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Thread: Opinions required

  1. #1
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    Post Opinions required

    Hi Folks,

    I'm currently undertaking some research on the open source movement for a piece of work I'm putting together and was wondering whether some of you might indulge me with your opinions, as I'd like to reflect the community fairly and accurately in my piece.

    Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?

    What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?

    What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?

    I'd also be happy to hear of any other opinions you have on the subject.

    I don't expect vast essays, I know your time is valuable so a few lines would be great.

    Thanks a million in anticipation.


  2. #2
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    Re: Opinions required

    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?
    I can't say that theirs any one specific project. Linux is a collections of thousands of different projects that must work together to produce a working OS.
    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?
    Both are important, but it's a sliding scale. If an open source app is only slightly worse than a proprietary app I'll go with the open source. But if the open source app is significently worse I'll go with the better proprietary app. This is why I have the proprietary Nvidia drivers installed on my computer.
    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?
    Open source has both individual people, groups/communities, and corporatations competeing that both compete and cooperate with both each other and proprietary applications. I don't necessarily see for profit businesses being at odds with the lone programmer coding away in his basement.
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  3. #3
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    Re: Opinions required

    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?
    Openbox, Firefox, Vim, R, Ruby on Rails

    What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?
    Efficiency for sure, freedom is secundary for me.

    What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?
    Yep, but remember corporations also contribute to open source projects.

  4. #4
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    Re: Opinions required

    I like the fact that open source can give old equipment (abandonware) new life. The cycle of NEW OS needs lots of RAM and CPU means YOU need a NEW computer--is tiresome and not needed.

    Open source also seems to foster international development in a way not seen before.
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  5. #5
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    Re: Opinions required

    Freedom, and being able to use an operating system and applications that I don't have to pay an arm and a leg for, are the things I like most about open source and Linux. Also, I like the idea of the open source community, people coming together from all over the world, putting stuff out there that everyone can use.

  6. #6
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    Re: Opinions required

    I can't thank you enough for the input so far folks. It's much appreciated!

  7. #7
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    Re: Opinions required

    An example: Vagalume is a project written by a Brazilian for the nokia n800 portable tablet. It plays music from Last.fm. It has been ported to Debian and is now in the the repositories.

    So you have international development and cross-platform development--all to listen to a US-based music service.
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  8. #8
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    Re: Opinions required

    Thanks, that looks like an interesting project.

  9. #9
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    Re: Opinions required

    Have a look at this

  10. #10
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    Re: Opinions required

    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?
    GNOME Desktop Environment, Firefox, Google Chrome/Chromium, OpenOffice. They are all efficient and work well.


    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?
    Both are important to me, and I get both when using Open Source software. The is ALMOST NOTHING that I can do on a system running Microsoft Windows, that I can't do on a system running a Linux-based OS. Same situation when comparing IE to FF, MS Office to OOO, etc.

    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?

    We offer better support, and faster bug fixes, when something goes wrong. Many Open Source projects are community based, and the people working on programming/designing the projects are doing it because they are interested in it, not because some company is paying for it. Programmers find this very liberating, and even if the original programmer won't fix a problem, when the project is open source, someone else who DOES have programming knowledge is welcome to jump in and help fix it.




    Quote Originally Posted by m15hun View Post
    I'd also be happy to hear of any other opinions you have on the subject.
    Open Source is a win for everybody. People who need the software can get it free, programmers can work on what they want to, other people can jump in on a project and help improve it, and there are other ways that programmers/developers can make money realted to the software, this includes, but is not limited to, charging for "Official Support".

    The true essence of open source is explained very well, and briefly in this video:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QOoU1MDoVA

    A guy by the name of Eric Raymond, wrote an essay called "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", in which he compared the two main styles of software development (open and closed source). You may wish you use the essay as a reference in your piece.

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