Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> writes: > On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 09:13 am, Brendan Abel wrote: > > since they all use software that is closed-source. At some point, > > paying for software just makes sense.
Is it 1998 again already? Or am I expecting too much that people involved in software in the 21st century should not fall for the canard of “why don't you want to pay for software”, because it is *completely irrelevant* to the issue of software freedom. So please, stop repeating that canard. Of course paying for software makes sense. That in no way entails vendor lock-in of valuable community data, and we should not be paying for that. > No, that doesn't follow. The opposite of "open source" is not "paying > for software". You can pay somebody to maintain your open source repo > just as easily as you can pay somebody else to maintain their own > closed source repo. Yes. Likewise, just because you don't hand any money to someone doesn't mean you are free from vendor lock-in and proprietary protocols. One day perhaps we won't need to repeat that for it to be understood. > I watched the discussion on Python-Dev that decided to move to github, > and there were completely viable open source hg alternatives. Although > nobody was quite crass enough to come right out and say it, the > alternatives were all dismissed because they weren't Github, because > "everyone uses github". Fortunately there are a zillion software projects who can still choose a hosting provider that won't lock them in, and good free-software hosting alternatives like Pagure are beginning to appear. Not all is lost. -- \ “The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the | `\ traveller reach his starting point in the first place?” —Louise | _o__) Bogan, _Journey Around My Room_ | Ben Finney -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
