[H-GEN] Windows to *nix

[andrew laidlaw]

Hi Anthony,
  
  AAL had written:
  
  > Personally, I prefer freeware because it generally does not include 
  > three thousand features I'm never going to use and hence is much 
  > easier to learn, even accounting for a few dead end downloads.  But 
  > you wouldn't generally want to put it on a corporate system, and I 
  > never (OPEN aside) push freeware at users I'm trying to help (who'll 
  > fall in a hole at the first bug, wasting a great deal of my time).
  
  AI wrote:
  
  Sorry mate I got to nit pick this one. I just want to make sure that you 
  mean freeware as in a closed source no cost software and not free 
  software as in you can modify and redistribute the software. It may be a 
  bit anal to mention it but its a big difference maybe not to the end 
  user but freeware is not free software its no cost software.
  
  AAl:
  
  I meant "free" as in download over the internet without having to part  with cash immediately.   Whether it's GNU or not is not (to  my mind) the key to this quality issue.  What I'm saying is that  when I have a problem I need a piece of sofware for, what I want to do  is to grab it, try it solve the problem and move on.  It generally  takes a lot less of my precious time (see other parts of the thread) to  solve my problems that way, and everybody else's by sending them to a  computer shop to buy a product.  Whilst that's what I meant, I'll  also admit to extending that meaning (in a loose sense) to "free" as in  open because, as other humbuggers (is that right?) have been putting  in, a lot of the same temptations to cut the corners off the  development process apply there too.
  
  


> Nothing is gained by being "right" on a philosophical point if it is 
> certain to cause failure in the market.

Maybe but if we get enough people on the philosophical point of view do 
we need to be a major player in the market we will have our own 
developer base and our own software. I personally would still like *nix 
to be more main stream but still think people should at least attempt to 
learn the philosophy behind it as that is where a lot of the value comes 
from.

Here  you are back on the main issue, expressing the notion that it would be  good if "people at least attempted to learn...."  
  
  Therein lies my whole point with this.  It would be preferred if  we, i.e. people of a given tech type mindset, accepted the reality that  such a desire is incompatible with being "more main stream".  It's  not "right" (and I'd  agree with you that its even "wrong"), but  it's just true.
  
  We (*nix) already have (in total resource terms) a winning hand in  terms of "our own developer base and software".  One factor  inhibiting EFFECTIVE mobilisation of that resource (in the absence of  an appropriate commercial discipline) is the widespread failure by  talented *nix protagonists to recognise the need to invert such  attitudes.
  
  regards.... andrew.
  
  PS: sorry I've been incommunicado that last couple of weeks.
  
  

 		
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