> I agree that a large number of superficial readings won't find issues > that fewer, more careful investigations could - whether "free as in > freedom" software is more reliable, efficient and capable than > proprietary software (or visa versa) is an unanswered question. > > And theFSF does seem to hold a worldview that classifies distributing > non-free software as a human rights violation, so unreliable, slow and > incomplete free software is better than any proprietary software. It's > not a worldview I share (nor would I describe it as utopian) but it's > consistent. > > On the other hand, the world of computing would be vastly different > without the FSF - I doubt Linux would exist (nor even the notion of open > source software) without GNU. > > And I have to say I use GNU, Linux, and other open source software over > "proprietary" software because it is technically superior - and I've > been watching that gap grow and grow over the years.
My difficulty with proprietary software is that I'm a software engineer and I know it sucks. I know that stuff is released with known bugs that are not made public. I know that there are things in the software that are trade-offs made for business decisions. I know that there are capabilities of the item that I have purchased that are not exposed by the software. I know that there are things in the software that intentionally limit my access. I know this because I've been writing software professionally for over 30 years. Open source software is how all software should be. I have a digital multi-meter. An OWON 1240 it works exactly like an OWON 1140 except that it is a new model and I think the old one was RS-232 and this one is USB. Because of the new name, sigrok-cli could not recognize it for scpi-dmm. I downloaded the source, added a line for the OWON 1241, built it, and violla! I have a working sigrok-cli for my meter. I'm not saying that anyone can do this, I'm just saying that there are probably tens of thousands of people who can do this, not just the 5 or 10 people in some obscure software team in some obscure software company. When that obscure software company goes under, the code is lost. With open source, there is at least the possibility that the code can continue on. Sure, this is not a guarantee, but its better than none at all. I have worked at several companies that have gone out of business, you know, because... software companies. The code I wrote there is lost. Some of my most creative work. Gone. A long time ago I began taking notes on stuff that I did and how and why I did it just so it is no longer lost. Don't forget the systemd/sshd/xz debacle. This was discovered ONLY through the source being open. Like I said, I've been in software for over 30 years, no one would have found this if the software wasn't open. It was only by chance that someone curious enough about an issue was able examine it. I doubt very much that anyone without access to the source would have found it. And I really really fear that there are many more exploits like this in proprietary software that will never be found because Microsoft or Apple is not going to review every line of code and every build script. We don't know what is going on in proprietary code. As for the technology environment today, can you imagine what the state of computer development and software would be like without GNU? Without BSD? What would the web have been without Apache? Without MySQL and PostgreSQL. Without GCC. Without Linux and to a lesser extent NetBSD or FreeBSD? I get very suspicious about people who decry open source as some sort of danger. It is almost always a cynical attempt to steal the public resources that many of us have contributed to out of a spirit of community and good will. The whole CrowdStrike issue is ridiculous, it is a perfect example of why proprietary code is bad. It was a bad design: running a p-code interpreter in kernel space. It was poorly written: The p-code bundle was not validated BEFORE using it. These two blunders would not have survived in open source after community review. Lastly, this is a corporate issue, it was pushed out all at once instead of a phased approach. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@driftwood.blu.org https://driftwood.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
