Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on July 24, 2004 10:57 AM
What I did say was that contributing to it is economic suicide for professional programmers.
This is only true if they are suicidally locked into the business of boxed software. Here's a hint: two pieces of software I wrote were to help me on the job. I had no good reason to pay somebody for what I 'm capable of producing myself (EXACTLY what was needed and nothing more BTW). I had every reason to share it with others. I benefitted from their work when I made mine. Since my work isn't boxed software, it was no threat to it whatsoever.
A vendor isn't entitled to my money. The vendor gets my dollars only if he can solve my problem cheaper than others. If the vendor uses sleazy tactics (which seems to be most proprietary vendors these days) he doesn't get it at all. The dot-com reference is nothing more than a cheap shot. FOSS was here before the dot-com era and it is producing and enabling profit long after the end of it. It is producing discomfort for some, profits for others, and it definitely makes my job MUCH easier. My Dad has an ephitet for situations like this and you would do well to heed it: "You can't stop progress." Quit yer bitching and think of a way to adapt. We aren't going to suddenly have an epiphany and say "that anonymous guy on Newsforge was right all along". We'll still be around making and using FOSS years from now. This debate will be considered long over. Do yourself a favor and make long term plans for your business. We aren't going to stop doing what we're doing for your sake.
If you have to blame somebody, look to your own. MS, Adobe, and others treated their customers like cash cows. They raid our schools and businesses as though their own customers were drug kingpins. They buy and pay for laws that allow even more of this sort of thing to go on. We've been put on upgrade treadmills, licensing nightmares, and have been legally bullied. We put up with malware, clueless tech support, bundling shenanigans, and being taken for granted in general. Now they want to build DRM into the hardware so that only vendor approved software will run on the hardware (big hint - this will only piss us off more). Your industry engineered its own destruction by thinking of its customers as sheep and consumers. Buying proprietary is like saying "Thank you sir! May I have another?!"
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Re:To hell with software industry
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on July 24, 2004 10:57 AMThis is only true if they are suicidally locked into the business of boxed software. Here's a hint: two pieces of software I wrote were to help me on the job. I had no good reason to pay somebody for what I 'm capable of producing myself (EXACTLY what was needed and nothing more BTW). I had every reason to share it with others. I benefitted from their work when I made mine. Since my work isn't boxed software, it was no threat to it whatsoever.
A vendor isn't entitled to my money. The vendor gets my dollars only if he can solve my problem cheaper than others. If the vendor uses sleazy tactics (which seems to be most proprietary vendors these days) he doesn't get it at all. The dot-com reference is nothing more than a cheap shot. FOSS was here before the dot-com era and it is producing and enabling profit long after the end of it. It is producing discomfort for some, profits for others, and it definitely makes my job MUCH easier. My Dad has an ephitet for situations like this and you would do well to heed it: "You can't stop progress." Quit yer bitching and think of a way to adapt. We aren't going to suddenly have an epiphany and say "that anonymous guy on Newsforge was right all along". We'll still be around making and using FOSS years from now. This debate will be considered long over. Do yourself a favor and make long term plans for your business. We aren't going to stop doing what we're doing for your sake.
If you have to blame somebody, look to your own. MS, Adobe, and others treated their customers like cash cows. They raid our schools and businesses as though their own customers were drug kingpins. They buy and pay for laws that allow even more of this sort of thing to go on. We've been put on upgrade treadmills, licensing nightmares, and have been legally bullied. We put up with malware, clueless tech support, bundling shenanigans, and being taken for granted in general. Now they want to build DRM into the hardware so that only vendor approved software will run on the hardware (big hint - this will only piss us off more). Your industry engineered its own destruction by thinking of its customers as sheep and consumers. Buying proprietary is like saying "Thank you sir! May I have another?!"
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