-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Bob Young wrote: > > That being said, way less than 5 percent of the population has even > the slightest bit of interest in learning the things that you and I > have chosen to dig in to...Those people are no less "free" for using > CSS, and the fact is, that "those people" are the vast majority of > the population. > >
Actually, I'd tend to differ on this point. Many people on this list either currently do or eventually will work in a non-IT-oriented industry. Such industries tend to not hire many programmers, and those that they do hire tend to coordinate outsourced effort, and function mainly as integrators of pre-packaged functionality. Even so, most of these industries will require their vendors to escrow their source code and will generally prefer FOSS when all other things are equal (which unfortunately is not always the case). Why? They'll NEVER modify the source code themselves, so why should they care? Simple - one day if their vendor doesn't meet their needs they can give that source code to somebody else to maintain - possibly another vendor who can use the source to smooth the migration process to their platform. Would you buy a car that used 387/863" bolts and parts of other non-standard dimensions? You might never fix your own car, but you will recognize that if you buy something that follows a standard it will be cheaper for you to pay others to fix it. A car which uses parts which have been around for 10 years will be VERY cheap to maintain compared to one that requires import parts from a single supplier. Open-source software has a lot of benefits even for non-programmers. Buy a proprietary DVR and you can almost guarantee that you won't be able to migrate your programming when you upgrade models in a few years, and you probably won't be able to upgrade it. Buy a pre-packaged DVR that uses FOSS and most likely there WILL be an upgrade and migration path - it might cost you to have it taken care of for you, but with the proprietary system it will cost you a LOT more. So, FOSS has a lot of potential to benefit ordinary computer users. Not just those who tinker with their PCs. Does that mean that it ALWAYS makes sense to use an FOSS package, when a proprietary package better meets your requirements? Of course not! But, I always put FOSS on MY list of requirements, and if I have to trade-off one requirement for another I do so as-needed. But, I've gotten burned by proprietary software many times, so I'm inclined to lean towards FOSS unless it really doesn't meet some fundamental need. You have to figure in the total cost of ownership - which includes future expansion and migration to the next platform. Sure, it is easier to store my email in Outlook than in a .maildir served up by IMAP - but when the next fancy email client comes along the latter requires zero effort to migrate. Just my two cents - if you feel some requirement is lacking in FOSS proprietary software might be right for you. But factor in all the costs - it might not be as good a choice as it appears on the surface. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFHdHvG4/rWKZmVWkRAs8JAKDMFt5Wz+nMcswk6m1bd6M7cYa46gCgpbu6 Tj25H+uhuRe+oKnc4gErQw0= =6vPv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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