RE: Open Source menu system

Hi JT,

On David's request, I'm replying to -NONTECH.

> First of all, interesting choice of words "robbing".  Obviously, that is a
> hyperbole.  Nobody's getting robbed.

That's true, though in my opinion "hyperbole" is too strong of a word.  I
did use a rather strong analogy to make the point obvious.


> But there is some small point to be found in the wildest hyperbole, and this
> is it:  You're only kidding yourself if you think that little to no trade
> rags have lost business due to Midrange.com and all the other listservs.
> Just because you can't quantify something very precisely, doesn't mean it
> doesn't exist right??
>
> So you say, "well it's so minimal it doesn't really matter".  Perhaps.
> That'd be one real debatable point.  To me it's pretty obvious that
> publishing/authoring, in general, IS getting "Open Sourced".

I agree, and know for a fact that the availability of Internet resources
like midrange.com have hurt the trade rags.  But, there's a distinction
between hurting someone's business and "cheating" or "robbing" them.


>
> I'm stunned.  Is this not one-a the PRIMARY justifications for employees
> spending gobs of hours (on their employers dime) On These Lists???  Yes,
> this in fact IS the case.  But you use your same hyperbole to make it appear
> like it doesn't happen.
>

What are you referring to in this paragraph?  What, specifically, is a
primary justification for employees spending time here?  What,
specifically, am I making appear like it doesn't happen?   My point was
that people helping people is a good thing, and the fact that it might
take a buck away from a contractor does not mean that it's "cheating."

Open source is the process of people helping each other out by letting
someone use your learn from your code, and use your code in their
systems.  They then return the favor by improving your code, or adding
features to it and contributing those back to you.   Surely you can see
how that's similar to these mailing lists?


> It has ramifications which you, and many folks on this list of course,
> obviously don't understand.

Please enlighten me.


> And these are things that people WANTED to HAVE, for no pay.  And you think
> there's nothing wrong with BOTH of these sides of the same coin, Scott?

I think that what you're suggesting here is that people will start to
expect things for free, and that it will hurt the software industry?

However, I don't think that's true.  Open source isn't really free.  It
expects you to contribute back to the community.  If people don't
contribute back, then there aren't enough resources for the project to
succeed.

In many cases it makes more sense for people to purchase software.
Commercial software is usually better than open-source because a
commercial entity has more resources than an open-source community does.

Compare Open Office to Microsoft Office some time.  Even with heavy
contributions from Sun, Open Office is still vastly inferior to Microsoft
Office.  Why?  Because Microsoft has the money to hire programmers to work
full-time on building and supporting their office suite, where the open
source community has to rely on the good will of the programmers who want
to make it happen.

There are many, many open source projects that are MUCH worse than open
office.  Try to find a good movie player for FreeBSD some day...  nothing
out there is even close to the quality of Windows Media Player or
PowerDVD.

Try to find an open-source computer game that compares to Vice City.  Good
luck, there's nothing even close.

However, those aren't the things you read about in the newspapers, are
they?  OR, at least, when you do read about them, the articles don't
stress the advantages of the commercial software model -- rather they talk
about them as ordinary software that happens to be fun to use or play
with.

What you DO hear about in the newspapers is the open-source projects that
have been hugely successful.   Linux, Apache, Eclipse, Mozilla, Firefox,
etc.

Seriously, Linux is a better operating system than Windows.  In fact,
OS/400 is also a better operating system than Windows, and in much the
same ways.  (Though, between the two, I'd say OS/400 is the better one.)
Microsoft has not put their resources into making Windows more stable.  Or
more secure.  They've, instead, put them into redesigning the user
interface with each new release and adding extra features instead of
solidifying the ones that they have.

When any project, commercial or otherwise, leaves some areas of their work
with major flaws, what will happen?  Another product will come along and
fill that niche.  It will take market share away.


> Well, I know otherwise.  As I intend to demonstrate in reply to Hans, if I
> have enough time.  (Just on "lunch/dinner break".

I don't want this to turn into an "argue forever" thread.  I'm REALLY
tired of that sort of thread.  I just want to make my opinion known, give
you the chance to make your opinion known, and then let the thread die.

Thanks for listening.