Comments on: The value of free software http://skydeck.com/blog/programming/the-value-of-free-software Your Cell Phone Online Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:47:06 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Raoul Duke http://skydeck.com/blog/programming/the-value-of-free-software/comment-page-1#comment-540 Raoul Duke Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:41:17 +0000 http://skydeck.com/blog/technology/the-value-of-free-software/#comment-540 Probably overall in principle I agree, but realistically I think you are being too black and white about it. Even though I'm a big fan of e.g. FSF, have given them money, use Linux at home, all that jazz. And, given the choice, would really desperately try to always use open source and better yet free-as-in-speech stuff. I just don't think I'm going to dig into my compiler's sources, really. Although what is funny is that last time I tried using O'Caml and hit a bug in it with the GL stuff, I started trying to patch to fix the bug - and when my fix didn't work off the bat I realized, hey, life is too short for me to be doing this task! Put it this way: given a choice between 2 things, one open one closed, which both work well I'll take the open one. If, however, the open one sucks then it might well be something I cannot afford to fix, and I'll use the closed one. And I guess your connotation of "programmer" is probably narrower / more tightly defined than mine. Of course, it is all a slippery slope either way: we get too loosey-goosey-meaningless with words, or we get too gestapo with them. Thanks for the postings, fun food for thought. Probably overall in principle I agree, but realistically I think you are being too black and white about it. Even though I’m a big fan of e.g. FSF, have given them money, use Linux at home, all that jazz. And, given the choice, would really desperately try to always use open source and better yet free-as-in-speech stuff. I just don’t think I’m going to dig into my compiler’s sources, really. Although what is funny is that last time I tried using O’Caml and hit a bug in it with the GL stuff, I started trying to patch to fix the bug – and when my fix didn’t work off the bat I realized, hey, life is too short for me to be doing this task!

Put it this way: given a choice between 2 things, one open one closed, which both work well I’ll take the open one. If, however, the open one sucks then it might well be something I cannot afford to fix, and I’ll use the closed one.

And I guess your connotation of “programmer” is probably narrower / more tightly defined than mine.

Of course, it is all a slippery slope either way: we get too loosey-goosey-meaningless with words, or we get too gestapo with them.

Thanks for the postings, fun food for thought.

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