[ubuntu-us-in] Another Reason to love Open Source

[Carl Marshall]

Vista SP1 is almost ready to be released, It will no doubt fix some of the problems that Microsoft was unable to fix in the five years it was under development, but I would be willing to bet it creates a more problems than it fixes.
When you look at how far Ubuntu has come since Warty, (3Yrs?) It sure makes you wonder  why Microsoft and Mac seem to have such difficulty with their products. I think they concentrate too  much on copyright protection and not enough on the product, that's not a problem with Open Source. Everything goes into development and you don't have to spend most of your time trying to hide what you are doing.Now if i could just wean my wife off of Windows I would be a happy camper.

Carl Marshall

Jason Corfman <computers at corfyscorner.com> wrote: That is a good point about the software models. However, there is a side 
point that you missed.

With free software, if the software is "half-baked" upon release, you 
wait a few weeks or months and get the next version for free and try it. 
Usually, it will improve over that time (whether it has improved enough 
or not is up for debate). With proprietary software, which may cost 
hundreds of dollars or more, if the final product is "half-baked" 
(coughVISTAcough), you wait two to five years and spend hundreds of 
dollars more to get the next version.

If I have to wait 5 years for an updated software program and pay 
upwards of $400 for the updated version, I expect it not only to be 
better than the version before it, but to also have fewer headaches with 
it than with a similar program that I didn't pay anything for . 
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), many 
times that has not been the case.

One of the things that made me switch to Linux was the realization that 
XP just wasn't doing what I needed it to do. Regular defrags, regular 
virus scans, regular adware/spyware scans, strong firewall, disk check 
scans, seemingly constant updates that require restarts, and yearly 
reinstall of the OS just to make it run better, and there were still 
problems that were hard to diagnose and/or track down. Ok, so I had 
troubles installing Linux for the first time that took me nearly two 
weeks to work through (part of that was my fault for being a newb and 
not knowing any better, part of that I blame on the distro, which I 
don't use anymore), and on one laptop I installed it on, I had trouble 
getting the wireless card to work (finally got it working, though, but I 
don't have that laptop anymore... the other two laptops I installed it 
on went without a hitch). Other than that, I have had zero problems with 
Linux. I definitely cannot say the same about XP.

Jason "Corfy" Corfman

Simón Ruiz wrote:
> Keith,
>
> Copy protection schemes that get in the way of legitimate use of
> software by the licensees is probably the single most offensive
> problem with proprietary software, especially for free software
> people.
>
> All software is going to have SOME bugs and annoying quirks that get
> in your way.
>
> People used to the proprietary software model complain when free
> software doesn't do what they expect it to and forgive proprietary
> software for being intentionally difficult to use because it gets
> their specific job done. On the other hand, people used to the free
> software model complain when proprietary software does not function by
> design and forgive free software for sometimes not being completely
> baked before its released.
>
> In my humble opinion ;-)
>
> Simón
>
> On Jan 18, 2008 5:13 AM, Keith Karnafel  wrote:
>   
>> Who knows what's up with M$ but this past week my step-daughter had to call
>> them twice because Genuine pain [sic] decided that she was running a pirated
>> version of Vista. This will make five of six time since last fall when I
>> purchased the computer for her and the grand kids that we had to call M$ to
>> re-cert the computer. Oddly enough, the grand children prefer Ubuntu. Even
>> the two year old knows how to reboot the computer into Ubuntu, and start up
>> his favorite game, Childsplay. He also knows how to get to get to Nickjr on
>> his own and play the games there. I'm afraid that kids going to be cracking
>> code soon.
>>
>> - Keith.
>>
>>
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>>     
>
>   


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