Should We Be Wary Of Free-Beer Software? 155
semis asks: "It's interesting to see the number of free-beer (free for non-profit) software that is popping up. From StarOffice to the recently reported CAD software Cycas, the number of free-beer software packages is rapidly increasing. Sure -- this is good, until/if the OSs get market share, then happy hour finishes and the free-beer becomes expensive-beer. Is this trend a Good Thing (tm) or will it see our beloved OSs lose their open-source vision and simply become the new medium for commercial software?"
Only if you can't do without them (Score:2)
Why knock a good thing? At the moment Linux needs some decent applications to allow people to do all the basic tasks - word processing, spreadsheets, graphics etc. Whether or not they are open source is currently irrelevent - their presence aids the acceptance of Linux outside of the tech community.
If and when Linux "succeeds" on the desktop and gains enough market share for these products to be sold at a price, this will only be a bad thing if there are no other alternatives to them, and if people can't learn to do without. As long as there are no alternatives at all then they will dominate the market and we'll be forced to buy them, but if there are open sourced, free software alternatives then whether or not they charge will be irrelevent - we'll only pay for an application that is truly worth it.
a nice model (Score:1)
Good Thing (Score:1)
From the other point, it's also good for free software (FSF-free) movement, because they'll get rid of accusations in "hurting usability and user's choice in favor of some strange ideas". Nobody prohibits one to develop free (FSF and beer senses) software in commercial world - there's a lot of beer-free and almost-free software on Windows, for example. Just ones that would better pay for commercial now than wait for free software to be there - will get what they want. And since commercial software still wins in terms of rapid-development, it's good to have both - good for Linux, good for free software, good for commercial software.
The only catch here is some companies thinking that stamping "linux" on their producs will automatically get them big bucks. They'll eventually fail if they don't have good product indeed, and their falure can create image of "Linux market is no good". One must realize that working on developing market requires a lot of... uhm, a lot of work, actually.
Open standards are more important (Score:2)
is this really a problem? (Score:3)
As long as there are people willing to write software and contribute to the community, we'll have open source alternatives to most if not all types of software. Thats the way it will always be. Of course, the commercial vendors have a lot of money they can toss around in order to get things out the door sooner, but thats nothing new.
Besides this, since when is commercial software bad? I love OSS, but I don't mind paying for software if it is good and there isn't a free alternative. A great example of this is games. I have bought 3 titles so far from Loki, and I'll continue to buy from them as long as they continue to offer a service I feel is valuable. (ie. good games for an OS that I like)
Anyways, I guess the point of this post is that this "ask slashdot" is pointless. Not only that, but it has been discussed more than once, and I'm sure anybody here has thought about it. What kind of answer do you want? "Lets overthrow the corporations! Outlaw commercial software!" Is that what you are looking for? Because if it is, thats pretty sad.
The fact is, there isn't really an answer to this. The companies are going to do what they feel is in their best interest, and we're not going to somehow magically decide for every corporation in the world how things will work.
Anyways, my $0.02
Relax, dude. (Score:2)
'Free speech' applications in many areas are currently in development. Changine free-beer software to expensive-beer software can only serve to promote the production of free-speeck software such as Abiword and the KOffice suite.
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"You take a distribution! Rename! Stamp CD's! IPO!"
- CmdrTaco, Geeks in Space, Episode 2 from 6:18 to 6:23.
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:2)
We *DON'T* need them. Just look at KDE 2 with all the office applications. Linux is free as free speech. I don't want free beer (I'd prefer free wine by the way) I want software I can modifiy, enhance, tweak for my own needs. I have no problem with people making money on free software as long as it remains free software, free as free speech.
Open Source (Score:2)
As long as we keep people from hijacking standards [slashdot.org], we'll be ok.
Now if we could find a way to fund a complete, free, replacement for Office97, it would be a very good thing.
--Mike--
How could it be bad? (Score:5)
It's completely absurd to think that having widespread industry support from commercial applications written for a platform could ever damage the platform unless the creators of the platform want it to happen. The authors of application software aren't the ones effecting change on the underlying O/S. It's the other way around.
The faction within the Linux community that fears the prospect of making money off of software needs to come to grips with the reality that some people have families to feed and working for free in a Western Capitalist Society isn't really a good way to satisfy that requirement. Once that little hurdle is passed, it is really irrelevant whether someone chooses to give their software away or charge for it. The market will pick the best solution after weighing costs and benefits.
Trying to impose some sort of external, artificial pricing model (i.e., "free") is at odds with the underlying economy and society in which most of us live. Just like bad O/S ideas, the world is rife with failed government experiments as well, most of which fall along the lines of socialism/communism where everyone thought it was a good idea for everything to be "free".
I'm definitely not equating OSS with communism, so don't even go there. My point is that it's silly to be worried about people supporting Linux with commercial software. The market will bear what the market will bear and it's not up to a bunch of free O/S afficianados to try and second guess the commercial market. Rather, the Linux community should continue to move the platform forward and let the applications take care of themselves.
And be very, very glad that the 99% of the software industry that is for-profit sees it as a viable platform. The alternative is to be ignored by that 99% and all of their customers and be forever relegated to a niche market.
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:2)
We *DON'T* need them. Just look at KDE 2 with all the office applications.
Which are still behind StarOffice in terms of functionality. And besides, that's the point I'm making - that these free beer applications are fine as long as there are free software alternatives either now or in the future. Choice is always preferable to no choice IMHO.
Do you really think that we should scrap everything unless it conforms to FSF guidelines on what is acceptable?
When it's good, it's very good... (Score:1)
StarOffice is a good example. Anyone can replace a standard Win95, Office 97 machine at home with a RedHat disk and a cover CD with SO5.1 on it. Great. They then get exposure to a new system, new alternatives and a new way of working.
But what happens when somebody in the IT department decides that everyone in the building needs this setup? Hello support contract. Now you're tied to Sun rather than Microsoft, and you're paying for it. Sounds like commercial software to me.
If there aren't enough GOOD AND FREE alternatives to Free-beer software, like you suggest, it could take the public-perception of Linux to be just as commercial as 'doze.
Any beer is good (Score:1)
lockin (Score:2)
The high cost of proprietary software is the "lock in." If you've payed your ms tax and found out that the micosoft platform does not fit your needs, you're fucked out of thousands of dollars.
Making that same mistake on linux costs you nothing, zero, zippo, bumpkiss, null set, void, not one thin dime. The upside is huge because for the same zero, zippo, no cost you can copy the platform onto as many computers as you want all over your network.
Picture the meeting with the CFO when you show him how you deployed all the software on all 544 of your 32 bit workstations for zero dollars. Imagine the meeting with the CFO when you point out how on the first day of deployment you have a 100%=ROI! PAYOFF=INSTANT! TCO=0!
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Free as in no cost software is very dangerous. (Score:5)
For instance, people might try a free-beer package just because it is free, and so think they are getting value for money.
In fact, if they got an OS package, that didn't work as well, they could help improve it and would end up with a much better package.
For instance, I found out my Mum was using a free beer package, Eudora. I explained to her that she should use an OS mail program, preferably one that didn't really work yet, as all the ones that did work had undergone a feature freeze in 1989.
"This program is broken" I told her. "It works with a very high tech GUI system called Gnome that is also broken. It will display the pictures we send you, but only once you've installed an image viewer with a really 'kewl' name like 'electric eyes' or something. This image viewer won't work either, because you won't have the required libraries to make it compile first time."
"So, first, I want you to learn about
"Now, it would be silly for me to expect you to help fix all this broken crap, because you don't know C or C++", I continued, "However, everytime you can't open an attachment, you should go to this web site where you can fill in a bug report."
"That way, other people will fix all the problems, and in a year or two you'll have the best software ever in the whole world."
Sadly my mother is still using Eudora, and is still able to send and recieve email from not only me on my eleet Linux workstation, but also from many other people.
This situation has got to stop.
Re:Profit Motivates All (Score:2)
Red Hat and a whole other bunch of companies are not aiming at getting paid for the software (which is open source, and thus free), but they do want to get paid for the support and consulting. This model is being adapted at a lot of companies nowadays...
IBM for example, has decided to drop their own webserver development in favor of Apache [apache.org], because it is far more worthwile selling consultancy and support services and putting resources in that, than it is to invest a lot of money in developing their own webserver, while there is something as apache as the alternative.
Services will become the next cash cow, not software.
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Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
Re:Profit Motivates All -- No Kidding (Score:1)
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Wannabe Bills (Score:1)
Free beer software is the same as shareware. They all want to be Bill Gates but don't have the distribution and existing monopoly to pull it off. If they believed in free software, their software would be free.
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:4)
The problem is that your demographic (those who want to modify their own source code) accounts for significantly less than 1% of the entire installed base of computer users worldwide. (Look at Gartner's last report on user profiles to find which box you're really in.) I don't know of ANY software company that is willing to relegate itself to 1% market share. And that assumes they have no competition for that 1%.
You are entitled to make your choices in the marketplace, but your ideology seems to say that you get to make the choice for everyone else, too, and your choice is "free". A lot of people don't see the value in free, since free also generally means difficult to use, no support, no manual, etc., which doesn't fly well in the corporate and consumer space. Surely there are stellar exceptions to the rule, but the rule still stands.
So why do you feel qualified to choose for everyone else?
Alternatives (Score:1)
Re:Open standards are more important (Score:5)
Look at Word
Regarding free software: we live in an economy; despite Stallman's fantasies, software is a tool just like any other, and people who make their living creating those tools, and producing value in those tools, will often charge for those tools.
Hammers are useful tools, too, but they take time, effort, and materials to create (just like software), and despite the fact that giving them away would be for the general good, it ain't gonna happen, as long as the hammer-makers want to eat. In a socialistic society where the core needs are taken care of (in theory), yes, free hammers for all! In a capitalistic society where you earn money to survive, expect to pay for hammers for awhile longer.
To continue the analogy further, any successful building contractor is going to expect to pay money for his hammers; but they're will worth his while, as using the "Large Rock 0.1a" alternative (from FSF
But the "free beer" (kind of an offensive, pre-judging term to me) software, is like giving free hammers to try out before you buy, and giving them free to the students and poor people who are using them for non-commercial purposes. I think it's extremely admirable.
For students and evaluation, being able to use or evaluate commercial grade software, is a boon to society. It would be cynically unproductive to assume it's a "get them hooked and then charge them" tack; I prefer to look at it as being proud enough of your product to show it off freely, and generous enough to let folks use it who aren't using it for commercial gain.
My company spends hundreds of thousands on software a year. Some companies won't let us try out the software until we purchase it. We tell those companies to go away. Often, we get an eval copy. Most commonly, we download the trial or free-for-non-commercial-use version, run it through it's paces, and if it's worthy, we buy it. It's *incredibly* useful...
Now that I'm in business, I'm proud to pay for software. When I was a student, or when I was first researching prototypes for an eventual business, I would have *loved* for more "free beer" software to get me rolling.
It's a wondeful trend, that will really help applications for Linux. Don't knock it.
There is more to cost than money (Score:2)
This fear of using software that someone makes money from is misplaced.
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separate the open and free questions (Score:1)
free for non-profit ... until/if the OSs get market share, then happy hour finishes and the free-beer becomes expensive-beer
The "free for non-profit, pay for commercial" question is different from the "free to gain market share, pay once you are addicted" (which perhaps we should call the Microsoft model: remember when Office could be had as a competitive upgrade for $99?) And, you've entirely left out the question of whether the source is opened.
I think the key here is whether the source is opened, in the sense of, can the user see the source? A model that has not been explored in a long time is the "you pay for software, you get to see the source, you don't get to redistribute the source." Now, before you start flaming me, I'm not proposing that model, I'm saying that I never hear it proposed. If the user of software is always entitled to see the source, we will never be beholden to monopolists and their unproductive anti-social value destroying proprietary non-standards. Whether a community can develop and give away free beer on a sustainable basis is an open question, but there would be a reasonable limit on Microsoft's (and Sun's, and Oracle's) raping of the customer if their API's, protocols and formats were open. Opened source achieves this. Would it allow their competitor's to "steal" their copyrighted code? No! because in this system the competitors code would also be opened.
From an economics perspective, the pay only for commercial use model is an extreme form of price discrimination, but it meshes well with the reality of sales and metering anyway: companies selling software always go after the corporate account. One sale represents a whole bunch of licenses. Conversely, it is really expensive to sell to individuals. So, give to individuals who bootleg like crazy anyway and sell to corporatists (threw that in for Katzian nitwits) who pay and are easy to monitor makes the most sense as a way of competing in a highly competitive market that includes Free and Open source licensing.
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:2)
Because the alternative is that no one gets to choose except Bill Gates.
That's significantly lower than your 1%.
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Riding the quest for share (Score:2)
We're not talking about the curvy singer that used to be married to Sonny, but we're talking about market share. It's the key goal of any software company (free or not) seaking lockin.
In the proprietary model, the user pays for the platform while the company moves around the API, security model, file formats, in an effort to gain market share. Each time a change/upgrade is made, you pay again and again in the form of development costs around the new changes.
In the free software model, you get to take advantage of a companies quest for share. If at some date later down the the line that same company decides to change the EULA and start charging it's users, you have all the source, openly documented API and open standard file formats to help you with the migration to the *next* company on a quest for share.
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Free-beer opens door to free-speech (Score:1)
Example : StarOffice, and things like Abiword... Abiword is only a component of the soon-to-come free (speech) equivalent of StarOffice.
My two cents.
Re:is this really a problem? (Score:3)
This won't happen for as long as the proprietory software available is limited to *applications*. If it starts to extend to compilers, middleware etc. then we are in danger of getting back to the stage when you can't even begin to write a modern application without relying on non-free proprietory technology.
Anyone Try Cycas Yet! (Score:1)
First-one-is-freeware (Score:1)
The important thing in this is the license, and source code. If the license says non-revokable for this version, and the version includes source, then hey, when the company gets annoying, you can start with the old and build up from there. Hence OpenSSH.
If you like a program, there is always a cost. Even if you never paid a dime for it, you have a moral obligation towards the programmers who brought it to you. Whether you build them a shrine, send them cash, stand them a few beers of merely hold a door open for them, you must do something. The nice thing is that they let you use your imagination, and require nothing.
Commercial companies merely demand cash. But this situation illustrates the idea of hidden cost.
The cost for using software that might change it's conditions for continued use is allowing yourself into a blackmail situation, where to continue work, you must have a new license of the software.
Sometimes this is overt, such as timeout demoware.
Sometimes it's covert, like packages that have a free version, but no support, and no bug fixes beyond the catastrophic. The cost here is in discovering you have sunk 6 months into a learning and internally supporting a package just to discover that to get it to do what you need, you must pay out large sums of money that you might not have.
So treipidation is warranted, but I'd say not for erosion of freedom reasons.
Keeping the bastards honest ... (Score:2)
The aim of "free" (as in beer) software is to limit the excessive prices charged by mainstream publishers. In a sense the free version is the minimum base level functionality (or quality check) that should be expected from a risk-free investment in software. Then you can compare the marginal improvement in the price of the commercial version and evaluate the prospective gains rationally (assuming a free and informed choice without excessive branded benchmarketing).
The biggest problem is that the "costs" of software is not reflected in the actual sale price. Quality control, amount of training, help-desk support, risk of inappropriate design/placement are the invisible costs that really determine whether a piece of software will be taken up enterprise-wide. It is too easy to shift the negative externalities onto other people (a case of privatising the profits, socialising the costs) and I suspect users will revolt one day and rethink their purchasing strategies if there were any real studies done of productivity gains.
LL
Re:lockin (Score:3)
Just because something is "free" doesn't mean there isn't a cost associated with it (TANSTAAFL). In a lot of cases, "free" solutions are many times more costly than a commercial alternative. If you think otherwise, you've never done what you propose.
Trends? (Score:1)
I think people should also realize that if these are infact the trends of free-beer software, that by the time it is implemented, the GPLed code for currently under developement office products will have matured to the point where commercial/closed options will become less and less an obligatory purchase. Several products are already under way that in most cases, can achieve the complexity needed by the *average* user. I believe that given five more years of developement would reveal several lines of open source products which will be modular in design and extremely familiar to use to the average user.
I do understand that free-beer software entails many products other than office tools, but I believe them to be a prime example.
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:2)
One thing you need to realize is that the commercial desktop software marketplace accounts for less than 10% of the overall revenue generated by software development activities worldwide. You're fixated on something that is TINY. Look at the big picture for a change.
Re:lockin (Score:2)
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Commercial != Proprietry, SCSL bad 4 StarOffice (Score:5)
* StarOffice would be an infinitely better product if it were under an open sourece license. Many users complain about about many small issues it would be trivial to fix if the source were publicly availiable.
- A computer magazine I write for has to enter into a legal agreement with sun to distribute StarOffice, taking around six months of red tape each time
- StarOffices installer is much more complex than the basic click-and-install RPM method most new Linux users are taught. It is very difficult to redistribute an RPM StarOffice
- Almost all users on all platforms fins StarOffices taking over the Start Menu / Kpanel / whatever rather irritating. it would be simple to make this feature optional
- Legal agreements prevent LUGs from installing StarOffice on nLinux newbies PCs. This is bad for both Sun, the LUG, and the Linux user.
- The words Redhat, Debian, and Linux aren't spellchecker. *I* could be bothered fixing it. Sun can't anytime soon.
- Staroffice is built arround it's own widget set, which looks uncomfortable surrounded by typical GTK and QT Linux applications.
All of the above would be trivial to fix with appropriate access to the code. Ahh, but we have access you say? True - but I want to work on a project for my own benefit, not for Suns pissing contest with Microsoft. They are not an independent body, not a meritocracy [as are most GPL or similar based projects] and have themselves as their primary concern.
Forgive my typos. Despite the browser wars, nobodys been inoovative enough to include a spellchecker for forms yet. Mozilla?
Who cares?? (Score:2)
-russ
No need to panic... (Score:2)
It's true that a lot of software for linux and other open source OSes are free (as in beer) mostly because the companies making them seek to gain acceptance in the open source community. If there had been a larger market, they might have sold it instead. For a lot of companies, it's more of a marketing strategy than pure belief that software should be free (as in freedom).
The thing is, it doesn't change anything. Whatever happens, open source projects can never be "taken over" by greedy profit-driven companies, because the nature of open-source itself won't allow it. Commercial software can't hurt linux, it's quite the opposite. I can understand that a company could want to make money with their powerful, 3D-Studio like application. What's wrong with that? People can use their Free OS to run a commercial program just like any GPLed one. More software, open-source or not, free or not, would help linux get a larger user-base and that's a Good Thing.
It's a *bad* thing (Score:1)
yes, you should be wary... (Score:1)
You should be very wary about starting to use any proprietary software, especially software that purports to be "free". That's not to say that you should never use it, just that you should consider the long-term costs to you.
The core issue isn't really the software per se, it's the amount of your time that you would spend if you had to switch to another package. For example, let's say that "Moose and Squirrel Compilers, inc" chose to release a C compiler in binary-only form. As long as you don't use too many of their proprietary hooks then you're probably OK since the bulk of the data that you spend your time creating is in a data format ("C") which can easily be moved over to another compiler if need be.
Now let's consider a CAD program. Since you're likely building your CAD models inside the program, and the program likely has a very proprietary data model, you would almost certainly be screwed if you tried to change to another CAD program. Sure, your new program might claim to import your old program's data files, but it would be unlikely to do it well.
Office suites probably fall somewhere in the middle. They use proprietary formats by default but you can usually save in something (HTML, RTF) that can be read reasonably well by other tools.
Now, let's turn the proprietary software FUD back against itself. When the software that you paid nothing for fails, "who you gonna sue?" Even if you could sue Oracle or Microsoft if you paid them a lot of money (ha!), what would you do when the software that they gave you for free didn't work? It's worth what you paid for, right?
So from a support perspective you're in the worst place imaginable: the vendor isn't really incented to give you support (what's in it for them?), you have zero leverage with your vendor, and you can't go anywhere else for support.
The difference between "free beer" software and free software is the difference between "buyer beware" and "don't look a gift horse in the mouth." The "free beer" software is an attempt to sell you something, the free software is a gift from the developers to you.
Good luck!
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:2)
For the average Joe, there is effectively only one software company in the world.
All we're TALKING about here is the commercial desktop software market. We're talking about apples here, it doesn't matter how many oranges there are in Florida.
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Yup... but... can we do better & convert them? (Score:1)
> us over until the free speech comes to the
> rescue.
Yup. That's how it's often been so far.
I hope that Sun, for example, elects to properly OpenSource the StarOffice suite when it hits the wall as far as direct political usefulness goes (if not before) since I'd value the opportunity to put that on a diet and install a squillion copies.
In this vein, Open Sourcing faces a dilemma for a commerce-oriented company like Sun. If they stick a rider on, requiring derivatives of their software to continuously display an unadulterated "derived from Sun software" logo (something I would be more than happy to suffer), they then face an image issue
I have another suggestion for Sun in particular, to do right now: consider semi-open-sourcing StarOffice on a may-not-sell-or-distribute basis (ie private use only for derivatives) but with a fixed time-bomb that automatically GPLs it (maybe at the end of 2002, but give a definite date) (even with a must-display-this-logo rider).
This would work for Sun because:
How say you?
Re:Open standards are more important (Score:2)
But the "free beer" (kind of an offensive, pre-judging term to me) software, is like giving free hammers to try out before you buy, and giving them free to the students and poor people who are using them for non-commercial purposes. I think it's extremely admirable.
I agree that it would be cynical to suggest that the companies giving proprietary software away are trying to get people hooked, but how is what they're doing different than giving free cigarettes to people so they'll come to appreciate tobacco's smooth mellow flavor and full rich taste and then become "lifelong consumers"?
The question is moot (Score:2)
There are three things that make this whole subject moot. First, the GPL *demands* Free software to remain free. So no one who has a GPLed product can suddenly turn around and close the source. Second is the point made by blaine. So long as there are people who believe in Free and open source software, and are making the programs, it will continue to flourish. And since open sourced software defies ownership, a product can never be "killed" as long as people want to use it. Look at it this way, Freeing software isn't just letting out the genie, it's shattering the bottle.
The third point, and my personal favorite, is that freedom works both ways. To be a champion of freedom, you have to allow for all forms of expression. You can't say that you're promoting freedom and be telling people what they can and can't do at the same time. Trying to wage a holy war against closed source and commercial software will only set back Linux, and would be somewhat hypocritical. Sure, I may not like non-Free software as much, but prohibiting it will accomplish nothing. I want to see Free software succeed and it has to do it in an open marketplace, where it goes head-to-head with commercial software and proves itself worthy beyond doubt. Shutting it out from the world and making empty claims of superiority, on the other hand, will destroy Free software, if anything.
So go ahead, bring commercial software to Linux. I am not afraid. Blue is my favourite colour!
Re:lockin (Score:2)
Who installed all that "free" software?
The same people who would have installed proprietary junk.
How long did it take?
The same time as the proprietary junk
Who retrained all the users to use a new O/S they aren't familiar with?
The same help desk that trained on the proprietary junk. Perhaps HR would be happy when you offer all employees a free copy of their office desktop for them to take home with them to help this process. (licencing cost? zippo, nada, zero)
How long did that take and how much did that lost productivity cost?
The same time it took the company to learn the proprietary junk.
Who handles the support questions when the software doesn't work (it sure isn't the "manufacturer" now, is it?)
The same help desk that troubleshoots the existing proprietary junk but now the help desk is backed up by thousands of other users around the world, and the power of the source code at their fingertips.
How much overhead does that add to the company?
The same amount of overhead that exists now. No more, no less.
And how long is it before you're out pounding the pavement because you just cost the company 10x what that off-the-shelf commercial solution would have cost?
Never :)
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Re:lockin (Score:1)
geee, a thousand dollar commitment to microsoft, you'd better go and tell those thousands of windows software companies they'll have to fork out a thousand dollars.
oooooh..
when are you idiots going to realise that TIME COSTS MONEY.
Re:Moderate as FUNNY (Score:1)
Wonder what'll happen in meta-mod. It deserved to be moderated up, but it got the wrong tag applied. I think we should just have +1, or -1 moderation, otherwise its just confusing these poor people.
Re:lockin (Score:2)
Why not make the same time investment on a platform that gives you the source and uses open formats?
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Comment removed (Score:3)
All the best software always comes free (Score:1)
Re:It's a *bad* thing (Score:3)
Ok, how's this scenario? Joe's been hearing a lot about this new "Linux" thing and decides, since he can create HTML in FrontPage he's definately smart enough for Linux. So he goes and installs a copy on his shiny new iMac. Then he downloads StarOffice, but it doesn't work. "Unsupported architecture? What in the hell?" he mumbles to himself as he reboots into MacOS to use IE.
Open Source Scenario: Joe downloads a src.rpm of some cool new package, installs it (in the process compiling it for his computer) and runs it. "Hey, this Linux thing is sorta neat," he mumbles to himself as he reboots into MacOS to use IE.
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Re:Good Thing (Score:1)
An open source licence is not just a guarantee that the program has source code. It is a guarantee that the vendor software cannot unilaterally assert control over the software. If they won't sell it real cheap, someone else might. If they won't fix and enhance, then someone else might. So free-as-in-speech guarantees that it *stays* free-as-in-beer.
Hm, this seems to be what DCMA et all is about in other arenas - take away the freedom of speech first, then rack up the profits.
Blender is a good example of Free as in Beer (Score:3)
But it can be downloaded for zero price with no restrictions on its use. The money people - including myself - have paid for manuals and keys has gone back into the development of the program. I believe the Blender team were at E3 showing off version 2.0 which is touted to be a game development modelling system.
The team have not ruled out GPL'ed source in the future but right now it makes no sense to them given the way they manage their source tree. If they don't release the source so what? There are plenty of GPL'ed modellers out there for anyone to download and improve. It's just that the quality of Blender and the enthusiasm of its user base gives it more than enough momentum right now.
Need Peer Review (Score:1)
I think, however, this software can't do much harm, simply because it will with time be inferior of OSS.
Remember, free-beer software isn't Peer Reviewed! ESR argues impressingly for that what makes OSS software so good, is the very extensive (informal) Peer Review every piece of code goes through.
Therefore, free-beer software will with time get OSS competitor(s), that, when matured, are technically superior, but costs no more. Then, it has no advantage, so it will be "open the source or perish". I hope...
Re:How could it be bad? (Score:1)
Well.. yes, depending on what your definition of "best" is. If you mean "best" as something that is accessible to and understandable by many people, sure, that is what the market is doing right now, in everybody's favorite M$ produtct.
However, do you, at the same time, consider the "best" product one that has allowed billions of dollars in damage to be caused, time and time again, by script kiddies with a veangance? I am thinking maybe it is time to refine our definiton of "best" to include actual quality...
It *is* insightful! (Score:1)
The answer is of course, to remember the end-user when releasing OS packages; non-programmers may actually want to use software too.. :-)
Been up all night so maybe i missed something, but it did seem insightful to me...
Re:How could it be bad? (Score:3)
Trying to impose some sort of external, artificial pricing model (i.e., "free") is at odds with the underlying economy and society in which most of us live.
This idea of yours is like that of an 18th century farmer who can't imagine a world where 95% of the population is not also farmers. Food production once consumed all of our collective attention; now food is so cheap hardly anybody works on it and the rest of us don't even think about it.
Guess what? Software is cheaper. Once software is written, it is essentially free to duplicate it, and once rights are given to duplicate it, and to duplicate its source code (and once monopolists are brought to heel), then we can see that charging for software becomes the absurdity. Think of the Bible. Once, all the literate people in the world spent their time copying it. Then Gutenberg devoted his machine to copying it. Now, Gideon's leave them for free in hotels and motels. [note to *BSD: you know what to do] But this doesn't lead to the economic collapse that your theory would forecast. In fact, it leads to economic growth.
It's like you said, the market will pick the best solution after weighing costs and benefits. Once the OS is free, we take it and use it as the raw material for some other value creating activity. "Can't work for free" doesn't mean we have to start charging for OSes: once we stop having to pay for them, we are free to work on other things that we can charge for. And so it will be with office applications. They are too ubiquitous to hold value for long and once freely copiable versions arrive, free they will become and remain. The economic loss to the "farmers" who used to charge for them will be more than made up by the savings of hungry consumers who used to pay for them. That's how the economy works.
get a life and pay for it (Score:4)
I'm all for the hippie ethic of giving it away and asking nothing in return. This is a cool idea, but everyone doesn't have to agree. It is okay for someone to charge money for their software, and just because they initially give it away doesn't meant they are trying to bait a young generation.
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:1)
- But the power is on your side. You can pay somebody to fix it or learn how to fix it. You don't have to wait until MS or any other company thinks that your bug or feature is important enough.
- Believe me when I say that those 1% are probably better and more dedicated programmers than most payed closed source programmers. Everything they do is clearly visible for everybody. I rather have Linus and Alan than some disgruntled Microsoft employee (disgruntled since his stocks have fallen 40%).
- Even if you don't ever are going to fix a bug or add a feature. There are others out there who uses the software the same way you are doing. And maybe they find the exact same bug and decides that they want to fix it.
- And finally, if the maintainers are doing a very lousy job, anyone with the right dedication can take over and led the application development in another direction.
Freedom of Choice (Score:3)
AbiWord is good for
I'm experimenting with GNUCash for my personal bookkeeping; it's good enough for my simple needs, but it's certainly not adequate to handle the bookkeeping and accounting for any business much more complicated than my one-horse limo company, and it does not interface directly with my bank's software, as does QuickBooks. I would find a commercial QuickBooks-equivalent accounting package for Linux awfully tempting if it offered $50 or $100 (or whatever it cost) more functionality than GNUCash.
If, indeed, KDE2 or a future version of Gnome turns out to have a better, more stable browser than Netscape, Mozilla or Opera, full support for MS file formats, and the other basic office functions I need in my work, then I'll use nothing else, and I'll be very, very, happy.
Remember, I am a *writer and editor* who also has a lot of administrative tasks to handle, not a programmer. I am a software user, not a developer, and my primary concerns are program stability, usability, and compatibility. Sure, I can and do use Nedit (the simplest and most stable text editor I've found for Linux so far) for 90% of my actual writing, but what about dealing with book publishers like, say, MacMillan? They have whole huge systems built around MS Word, and they aren't going to change them just because I don't want to use Windows or a Mac. The best compromise right now, when dealing with Windows-locked companies, is StarOffice.
I tried WordPerfect, but it had installation "issues" with my home network, and even when I finally got it going, it crashed more than a few times on me during my first day of use (which was also my last). This level of (non)stability is unacceptable for someone who is trying to turn out a novel in his (scant) spare time; when my head is full of characters, plot, scenes, dialogue, and other writerly things, there is no room left in it for worrying about applications that crash. Right now, as far as I'm concerned, WordPerfect is for computer hobbyists, not for people who are trying to use their computers as productivity tools.
The problem with cutting yourself off from all commercial software -- even "free beer" commercial software -- is that this position not only imposes severe limits not only on what you, yourself, can do with your computer, but also cuts you off from many collaborative projects.
Sure, I wish StarOffice was GPLed, and I wish there were a dozen better, less bloated, truly free alternatives available. Someday I'm sure there will be. I long for that day. But right now, my pragmatic choice is between using non-free applications on a truly free operating system, and using non-free applications on a non-free proprietary operating system.
My choice is to use the free operating system exclusively and to "bend" on the applications. At least for now.
- Robin
Re:Commercial != Proprietry, SCSL bad 4 StarOffice (Score:2)
StarOffice...after using it for a while, I'm forced to agree with you.
Having it closed-source does make dealing with it a pain at times. There are stupid bugs, such as when you sync to a Palm Pilot, it screws up the Palm's address book. The beta of 5.2 supposedly fixes this and a few other problems. Yet, adding support for other PDAs or any other feature is at the discression of Sun -- not the users.
Still, what they ship is quite nice. That it would be better if the source were available and truely open is not even a question.
StarOffice Tip: To load an app without that "Desktop", use something like this for each app;
/home/USER_NAME/Office51/bin/soffice private:factory/swriter%f
The first one is for the spreadsheet, the second for the word processor. More tips at the FAQ page;
http://www.wernerroth.de/en/staro ffice/faq/faq.html [wernerroth.de]
Re:Only if you can't do without them (Score:1)
Are there any REAL Examples of this? (Score:3)
If anyones heard of a situation were free beer software has been given away, then once dependence has been established, charged for up the ying-yang like so much virtual Crack, then please testify!
I've never heard of that other than the occasional anecdote from an unreliable/unverifiable source. Sounds like just another Paranoid Persecution Fantasy to me...
Re:Open standards are more important (Score:1)
However, in the case of closed, proprietary standards, such as
Those proprietary, closed, standards are Microsoft's "nicotine", so to speak, that keep you coming back for more. And just when someone else comes out with a cheaper or free equivalent of that "nicotine", Microsoft changes the formulation (Word '95 format, Word '98 format, Word 2000 format), and enough people get pushed on the latest, that the others have to follow. That's dependence. That's unhealthy for the economy.
But HTML editors don't sufer from the same, because the *standard* is open. I can buy my editor from Microsoft if I want, or I can use Netscape, or HomeSite, or Dreamweaver, or (my personal favorite) "vi".
Microsoft does the same with their API's. They are documented (otherwise they'd be completely sunk), but all the cool stuff and latest features in the OS, often are not documented, so Microsoft has an edge with the apps (but hopefully not for much longer, if the government doesn't roll over). And they change those API's so rapidly that no one could possibly create something reaosonably compatable with that de facto standard.
Sun, on the other hand, fully documents their Java API's, controls and modularizes the expansion of the API. They give it away for commercial and non-commercial use, allow others to create competiting JVM's (including other free ones), and make some money on licensing their source code (also free for non-commercial use), and in selling hardware for one of the premiere Java platforms, Solaris. A far more respectible approach, and (gasp!) a commercial one...
I never consider myself *dependant* upon a piece of software. There are usually alternatives. I *do* consider myself dependant upon proprietary standards, like
If someone lets my try out their kick-ass software, and it provides great value for its price, I'll use it. As long as the standards are open, there will always be other alternatives if I become dissatisfied with that piece of software, or they crank up the price, or whatever. That's not dependence, that's freedom!
And I don't think FSF's approach that "all software should be free" is constructive. The *choice* of what software to use should be free, and there might be cost-free alternatives among them, as long as the standards are open.
Training for a platform transition (Score:2)
I would clarify this concern with the fact that nobody is born with knowledge on how to operate a computer. Yes it's true that many new employees have learned the application at another company. Yes it's true that many users have it at home.
What's more is most of the these same people already have aquired basic computer skills (point and click, RAM, hard drive, file structure). The cost in retraining these basic computer skills will not be redone. That cost has already been realised.
As a result of the user base already having basic computer skills, the cost in additional migration training to a new platform is less than the cost of the original training.
___
Re:It *is* insightful... both ways... (Score:2)
I love open-source software. I've been using Linux since '95 (almost exclusively since '97), but I've got a lot of irons in the fire and an active social life. I'm no "guru" but I've set up entire sites from scratch before (including hardware), so I'm no newbie, either. But I really wish I didn't have to *work* so hard at getting things running in Linux.
Once I do get things working, I almost always find that it was worth the effort to "learn" my way through the process. But sometimes I'd rather be out playing pool and drinking beer with friends. I enjoy tinkering and fiddling with things, but sometimes I just want the thing to WORK, without having to worry about which "bleeding-edge" library I've got to download and compile...
There's a place for FreeBeer software in the future of the open-source "space".
Bottom line: if the software gets the job done, it's a contender for my patronage. If I can get an OSS solution to work without too much grief, I'll always perfer that option. But if there were a program like good ol' Eudora 1.5x in Linux -- that I could install in 90 seconds with ZERO sweat, I'd be all over it, if it proved as reliable as that old standby from my Windoze days. (I was particularly fond of the "Auto-save Attachments feature that put incoming attachments in a separate directory, rather than keeping them in one huge mailbox file.) The only reason I don't still use it is because it doesn't run in Linux.
The only way a FreeBeer program could "change the direction" of the OSS movement would be if it turned out to be the "Next Killer-App"[tm]... something on the level of a paradigm-shift, that takes to a whole new level above the hardware->BIOS->OS->App hierarchy. In that case, the whole OS layer would go the way of the BIOS.
Remember the early 80s, when you had to check the BIOS manufacturer before buying a motherboard or system, because some were more compatible with BigBlue than others?
I'm getting off topic now. Better go drink some beer!
--jd
Re:The question is moot (Score:2)
Nope. But anyway, you could always write stuff in assembly language so who needs a compiler anyway.
The point is that toolkits, languages etc. improve over time. Once upon a time, an assembler was all you needed to write state-of-the-art software. Now, everyone would agree that a compiler is essential. At some point in the future, something will come along that is miles better than what open source software has to offer today, to the extent that the current offering will no longer be considered adequate to write good apps.
If the open source offering doesn't continually improve fast enough, this will mean that effectively you *have* to use proprietory compilers, libraries, languages etc. to be able to write stuff as good as your contemporaries.
You may think that a C compiler will always be enough to write quality apps. There are doubtless still people who think that assembly language is all you need to write quality apps. Without GCC, most of the free stuff today would never have been written. It will be like that if future free tools do not keep pace with proprietory offerings.
THIS MUST BE STOPPED (Score:2)
This stuff usually comes in tarballs . I mean listen to how this sounds. Can beer that comes in a tarball be useful? Just compare those neat packages and the outstanding documentation that you get with expensive beer. Not to mention that nice silver disk.
Mr Stallman admits he's a communist. At least some of hist statements bear ideas of freedom and community. This is bad for big corporations. Mr. Raymond is probably also a communist, albeit a more articulate one.
Free beer software is distributed with source code. I mean shheeesh, get real! This stuff is grammatically so bad and the authors use far too many semicolons.
Think about how bad free beer software is for Corporate America. Do you really believe that the nice Intel company can crank out new, probably error prone, but at least expensive CPUs every three month when the expensive beer software is not able to distribute it's bloatware?
Re:How could it be bad? (Score:2)
I agree with you in that my measure of "best" also includes a measure of quality. But quality to me means polish, performance, support, and usability in addition to what it seems to mean here, which is reliability.
Re:Commercial != Proprietry, SCSL bad 4 StarOffice (Score:1)
If you can convince Ed Zander that making StarOffice really free (as in free speech) will increase sales of E10000's, Sun'll do it in half a heartbeat, nevermind philosophical disagreements between Bill Joy and Richard Stallman. This has everything to do with money.
Sun does have something to gain from continuing to promote open formats at least, however. Last I heard, StarOffice was supposed to go to native XML.
Re:It *is* insightful... both ways... (Score:1)
Agreed. Not only do I sometimes want to drink beer more than fiddle with the software, at times I'd actually like to *use* the software... :-) ... As much as fiddling is an Enjoyable Thing, I need as much time as I can get *using* the app in my project. I like to be able to fiddle when I want to, but Forced Fiddling reduces productivity.
This article [sendmail.net] has an excellent discussion of the need for attention to the end user's needs in OS development. It focuses on interface issues, but has a good analysis of the problems of perspective.
Re:How could it be bad? (Score:2)
I really don't understand the point you're trying to make by equating my statement against artificially imposed economies to your example of 18th century agrarian economies. One is a rebuke of a artificial constraint imposed on a natural marketplace and the other is a natural response to survival requirements in an unsophisticated market economy. There's no parallel to be drawn as far as I can see.
But your non sequiturs aside, the point IS that the market will choose. So grandstanding about why commercial software is bad and how your opinion is better than someone elses' is a vain effort when you seem to be agreeing in the next breath that the market will pick the best solution from the optimal source.
So, what was your point again?
Re: Good analogy... (Score:1)
It's also an apt analogy, between Linux=SamAdams on the one side and Windoze=Bud on the other.
You get what you "pay" for...
--jd
You kids can be wary of them if you like... (Score:1)
B2B versus B2C, versus C2C (Score:1)
Energy moves in waves. Our biosphere is sustained by the cycling energy of daily rotations and seasonal shifts. Each member of the food chain reciprocates what it gets with what it gives. But what is given back in free beer software?
The credo of those opposing Free or Open Source software movements is usually TANSTAAFL [tanstaafl.com]. As mentioned in this article, software from a business can be free to some (such as non-profits) while its net pricetag is subsidized by others. Yet, the GNU project [gnu.org] and the standards of Internet weren't built by businesses as much as they were built by individuals, each taking the personal cost of contributing. (For instance, HTML was largely inspired by Ted Nelson's [keio.ac.jp] early quest for Xanadu [xanadu.com.au].) Some are paid back in microcelebrity or even better jobs and grants. Others have given unconditionally without reward. These pioneers made the effort, not so much for money, as for the personal empowerment of software.
Love really does make the world go around: The thing that best guarantees success is for human attention and concern to be lavished skillfully on a goal. Sometimes it seems that corporations will totally rule the world... until the court of public opinion turns the tide against them. These are like yin and yang cycling over one another: Propriety-mindedness and control versus personal liberty.
We're seeing a turn of this cycle happen when businesses turn to businesses (B2B) in a trend away from catering to consumers (B2C). Consumer backlash sometimes sparks this trend. Still, consumers have little use for computers without personal empowerment, so they will empower their own. (C2C?)
Free Beer Software will flourish just out of the human attention it gets. One day, the wireless web will be so pervasive that we can call out URLs like incantations, summoning any manner of program to be carried out. Such a post-scarcity world will be glorious!
Re:Sam Adams versus Bud (Score:1)
The analogy may be interesting and even useful in some cases, but I'm not sure that it really applies to the proprietary vs. open debate.
I also think you'd be suprised at the amount of brand loyalty among Sam Adams drinkers -- and Linux users, for that matter.
(And that's not even counting the fundamental error that Sam Adams isn't actually a microbrewery. And also that Bud is inoffensive. Ugh.)
--
Re:lockin (Score:2)
Now factor in that I can get dedicated tech support from the commercial vendor, commercially supported extensions, documentation, and updates and explain to me again how I'm better off disrupting my entire organization with a shift to this "free" software?
Re:Open standards are more important (Score:1)
Re:Free as in no cost software is very dangerous. (Score:1)
Re:lockin (Score:2)
On the FIRST DAY of deployment, the TCO is zarro, nada, zippo.
Wrong. Your definition of TCO is incorrect. It's Total Cost of Ownership. What you're stating is the Current cost of ownership is zero. The TCO is going to be rather large.
Contrary to popular belief, Linux or BSD experts are harder to find than MS experts. They're also more expensive. That increases TCO. Your average users as a rule have seen Windows. They've seen Office. They haven't seen Linux, Afterstep, or StarOffice. That means training. That means decreased productivity. That means unhappy employees that might leave to find work somewhere with "normal" software.
Oracle has a warranty and extensive support. Does MySQL or the other free or inexpensive solutions? How scalable are these solutions? These are considerations to make when calculating TCO.
No, currently, the TCO for a "mainstream" solution is significantly lower than a "free" solution.
-Jer
Re:lockin (Score:2)
If you deploy Linux across a 500 seat network, you'll not only save the company over a quarter million dollars in licencing fees, but you'll be leveraging the devlopment effort of programers around the world to make sure your network is at the forfront of the shift.
___
Not an easy question (Score:3)
Availability of Windows hasn't stopped development of Linux or the *BSDs (although Windows isn't really 'free beer', it is beer most people have already been forced to pay for).
There are also quite a number of free/open office productivity products out there, despite StarOffice being available as 'free beer' for quite a while and despite commercial packages like Word Perfect and Applix being available. The CAD software situation is a little more tricky to judge, since CAD software is generally very high end and complex. I do know that there are at least a couple of free/open CAD projects going out there, and at least a couple of commercial CAD packages out for Linux at least. I'd be hesitant to try to predict the future on how that situation shakes out.
Some people will still be more interested in free software because of idealogical reasons, or merely due to long term fear for their wallets.
'Free beer' or commercial software may also provide competition that spurs free software developers to work harder. If the free OS market continues to grow, is there room for both free/open software and 'free beer'/commercial software? More competition and more options is generally a good thing.
$399,500.00 (Score:2)
$799.00
X 500 seats=
$399,500
OpenSource platform
$0
X 500 seats=
$0
What would you do with your network is you had an extra $399,500.00?
___
RedHat is commercial... (Score:2)
Re: OS-Opinion article about this... (Score:2)
The Real Microsoft Killer: Open File Formats [osopinion.com]
--jd
Re:The question is moot (Score:2)
Luckily, most new languages today are free. The only glaring exception is Java, and there are projects underway to fix that. Also, programmers involved in free software also tend to be heavily interested in new tools, compilers, etc. This is good.
-Nathan Whitehead
Re:lockin (Score:2)
Who installed all that "free" software? How long did it take?
Any monkey can install some of the newer distros.
Who retrained all the users to use a new O/S they aren't familiar with?
Nobody, because KDE is enough of a Windows clone that most users don't care.
How long did that take and how much did that lost productivity cost?
Very little.
Who handles the support questions when the software doesn't work (it sure isn't the "manufacturer" now, is it?)
<disclaimer content="they're not paying me for this plug"> VA Linux Systems [valinux.com] or Penguin Computing [penguincomputing.com]. They sold you the workstations; they support the workstations. </disclaimer>
Free Software (Score:2)
When you are allowed to change software, someone somewhere does. In addition, there exists an entire community where volunteer contribution is encouraged. If you want your OS as fast as BeOS, it is possible.
But with free-beer software, all of this goes away. You are again waiting for Company X to release version <current+1> of its software. Because you are not allowed to change it.
Yes, we should be wary of free-beer software. Because it is so easy. It is easy to pick up on free-beer software and rely on it. But when you do, you are no longer in control. They are.
Now reading some of the other responses, including strange beer-analogies, I can't help but wonder: do you even understand what this is about? Let me list some things:
1. We do not fear commercial software. We fear propietary software.
2. To reiterate the above point, we do not fear making money with software.
3. **Sometimes** the software companies don't have our best interests at heart. If they are distributing Free Software, this doesn't matter.
4. Every commonly relied upon propietary package commonly used on GNU/Linux has a Free equivilent in development. This is a measure of the community's committment.
5. Once GNU/Linux begins to rely on propietary software, I will start looking somewhere else for my OS needs.
I can understand if you need certain software for compatibility and I think there is room for temporary compromise. If there wasn't, then I would be a hypocrite. I use Netscape until Mozilla comes out. I even have to Windows for my parents.
So if you are going to start relying free-beer software because it costs nothing and because it is useful, take a hard look at your great OS and understand what it is that makes it great. Then you will know what you are losing.
You assume everybody's starting from Windows. (Score:2)
What you chose to ignore is the productivity cost for users that are experienced in one platform to shift to another. I have a PC running Windows.
And I have a Mac running Mac OS. When I came to college, I had to learn Windows 98 like everybody else. Is it really that much harder to migrate Windows -> KDE than Mac -> Windows?
Now factor in that I can get dedicated tech support from the commercial vendor
Then buy your boxen from VA Linux Systems or Penguin Computing.
Re:$399,500.00 (Score:2)
All I'm saying is the cost to buy Office is about 799.00 per seat. This price is without justification. If I payed you, personally, a quater million dollars to move your macrels to another productivity app, would you do it? Would it cost you that much? What if you could pocket the differance?
TCO is important in any decision, but don't let it distract you from the fact you'de pay $400,000 to ms for the glorious privilage of being locked into another cycle.
The only advantage to buying Office 2000 is that you'll be paying again when Office 2002 comes out and you'll be right back where you started.
___
Re:Training for a platform transition (Score:2)
As a result of the user base already having basic computer skills, the cost in additional migration training to a new platform is less than the cost of the original training.
That's true, but that's still an additional cost. I've considered bringing a linux solution to the desktop for the smallish company I work for, and it just doesn't make sense. The gains would be relatively minimal in most respects, and look what the negatives would be:
-Jer
Re:Commercial != Proprietry, SCSL bad 4 StarOffice (Score:2)
This is necessary in order to more easily support multiple platforms. Mozilla does exactly the same thing.
Re:lockin (Score:2)
Of course what you are stating is that the upgrade and training costs involved with a proprietary solution are $0 which is just untrue. You can't upgrade(downgrade) MS Office or Windows versions without some retrainging and loss of productivity. Imagine trying to move people from Win9x to WinNT (at least trying to move to something with rudimentary memory protection, etc.) without incurring any support or retraining costs. Not gunna happen.
You should also factor in not just the sticker price (free=0 proprietary=$$$) but the long term support. In the free software world bugs get squashed, only recently has MS (as an example) even attempted to fix security problems in its line of OS's, and only your particular vendor can do this. If you need feature, or bugfix, X you have to wait for the benevelance of your vendor, and most of the time they will tell you to go fuck off. With Free Software you, the administrator and user, are in control of development. (enough rambling on this front)
Also think on a longer term, what about the upgrade cycle. Right now in PC operating systems you have a violent upgrade cycle where the useful life for a machine is only a year or two and you have to deal with several "forced" product upgrade rollouts. If you pick the right free software (not an easy task but you should be looking at all your options anyway) you may not have to upgrade for many years, if at all. During this time your users can learn the software more deeply and become faster and more productive. I use LaTeX as an example, it has been frozen for many, many years. LaTeX provides very nice printed output as well as HTML through LaTeX2HTML. I have only created about three reports using LaTeX but feel that I have been much more productive during this time. Even with the learning curve I produce much higher quality documents and I believe that it still takes less time than fiddling with page layout by hand.
Anyway, enough ranting on my part. I hope that whatever technological solution you pick is the right one for your organization and userbase, weather it be free or non-free. I just got out of bed so I need food and coffee. See ya.
Re:Training for a platform transition (Score:2)
For your organization it probably wouldn't make sense at this time to change, but keep a transition in the back of your mind. Try and move things to more open standards (RTF instead of DOC, Web-based apps, etc.) Maybe sometime later, if you don't crawl up some vendors ass, you will be able to easily transition to a Free Software archetecture.
I also take some minor objection to the statement that "MS is standing behind the product", since when?!? Last I checked the MS EULA had the same statement the GPL does, "This product is not warranteed for fitness for any particular purpose", blah blah blah. Sure you could BUY support but then you are in the same boat anyway. I haven't personally dealt with MS support but you would want to at least test to see if they are competant and responsive to problems (look in the MS KB and note how many bugs have the notice "We are aware of this problem, but have no fix at this time." from the mid '90s)
Choose your poison wisely.
Re:Open standards are more important (Score:2)
It's not that the hammer itself is free. By my understanding, material and distribution costs have never been an issue with FSF or Stallman. What's key is making the blueprints for making the tool available. If you modify the tool and sell it, based on the original spec, you release the new blueprint free of restriction.
So, the hammer makers will eat. Especially, the hammer inventor.
Take Sendmail. Probably the widest distributed back-end mail processor. Free to use. Sendmail, Inc, owner of the sendmail source, gets to shrinkwrap some nifty admin tools, and sell it as Sendmail SingleClick. Somewhat closed, still obeys the standard, Sendmail, Inc makes money.
Re:Who cares??-some do. (Score:2)
I answered his question. You are responding to something I never said.
-russ
Re:Don't want to sound anti-Linux and all, but... (Score:2)
Re:Bootlegged beer is always free (Score:2)
Re:Free as in no cost software is very dangerous. (Score:2)
The GNOME included with Red Hat 6.2 works just fine. There's no reason to upgrade if you don't have the technical know-how to do it. Just use RPMs to update anything you have to until the next version of Red Hat comes out, and pay the $5 to get a new CD...
Well, truth is you *are* knocking Linux when you say it's not for your parents. Unless your parents are significantly stupider than mine are, or really old and senile, they should have no trouble with a modern Linux distro. (Like Red Hat or Debian)
If they are happy with their iMac and don't need to do anything that it can't do, then there's probably no special reason for them to switch to Linux, but that doesn't mean that Linux wouldn't work for them.
A properly set up Linux system can actually be easier to use than a comparible Mac or Windows system.
Re: Linux.cost = 2 * Windoze.cost ? (Score:2)
--
This worries me... (Score:2)
As noted hundreds of times before by greater people than I, the word "Free" in Free Software isn't about monetary value. The "Free" should really be read as "Freedom", and thus "Freedom" Software.
People, don't you get it? Such software is better for everyone, corporations included. The main driving force behind Free(dom) Software is this idea:
Some companies today (most who sell large software packages, generally not shrink-wrapped systems) will allow the client to get the source code to the package, for a fee (generally a large fee). The code isn't open, and it isn't free, it definitely isn't Free(dom) - but it is available.
The problem comes if said software company goes under - where does the licensing stand? Many times, nowhere - the client can't modify and sell the code, or improve on it, or support other clients who have the code base or the bianry version - that is, nobody can fill the gap, and the clients may very well go out of business because of it (though I do know that in this business, code is stolen, reworked and sold all the time, with nary a hiccup).
Enter Free(dom) Software. Maybe the client still has to pay for the source code - but after they have paid, they can't be prevented from doing what they need to with it - the code can exist seperate from the parent company. The clients can possibly stay in business, even if the parent of the code dies.
One other side effect - if the code is always available, after the parent company goes out of business - it may be possible that the company could be reformed - if the business practices that caused the failure can be identified and fixed prior to the re-startup. If it was the immaturity of the code that caused the failure, then just wait until the code matures (or better yet, help it mature yourself), then restart...
Re:lockin (Score:2)
-Jer