Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>>   I don't understand the subject.
> 
> I get that a lot on the Internet. For example...
> 
> http://xkcd.com/535/
> 
> ....like, WTF?
> 

LOL You are a card. :)

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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news:4ada314d@news.povray.org...
>  Another advantage is that OSS is often developed by several independent
> parties which are not driving their own personal gain with the project,
> something that is the rule with proprietary commercial software. OSS is
> user-oriented, doing what benefits the users the most.

All of this works in two situations: when said users happen to be developers 
themselves and the OSS project is basically targeted to other developers 
(i.e. developers creating developer tools), and when the OSS project has 
solid corporate backing (e.g. Mozilla being funded by search royalties 
through Google) that provides money for quality assessment, usability 
testing, documentation and such. The best known and real world tested OSS 
projects are often in both categories, actually.
In other situations, the OSS model of development does not shine so 
brightly, when it shines at all. That's IMHO, but I just tried to find OSS 
replacements for several costly proprietary software and the results were 
not convincing, to say the least (see also Andrew's post). Yeah, if you're 
an academic or a geek with lots of free time the replacements are nice and 
sort of fun, but when you're a pro looking for tools that you can actually 
use, less so.

I understand that many IT folks love OSS, but that's because the OSS model 
caters for this particular niche and does indeed provide great tools for 
them (and toys: if you're a IT person dabbling with graphics, the GIMP is 
good enough and you get to play with the code ; if you're a graphics pro, 
no, not really, thanks, you'd rather pay the Adobe tax ; if you're neither, 
some cheap proprietary entry-level photo editor with an interface that's 
actually usable will do). Those of us who are not working (full time) in IT 
see the problem differently.

G.

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Gilles Tran <gil### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> In other situations, the OSS model of development does not shine so 
> brightly, when it shines at all. That's IMHO, but I just tried to find OSS 
> replacements for several costly proprietary software and the results were 
> not convincing, to say the least (see also Andrew's post).

  I did not touch the subject of *quality* in my post, nor do I in any way
claim that OSS would be in part with the best commercial software in many
fields.

  There is, however, another advantage I can think of: With OSS you not only
can "try before you buy", but you can skip the latter part of that altogether.
So it's not like you are losing something by trying OSS (except perhaps a bit
of time).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Maybe a better example is video editing: There is good video editing
> software out there, and there is open source video editing software out
> there. Exclusive "and".

And the ones around don't follow *either* sane UI guidelines or Unix
philosophy.

I have yet to see a good open source graphical video editor. And I have yet
to see a *command-line* tool that can take two video files and produce an
output video that is a transition between the inputs. (Raw uncompressed
video, of course; encoding would be done by piping to/from ffmpeg.)

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news:4ada536f@news.povray.org...
>  I did not touch the subject of *quality* in my post, nor do I in any way
> claim that OSS would be in part with the best commercial software in many
> fields.

I was addressing the claim that "OSS is user-oriented, doing what benefits 
the users the most.". This only true when target users are developers. When 
target users are not developers, funky stuff happens a la GIMP, unless 
there's a corporate backer to push things in the right direction. And in 
many situations, there's no OSS version at all if there's no interest in 
that (from an OSS developer's perspective).

>  There is, however, another advantage I can think of: With OSS you not 
> only
> can "try before you buy", but you can skip the latter part of that 
> altogether.
> So it's not like you are losing something by trying OSS (except perhaps a 
> bit
> of time).

To be frank, I have lost my time trying OSS. I push OSS when it's good, but 
just too much of the stuff is alpha quality and in some cases I wished that 
OSS folks had been more honest in stating that they were doing it for fun 
without the pretense of creating a useful and working product. I'm wiser 
now. At least marketing folks are paid to lie ;)

G.

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Gilles Tran wrote:
> I understand that many IT folks love OSS, but that's because the OSS 
> model caters for this particular niche and does indeed provide great 
> tools for them (and toys: if you're a IT person dabbling with graphics, 
> the GIMP is good enough and you get to play with the code ; if you're a 
> graphics pro, no, not really, thanks, you'd rather pay the Adobe tax ; 
> if you're neither, some cheap proprietary entry-level photo editor with 
> an interface that's actually usable will do). Those of us who are not 
> working (full time) in IT see the problem differently.

This guy is a pro:

http://blogdodesenhador.blogspot.com/
http://lambiek.net/artists/c/couto_mozart.htm

He seems to have a passion for the Gimp and the Genius MousePen tablet, 
though.  He seems to have far more needs than simple photo editing too.

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On 10/17/2009 1:13 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:25:31 -0400, SharkD wrote:
>
>> Open source software is always stable
>
> Um, yeah.  What's your point?  Nobody ever claimed it was *always*
> stable, by its very nature, OSS is available in alpha and beta form.  No
> guarantees about stability in any software.
>
> Jim


Compare:

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Microsoft+buggy&fp=92ba666181073553
(2,270,000 ghits)

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=%22open+source%22+buggy&fp=92ba666181073553
(951,000 ghits)

Mike

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On 10/17/2009 4:52 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:24:20 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
>> I've heard lots of people try to claim directly or indirectly that OSS
>> is somehow automatically inherantly superior to proprietry software just
>> because it's OSS. Which, IMHO, is untrue.
>
> The thing that's superior about OSS over proprietary is that because the
> code is released, *if* you have the skills, you can fix it yourself.
> I'll grant that's a big "if".
>
> You can't do that (by definition) with closed-source software.
>
> Jim

One of the disadvantages is that developers feel bugs are not as 
important because they expect that someone *with* the skills will 
eventually come along and fix it.

Mike

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On 10/17/2009 7:29 PM, Warp wrote:
>    There is, however, another advantage I can think of: With OSS you not only
> can "try before you buy", but you can skip the latter part of that altogether.
> So it's not like you are losing something by trying OSS (except perhaps a bit
> of time).

Not true if time itself is money. I.e. you may "lose" some by wasting 
hours/days/weeks on OSS software that doesn't end up working.

I know that OSS devs derive amusement to no end when this happens.

Mike

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On 10/17/2009 6:11 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Not really a case of "the exception proves the rule", though.  There's
> plenty of decent OSS software out there that competes with proprietary
> software and does very well.
>
> Jim

Who buys this "other" software though? End users, or companies and 
people within the IT field?

Mike

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