In my case of Linux development -- these were for my own OSS project, not my employers. I've always had a command-line interface for my apps (these are the ones I develop first), but because of the complexity of the configurations, it was suggested I made an X-based GUI configuration tool. That was merely my assessment -- development of the GUI tools took MUCH longer than anything else, and they kept breaking by the changing and evolving standards in the Linux world. And even when you set on a certain framework, popular demands change so quickly that you have to re-write your GUI tooling constantly. Win32's are a pain, but they are very well documented, and they have been consistent for at least the last 15 years (although, I'm waiting to see what happens with WIn8).
Regarding the OSS != free, it is true in only one direction. If I open-source my software, it inherently become free. The model of charging for the app and getting the source really only works in a small, niche market. If I'm dealing with consumers (or linux developers in my case), if the source is out there once, the source is out there forever, and it is 'free' to anybody who has a compiler. That is, unless I hold back certain modules or features (and sell those as blobs, in which case, it isn't really Open-source...). The really only successful model is to sell support contracts, which as a one-man shop becomes very hard to do. Free not giving an insinuation of open-source is a perfectly valid statement, although in my experience in the Linux world, you get lambasted for trying to give software out for free without the source. Are you really proposing a headless, or console-mode Flash Player for linux users? -Nick On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 10:41 AM, Left Right <olegsivo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Nick, it sounds like you've been doing corporative development for far too > long... it is painful, indeed, to hear the horrible stories of Apple > corporation in a battle of interests against Microsoft corporation and > Adobe getting in between the fires... but again, what you say about Linux > is said from a position of corporative logic, which does not apply in that > domain. > You wanted to develop flash runtime that has nice GUI, but no command line > interface for Linux - what for? having the exact opposite would be great > though. I would be indefinitely happy if I could run ActionScript w/o any > requirement of X-server! In fact, having to do the opposite is pain! It is > a complete misunderstanding of the audience. Why can't Flash runtime be > built for Linux same, as, for example, V8? Designers don't work on Linux > anyway, what does work there is the compilation servers, programmers and > robots :P > Same thing for code editors - really, very few Linux users even like reach > GUI stuff, you cannot "buy" votes in that audience by providing nice > graphics, because very few people care about that, but not being able to > incorporate Flash player in a testing process sucks. > After all, I'm sorry to say that, but even Gnome (which, in folklore is > called a toy desktop manager) has fewer bugs then whatever Window 7 is > using, so I'm not buying into the "difficult to build" agenda - it's > difficult, because little effort has been made. WinAPI isn't a walk in the > park either. > > Just because I'm being a prick, OSS != free. More yet, OSS does not imply > free and free does not imply OSS. There is no contradiction in paying for a > program, that comes with sources, likewise, there's no contradiction in > giving a program for free, while not showing the sources. Not showing the > sources, in my opinion, is rude, but since a lot of companies do that (just > the same as a lot of people are rude), it's not possible to fight them all > :) > > PS. In any case, regardless of what we write here, it's all sort of flame, > and people who make these decisions probably aren't really interested in > even hearing points of view... > > Best. > > Oleg >
