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Free is too expensive (Economist)

Free is too expensive (Economist)

Posted Apr 5, 2012 21:15 UTC (Thu) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
In reply to: Free is too expensive (Economist) by khim
Parent article: Free is too expensive (Economist)

Umm…"up" again? You wrote that "compiling programs" is *not* an option for "99% of desktop users" and that the percentage is going *down* over time. Your first reply here seems to indicate that compiling their applications is becoming an option for more desktop users as time goes on. Am I (we?) getting confused with the negations here? Sorry for the pedantry, but things aren't lining up by my readings of this.


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Free is too expensive (Economist)

Posted Apr 5, 2012 21:35 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Well, if we remove all the negatives then the bare fact is that people perceive desktop in the same way as they perceive cars. Hundred years ago it was more important for the driver to know how to fix car rather then know how to switch lanes on highway (because highways had only two lanes back then). Today a lot of drivers never even look under the hood.

Desktop passed the same the same path but much faster. There are some enthusiasts who know all about compilers, computer languages, etc, but even developers are increasingly ignorant. Thus solution (source distribution) which was perfect forty years ago is not acceptable today.

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