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Macskeeball wrote:

The "Free" in "free and open-source software" means free as in freedom, not free as in beer. The freedoms in question are the four freedoms outlined by the Free Software Foundation: the freedom to run, study, modify, and redistribute the software. It's completely possible to sell free software. Take Red Hat Linux, for example.

You sound like my Comp Sci teacher.

If a piece of a software built by paid individuals can't compete with something free done, then it shouldn't succeed. And no one should control the distribution of said free product.

Some1 wrote:

Macskeeball wrote:

The "Free" in "free and open-source software" means free as in freedom, not free as in beer. The freedoms in question are the four freedoms outlined by the Free Software Foundation: the freedom to run, study, modify, and redistribute the software. It's completely possible to sell free software. Take Red Hat Linux, for example.

You sound like my Comp Sci teacher.

Well, that makes sense- I'm majoring in Computer Science and working towards becoming a computer teacher.

I assume you meant PS2 - they sold a kit including HD, NIC, and a keyboard.
A lot of people used it to run emulators for classic arcade games.

Iritscen wrote:

Something that was quite new to me was purchasing the Sony Bravia LCD TV, and, going through its papers, finding a notice that it was a Linux device.  Maybe this isn't so rare these days, but it surprised me.  I imagined that a big corp. like Sony would do their own proprietary thing from the ground up, but I guess not.  So, I just cross-referenced the Sony Bravia and Linux, and found the source code for my TV: http://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_tv.shtml !

You would be surprised.  Embedded Linux is big business and many companies such a MontaVista are raking in huge sums of money all the while folding code they write back into the kernel.  As things such as TVs require more and more processing power to do their basic functionality, the more it makes sense to have a RTOS controlling those resources and giving a good base to easily add more features.

Macskeeball wrote:

No, he meant the PS3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_3

PS3 hasn't been out for years (plural).
PS2 has. And had a Linux kit.

And Sony was touting running Linux on it well before its release. So, years.

I think you're grasping at straws.

resedit wrote:

I assume you meant PS2 - they sold a kit including HD, NIC, and a keyboard.

I didn't mean PS2. The PS3 has inherent m/kb support, networking, and a HDD. No kit required, and Linux was not an afterthought.

PS3 hasn't been out for years (plural).

It has. You were wrong. End of story.

Last edited by Bat (2008-12-01 5:02 am)

I am just so original!!!

Sometimes before replying to a topic, I think to myself...

But this time I did not.


OP, care to return to the thread? I am still curious why people choose to buy cars when they can walk for free, or bottled water when tap is free.

I think the analogy is apt.

-Jdude

Last edited by Jdude (2008-12-01 11:13 pm)

Just to be clear, res, I'm not disputing your knowledge of Linux or your PS2 facts- just their relevance and your dispute of mine. I was puzzled by your bringing in of games, disputation and perseverance with this. For me it was about running OSS on a popular CE device by a major player the OP had just reffed. If it matters, I know about these things thru gaming, a field I know fairly well, but don't use either machine or plan to acquire either one, ever. Sony made much of the PS3 as a PC replacement amongst other things well before launch, and the 3 certainly has better hardware at its disposal so to do.

Hopefully that clears the air.

Jdude wrote:

OP, care to return to the thread? I am still curious why people choose to buy cars when they can walk for free, or bottled water when tap is free.

There's a notable gain in the form of convenience from those two purchases (esp. the first one, obviously, which is such a major part of our lives that our modern society largely requires such a purchase just to get to work; and no, I don't care if somebody here lives in a city and uses public transport, you're the exception to the rule).

FOSS, on the other hand, is usually not of such lower quality that the priced alternative is markedly more "convenient" in the form of having many more features or better tech support.  The priced software may have some features the free software doesn't, but any FOSS that's actively in development is working to bridge those gaps, because users will continue to complain and request those features specifically because they are in the priced software.  Therefore, the advantage in convenience that you brought up in your "apt" analogies actually applies a lot more to FOSS than to commercialware, because for many people the "free" outweighs some loss in functionality.

In other words, the FOSS can take its time (the developers are not making it as a commercial product, therefore it doesn't have to do well at first in order to "keep them in business"), slowly adding features that were taken from commercialware, until the FOSS erodes the user base of the commercial software.  I see it as a gradual but inevitable threat, particularly since the law does not forbid copying software features as long as they aren't exact rip-offs of patented code or trademarked "look and feel".  And even then, compare OO.o's Calc module to Excel and try to look me straight in the (cyber-)face while telling me they aren't ripping M$ off in the "look and feel" department.

And yet M$ hasn't sued despite the fact that nearly every element of the interface is as close as possible to Excel's.  Could it be that FOSS is effectively outside the law, if not in letter, but in the public eye?  Think of the PR damage this would do to most companies ("How dare they sue some poor developers who aren't even making money doing this!"). It probably makes a company hesitate before pushing that "sic the lawyers" button.

I find it interesting that not one person has spoken up in agreement with me on even one of my points since the thread started.  Since when do you guys all agree on anything?  Is FOSS really so unquestionably good, so beyond reproach and criticism, that you can put aside all your philosophical and political differences to agree on this one issue?  I find that hard to believe.  Surely you're not under the spell of free software because it's just that convenient?

I was just reading an article comparing Mathematica, Matlab, and Octave. It occurred to me while reading that I know why proprietary software will always exist, even for the PC.

The last mile is hard.

Sure, lots of projects get about 99% of the way to being 'complete', and many are excellent tools in their current state. However, going that last little bit is where the going gets rough; and personalities often clash. It's why Explorer is still a better UI than Gnome or KDE. The polish is what's missing.

And the polish is where proprietary software has an advantage. They can pay people to put in the hours to bring a project to 100% - to do the grunt work that no one finds exciting. Open source folks will just tolerate the bits that aren't finished, so long as the project more or less functions. There are a few folks who are willing to spend the time to bring on the polish,  but being unpaid, they are going to polish it to suit them, not you.

The trouble is, some proprietary vendors don't want to put in the effort to polish their software either, and that is where they run into competition from FOSS projects. I still stand by my assertion that the only software developers who have anything to fear from FOSS are the ones who are lazy, or in a field so mature that the FOSS fully fills the need.

How dare you?   

HOW DARE YOU seek to limit my use of Ad Hominem attacks!?

You of all people, with your philandering and well-known refusal to discontinue your performance of shameful and lewd acts in public places frequented by nuns!

Not to mention your sympathy for the Communist Party and addiction to Fantasy Baseball...