unauthorized" modification (virtually all of it) is the very essence of fundamentalism. It relies on a rigid and literal interpretation of what constitutes property (e.g. that the concept of "intellectual property" is coherent and non-contradictory) and even goes so far as to use threats, ultimately backed by violent force, to ensure compliance with this beli…
It’s really just Godwin by another name.
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Based on my personal experience: The reason why is probably because of the poorly documented, unstable spaghetti code their public libraries consist of.
Which confirms GP's original idea. There's a fine line between an API that is full-featured and one that can be learned in an afternoon. Plotly is easy to work-through. But if you're aren't comfortable digging through its source code the documentation won't help you. Furthermore, it seems like their support / hosted solution is less for hackers in need of a helping hand and more for completely non-technical users tha…
I am a “technical user” and its bc. of projects like Plotly I try to avoid js (pole or not).
The complains about FOSS fundamentalists coming from proprietary software dev' (which I am) always seems a bit hypocritical to me. The reason is, you probably use a lot of FOSS software that were made possible only because a lot of people dedicated time and effort to it. Your servers probably run Linux, if not, the services that you use everyday probably do. Your compiler/language is probably FOSS too, if not, the so…
Why is it hypocritical to criticise fundamentalism when you do like the subject matter in general? You could easily be a devout Muslim, yet want nothing to do with suicide bombers.
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That's my point, Linux "won" without needing any presence on the desktop side. Any suggestion about what should happen with Linux and/or Linux users that ignores this fundamental fact is utterly hopeless.
Linux "won" in the sense that every single one of those devices is special-purpose, and not for general-purpose computing. Linux is helping those that want to lock down computing so that it is consumption-only, which is completely antithetical to the goals of FOSS. Creation happens on the desktop, and right now the desktop is primarily Windows and Mac.
Example: I have an older laptop with a 5400RPM hdd that I've since bought a SSD to image and put a new OS on. Currently it runs Windows 7. Hate Windows 10 after being a lifelong Microsoftie (DreamSpark worked as it turns out), been learning Linux at work, so let's try it at home. I work on computers for a living, I can handle the learning curve, right? I will be reinstalling Windows 7 so I can AskWoody Group B it until it is out of support, then move it to Windows 7 POS Ready to get security updates until the last possible second. From there? I guess a mac because I refuse to use Windows 10 on personal devices aside from maybe a LTSB version. Different rant though, back to Linux on desktop:
I _want_ to run NeonOS or Debian KDE on that laptop, but cannot as the tools I use are not available on those platforms. The "fundamentalists" as portrayed in this article would say that I shouldn't have chosen to use the tools I chose. That doesn't help my problem though and won't do anything to get the 'unwashed masses' using the better software en mass. Here better software = FOSS since we are being a hypothetical fundamentalist a la Stallman.
If these Stallmen could "hold their nose" long enough to build Linux such that it could run most rando Windows programs without huge fuss and individual WINE config tweaks, the long term benefit would be that they would be positioning themselves to overtake Windows in usage on the desktop as well as the server side.
Knock-on effects are strong:
1. More users, more developers to create software
2. More developers, more improvements made to system codebases, package maintenance, dev tooling
3. More Linux, more Linux compatibility out of the box
4. More Linux on desktops, more people who've never been tainted by MS DreamSpark (like me) and due to baby duck syndrome prop up MS Windows, Office, VS and the Microsoft way
5. MS might even open source Windows itself (a core product) if it is no longer profitable. Making the job of dealing with Windows compatibility A) easier and B) nearly redundant
So the FOSS people win the war, at least on the desktop Linux vs Windows front.