On 2020-09-12 19:26, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
ToddAndMargo, I don't know what to conclude from what you are saying.
One sentence seems to show you understand that GnuCash only reaches
you by lots of people doing lots of things. The next sentence seems to
show you having a tremendous sense of entitlement to getting something
for nothing, and blaming the generous people who give you 10 gifts
when you don't get the 11th gift you want.
I am going to jump in here because I am old enough to have been around
for the original discussions out of which "free software" movement came.
a) First of all, it was in rebellion to high priced software under
restrictive license. It was NOT about "make software free as in free
lunch".
b) The rallying cry was "software for the price of a book" (and by book,
being academics, they pictured like the price of a college text, not
trivial)
c) The LICENSE was to be free. If anybody wanted to compile the source
code and give away free copies, they could do that. Somebody still could
SELL copies. Of course they couldn't charge more than fair or somebody
would do it cheaper or for free. Even for the open source code itself
could be charged a "reasonable fee for supplying a copy on standard
medium" << remember, no free downloads from the internet in those days
>> And that was just the SOURCE CODE. Perfectly OK for somebody to
charge you for a compiled executable you could run on your machine <<
remember, at this time almost every machine had specific
assemblers/compilers, far less standardization than in recent decades>>
d) These were people who expected to make their livings from software.
What is the outrage about? Nobody promised you FREE SUPPORT along with
the free software. Nothing against selling you a book "how to use
software app X". Or for debugging your problems.
e) Your entitlement (under free software rules) is JUST a free copy of
the source code << now should be free as in free lunch because of
downloads >> You are NOT (actually) entitled to an executable for your
machine or its installer for free, though that is customary nowadays
since developers don't need to supply very many versions.
Michael D Novack
PS: And here I am not doing my bit to help development. But that's
because spoiled by my working days when clients who wanted something
were willing to put in their share of the work. I've seen lots of "I
want this or that" but when challenged "OK, I'll design.code, test, but
FIRST you commit to the "requirements meetings" << unless what software
is SUPPOSED TO DO is fully defined I won't touch it >> and commit to the
testing process. No? Then forget it.
Hi Michael,
Great exposition!
I use Fedora in my business. It is a wonderful example of
"Kaisen", meaning constant improvement. I am totally spoiled
by their responsiveness to users, including me. I presume
"someone" is paying them, but I do not know where they are
getting their funding. I certainly an not put one more
person on my payroll.
Folks do not understand that Open Source is not free. If
the funding is not there, there is only so much a "volunteer"
can do. At some point, they need to be paid for their work.
This means in some projects, a lot of stuff does not get
worked on, Kaisen stops, and a project spirals down. The
only thing that gets worked on are those things the
"volunteers" need. They are a victim of their own
economic model.
"In general", I find open source to be of higher quality
than paid software. There are notable exceptions.
Gnu Cash has one of the steepest learning curves I have come
across, but if you put the work into learning it, it shines.
I almost pulled all my hair out learning it. Boy did it
even come through doing my business taxes.
-T
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