Comments on: Dear Proprietary Users, http://blog.nixternal.com/2007.05.23/dear-proprietary-users/ Free Software Chicago Style: letting proprietary solutions sleep with the fishes Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:30:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: nixternal http://blog.nixternal.com/2007.05.23/dear-proprietary-users/#comment-730 nixternal Wed, 23 May 2007 22:56:26 +0000 http://blog.nixternal.com/2007.05.23/dear-proprietary-users/#comment-730 Fabian, hahahah! I was waiting for someone to come by and say something about the "FREE" stuff here and then go "hey wait a minute, YouTube is Flash, and Flash isn't FREE" :)Thanks for the convert! Fabian,

hahahah! I was waiting for someone to come by and say something about the “FREE” stuff here and then go “hey wait a minute, YouTube is Flash, and Flash isn’t FREE” :)Thanks for the convert!

]]> By: Fabian Rodriguez http://blog.nixternal.com/2007.05.23/dear-proprietary-users/#comment-729 Fabian Rodriguez Wed, 23 May 2007 21:05:25 +0000 http://blog.nixternal.com/2007.05.23/dear-proprietary-users/#comment-729 The irony. I've converted it to Ogg Theora: http://www.fabianrodriguez.com/files/video/aseigo-fisl-8.ogg The irony. I’ve converted it to Ogg Theora:
http://www.fabianrodriguez.com/files/video/aseigo-fisl-8.ogg

]]> By: orror http://blog.nixternal.com/2007.05.23/dear-proprietary-users/#comment-727 orror Wed, 23 May 2007 18:57:11 +0000 http://blog.nixternal.com/2007.05.23/dear-proprietary-users/#comment-727 Or, they could export the data out, remake the Access database using 2007 and start using it. They are really very simple, we are in 99% of the cases talking about a work of a day only - which doesn't cost even as much as one single "extra license". If it's more complicated (lots of vbscript and such), you can get someone to do it still for the price of couple licenses. That's practically not a problem. Oh yes, there are really bad applications in this sense out there. I've seen a few of them myself as well. But the problem is not caused by the fact that they are proprietary. It's caused usually by other reasons. You can't do the fix, that's true, but most of the people do check nowadays when they purchase software that they can get their data out, ie. that it's in an accessible database or has good export functions. One problem that I see with open source and that you COULD be able to revive the software is that most of the time it stiffles development as the route chosen is the "fixing" one. Many open source applications really seem and feel like their ancestors from the 90s, and have not really developed the way they could have. The best example of this is Gimp, which is basically pos 90s software (especially all of its GUI) and all its developers should be shot at the dawn. Or, they could export the data out, remake the Access database using 2007 and start using it. They are really very simple, we are in 99% of the cases talking about a work of a day only - which doesn’t cost even as much as one single “extra license”. If it’s more complicated (lots of vbscript and such), you can get someone to do it still for the price of couple licenses. That’s practically not a problem.

Oh yes, there are really bad applications in this sense out there. I’ve seen a few of them myself as well. But the problem is not caused by the fact that they are proprietary. It’s caused usually by other reasons. You can’t do the fix, that’s true, but most of the people do check nowadays when they purchase software that they can get their data out, ie. that it’s in an accessible database or has good export functions.

One problem that I see with open source and that you COULD be able to revive the software is that most of the time it stiffles development as the route chosen is the “fixing” one. Many open source applications really seem and feel like their ancestors from the 90s, and have not really developed the way they could have. The best example of this is Gimp, which is basically pos 90s software (especially all of its GUI) and all its developers should be shot at the dawn.

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