How ideological are you about Linux?

[Gone fishing]

I think kiwiNZ wrote that because my responses felt like a personal attack and for that I am sorry. I felt needled because of comments like income stream and its just software. I believe that open-source can and does improve peoples lives and I am very grateful to the developers (particularly the unpaid ones) who put time and effort into open-source to make it possible. I also appreciate that companies are making money out of open-source but they are also giving back in a way that seems enlightened to me.

When I have a little time later this week I may start a thread on example of how open-source improves lives. I hope I do not come across as a foss evangelist because that is not how I feel.

There are certainly differences between my an kiwiNZ position and I think he is wrong, however I also suspect these differences are not so great when I consider the time and effort he puts into the forums and Ubuntu.

[Erik1984]

True freedom is being free to use what's fits best in ones own circumstance, be it open be it proprietary without guilt or judgement for what ever selects.

Agreed.

In the end it is just software, a product, an earnings stream.

This is where I disagree, not all software is a product. Making money is not the driver behind all software development. Project and product are not necessarily the same. Product implies a typical producer vs consumer relation while many open source projects are centered around collaboration of developers and users.

It is not some grand crusade.

Here I agree again. FOSS should be promoted in a friendly way, not forced.

[ikt]

I was heavily ideological about free software when I first got into it, but the small bugs have been stacking up and while I find proprietary software usually limiting, I'm not a huge fan of buggy free software either, unfortunately I've been dealing with it a lot of the time, and still do on a weekly basis, however I still find it better than windows etc, so thus I have a jaded and cynical 'use what works best' instead of 'use FOSS, it's easier and better and prettier than anything out there!'

[ofnuts]

Free, open software is our only defense against commercial software that becomes more opaque every year, spies on us on every occasion, steals our data, and attempts to tie our hands (AppStore, soon the Windows store or whatever they call it).

This is my computer, not some appliance remote-controlled from San Jose or Redmond.

[flavouride]

Linux is an Operating System, that's it, nothing more, nothing less.

+1
For the time being, after my open source OS is loaded, to have a utilised desktop environment I need proprietary nVidia driver,

to upload photos I need Adobe flash player,

to play some media I need restricted plugins,

and I'm using Google Chrome [because it's getting updated a lot quicker than Chromium and with mobile broadband it doesn't seem the best idea to compile directly from source] and some non-free extensions to get my daily tasks done

[KiwiNZ]

I think kiwiNZ wrote that because my responses felt like a personal attack and for that I am sorry. I felt needled because of comments like income stream and its just software. I believe that open-source can and does improve peoples lives and I am very grateful to the developers (particularly the unpaid ones) who put time and effort into open-source to make it possible. I also appreciate that companies are making money out of open-source but they are also giving back in a way that seems enlightened to me.

When I have a little time later this week I may start a thread on example of how open-source improves lives. I hope I do not come across as a foss evangelist because that is not how I feel.

There are certainly differences between my an kiwiNZ position and I think he is wrong, however I also suspect these differences are not so great when I consider the time and effort he puts into the forums and Ubuntu.

Our differences are not great, when you consider my primary belief for software etc is (and as I have stated countless times on these Forums) use what best fits the need and the circumstance.

If one is advising or establishing an organisation in a third world ( I hate that term) or developing country to say provide local schools or employment etc you are not going to choose expensive software solutions as this will divert capital from the real task at hand, unless that organisation needs interoperability with MSFT and other proprietary solutions in order to operate effectively. In those cases I would do me best to obtain favourable terms or sponsorship. This meets the paradigm of using the best fit.

When it comes to the SME , large enterprise and Government sectors no matter what spin is put on it the majority of cases proprietary is the best fit, there are exceptions and one glaring example is Server side applications.

So I am not ideological, software for me is not a crusade it is a business, it is a business of providing the best solution be Open source or proprietary. Software is also a business in order to make a profit, profit provides jobs, jobs create revenue, revenue creates growth and wealth resulting in a win win situation.

I want to see both Open source and proprietary prosper and grow because from this a better world can be created from its application and investment.

[rai4shu2]

Here's something Linus Torvalds mentioned on Slashdot a while back:

I think microkernels are stupid. ...

Btw, it's not just microkernels. Any time you have "one overriding idea", and push your idea as a superior ideology, you're going to be wrong. Microkernels had one such ideology, there have been others. It's all BS. The fact is, reality is complicated, and not amenable to the "one large idea" model of problem solving. The only way that problems get solved in real life is with a lot of hard work on getting the details right. Not by some over-arching ideology that somehow magically makes things work.

http://meta.slashdot.org/story/12/10...your-questions

[ofnuts]

Calling micro-kernels an "ideology" is a bit far-fetched. of course the devil is in the details, but some architectures/techniques make the details a lot simpler to work out. Do we really want to code for Turing machines?

[ratcheer]

Free, open software is our only defense against commercial software that becomes more opaque every year, spies on us on every occasion, steals our data, and attempts to tie our hands (AppStore, soon the Windows store or whatever they call it).

This is my computer, not some appliance remote-controlled from San Jose or Redmond.

+1

Tim

[Aaron Christianson]

Software is also a business in order to make a profit, profit provides jobs, jobs create revenue, revenue creates growth and wealth resulting in a win win situation.

PREACH!

Although not all software is for profit. I teach (something with no connection to CS) for profit. I write software (very simple software) for fun. It just so happens that some other people like to use it as well, though I'm unsure if it has helped to create any profit (I did create a font that several IT students and professionals use, so that might be one, but if it didn't exist, they would just use something else).