Open Source 'not reliable or dependable'

[_simon_]

A senior Microsoft executive told a BBC documentary that people should use commercial software if they're looking for stability.


http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Open+source+not+reliable+or+dependable/2100-7344_3-6074237.html?tag=nefd.top

That quote made me laugh so much.

[Lord Illidan]

Next time I suffer a crash in windows, or have to reformat, I will remember this.

[aysiu]

Senior executives at Microsoft are the epitome of fairness. Bias never influences their public statements.

And... there are no open source commercial applications, of course. Yes, those don't exist at all.

[Lord Illidan]

Just remind them of Apache once in a while.. Oh, and how the world's top supercomputers use Linux. Oh, and why Nasa uses Linux.. oh, and why China is migrating to Linux...

Novell, IBM, a host of other companies...

hmmm..

Of course, these players think that Linux/Opensource is not reliable or dependable, they are throwing crazy money around, eh.

Microsoft is biased. That's their problem.

[Stormy Eyes]

I hope the O RLY owl craps on this guy's head. :)

[garba]

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+Open+source+not+reliable+or+dependable/2100-7344_3-6074237.html?tag=nefd.top

That quote made me laugh so much.

i'd love to say something nasty, but in english i can't seem to, well, "get my point across properly"... :mrgreen:

[blastus]

Some people want to use community-based software, and they get value out of sharing with other people in the community. Other people want the reliability and the dependability that comes from a commercial software model...

There's nothing special about the way commerical software is produced that somehow causes it to produce inherently reliable and dependable software. The bottom line of all commercial software is to generate revenue and that's it. Just because a company is profitable, doesn't mean that they will invest those profits into making more reliable and dependable software. ](*,)

At the end of the day it's all about answering shareholders and producing a return on investment to them. Shareholders could care less about how the software is made or works, they only care about making more money from it. Producing reliable and dependable software has never been the goal of a commerical software vendor; producing more revenue for shareholders is the only goal. If a reliable/dependable product happens to come out of the process then it is merely a side-effect of the goal to be more profitable.

Commercial software is also never improved upon unless there is a valid business reason for it, i.e. that improving the product will generate more or sustain existing revenue for shareholders. On the other hand, many open source projects are about passion not profits. These products will be continually improved upon by the people who are passionate about them. These products are not produced under budget constraints so unpaid developers can spend as much or as little time on them as they want. If producing the absolute best and highest quality product is their goal, then the open source software model has a lot of potential to produce a reliable and dependable product.

[YourSurrogateGod]

I LOLed when I read that. I remember leaving my PC overnight in XP (needed to finish a long download) and it would mysteriously reboot (I don't know how or why, but when I woke up, the Ubuntu login screen would be shown), but not in Ubuntu.

[RavenOfOdin]

I hope the O RLY owl craps on this guy's head. :)

Ahahahahaha. . .

You and me both.

[Iandefor]

I hope the O RLY owl craps on this guy's head. :) Agreed.

[ade234uk]

They alwats talk about Red Hat Linux. Red hat linux sucks on the Desktop, its not meant for the desktop.

They never ever want to mention Ubuntu or any other distros, is this because they damn well know its not that bad lately and Ubuntu is better than XP in terms of usability and there is no suck thing as spyware.

I can wait until every distro works with each other then people will be running to Linux.

[prizrak]

Of course closed source is more reliable. I mean FOSS keeps changing with the standards and if someone decides to abandon the project it's not like I'd be able to open up it's files with something else.
Oh no wait Office 97 CAN'T open Office 2003 files, oooops..... Oh and FOSS is based on free standards making any output generated by any program universally readable. Hehe never mind then I guess closed source sucks enourmous monkey testicles with it's closed formats, standard abandonment and if a company goes belly up no one can keep working on a program no matter how good it is. (OS/2 Warp is probably the most notable example)