generic vs closed platforms [LWN.net]

generic vs closed platforms

Posted Jan 18, 2012 21:29 UTC (Wed) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455)
In reply to: generic vs closed platforms by fb
Parent article: LCA: Addressing the failure of open source

> Ok, so you tell that to your neighbor. He says: "my oh my, say Martin, I was planning to buy a tablet. You convinced me not to get the iPad. Which one should I buy? Which one won't leave me alone in the rain?

Hey I wasn't trying to convince anyone not to buy an iPad, I was just trying to give you a more accurate way of describing the action of buying an iPad versus the action of buying an open source tablet. In one case you are renting, in the other you are buying. It's up to them if they appreciate the benefits of one over the other.

I suspect that if more people thought about using proprietary software as renting that fewer people would do it, but that doesn't mean that I am implying that those who still would rent are wrong. I own a house, I don't rent, renting makes sense for plenty of people.

You believe that buying an open source tablet is currently hard, it may be, but there are options, you just need to research them if you care. Sometimes it is hard to buy things and sometimes you are better off renting. I suspect that most people think that renting expensive tools is a good idea instead of buying them. But I also suspect that few people rent tools for any extended period of time outside of computers/software, perhaps because they don't really yet see that they are renting it?

> How frequently does the nightmare stories that FOSS proponents like to bring forward actually happen w.r.t. proprietary software?

I don't know about nightmare stories, but I know that I certainly encounter real problems which are specific to the fact that the software is not open source almost anytime I have to rely on proprietary software: I cannot easily fix a pet peeve, I cannot easily install it somewhere else, it becomes obsolete with no upgrade path, it annoys me with license agreements, it plasters marketing material all over itself, it cares more about the needs of the software maker then mine, it gathers more data about me, it costs more money (over and over and over again), it rarely is nicely integrated with other software on my computer/device. Of course, since I rarely rely on proprietary software, it would be hard for it to cause a nightmare story for me, that is the point no? I also didn't ever have any nightmare stories renting apartments in the past, but there were enough small problems that I currently prefer to own, but this doesn't mean that I usually begrudge those who rent (unless they are intolerant of my desire to own, or have habits which make it harder for me to do so).

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I think this is much better analogue :-)

Posted Jan 18, 2012 22:05 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

I suspect that if more people thought about using proprietary software as renting that fewer people would do it, but that doesn't mean that I am implying that those who still would rent are wrong. I own a house, I don't rent, renting makes sense for plenty of people.

I like this analogue much better then slavery word thrown around. When you buy iPad or proprietary software then you don't own the device - you only own the right to use it... till the real owner (Apple, Microsoft, whatever) will decide that you no longer deserve such right. But it's really your choice: you can continue to pay the rent, buy new versions, constantly upgrade hardware for no good reason - or you can choose the software which you own and which you can continue to keep in working order even if original developers abandoned it.

Now, sometimes it's perfectly fine to rent things. You don't own them, you know the real owner have the right to ask them back - but they work and you can live with that. And in many cases rent price is low enough - but you can always keep in mind that landlord can dicide to raise it and just throw you out. Thus sometimes it's obviously wrong choice.

In particular I'm much less picky with creator's software (I can buy and use proprietary filer for videoeditor, for example), but I ubsolutely detest situation when I need to rent player, too. That's why I've stopped using MS Office long ago: I can not own it and consequently I can not be sure I own my own documents till I test them all in LibreOffice. And if I test them in LibreOffice then it's simpler to just use LibreOffice from the start. But other proprietary tools (like VTune) are perfectly Ok: if they'll become unavailable (because I decide to buy AMD-based system, for example) then I'll lose valuable tool, but all the things I've gotten till now from using it will be available to me.