2009/7/11 lee <l...@yun.yagibdah.de>: > On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 03:23:50PM +0300, Dotan Cohen wrote: >> > Avoid rar, it is non-free. >> > >> >> Thank you for the warning, Andrei, but I am more interested in the >> technical aspects to learn about the formats. But your argument is >> valid and I may decide not to use non-free software for this use case. > > When it comes to software, "reliable" and "non-free" tend to be > mutually exclusive. Is Windoze reliable? If not, do you have the > source code so that you could fix bugs? Even if you have the source > code, are you allowed to fix bugs? > > Is the firmware of your hard disks reliable? Or your BIOS? Mine are > not, and without the sources, I can't even find out what causes the > problem, let alone try to fix it. > > If there is support for your hard disks or mainboard or some non-free > software from the manufacturer, and is that support helpful? I haven't > seen any helpful support for those yet from manufacturers. > > But most of the time, when there's a problem with some open source > software, you can get a helpful response almost immediately. And > problems are being fixed. If not, I can at least try myself. What is > more reliable? >
I agree with you completely in the most general sense. However, there are specific instances where I am willing to use non-free software, such as CAD. -- Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org