Open source sounds like a great idea, in theory. But so does socialism

[ferrarif50]

The title of this post is a quote from sci-fi scribe and Infoquake author David Louis Edelman. he elborates:

So why am I down on open source’s prospects for the long term? A few reasons:


1. Open source hasn’t proven it can produce better products, just comparable ones.
The reality of the matter is that most open source software is not
entirely ready for prime time. It’s buggy, its usability is generally
wretched, and the documentation tends to be rather slapdash and hard to
follow. In short: pretty much like regular, proprietary software.

2. Software is too cheap to worry about saving money on it.
Windows costs $150 or so out of the box; less if you upgrade or buy it
pre-installed on a new computer. And it comes with almost everything
the general user needs: basic word processing, web browsing, a media
player, e-mail. So if I’m a business owner, the question is, why shouldn’t I pay $100 per user for a product with complete user documentation and technical support?

3. As software gets more complicated, open source will have a problem keeping up.
We’ve got limited space here on Earth for people, and only a limited
percentage of the population qualified to write software. But with
quantum computing on the horizon, there’s nearly unlimited potential
for software and no reason that programs won’t get more and more
complicated. Do the math: eventually there will be far too
much code out there for us to have a population of open source experts
on every piece of it. And when it becomes a million times easier to
exploit software than to fix it, the first obvious precaution is to
lock up access to all those exploits.

Read the complete article at
*blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=350&tag=nl.e138

 

[mehulved]

2. Software is too cheap to worry about saving money on it.
Windows costs $150 or so out of the box; less if you upgrade or buy it
pre-installed on a new computer. And it comes with almost everything
the general user needs: basic word processing, web browsing, a media
player, e-mail. So if I’m a business owner, the question is, why shouldn’t I pay $100 per user for a product with complete user documentation and technical support?

Windows doesn't come with a word processor out of the box. You need to pay another $200 for it. Besides all the above can be got out of the box from a Linux distro or Solaris. By paying comparatively lesser amount to companies like Red Hat, Novell and Sun you get support for the OS. So, how does that statement hold?

3. As software gets more complicated, open source will have a problem keeping up.
We’ve got limited space here on Earth for people, and only a limited
percentage of the population qualified to write software. But with
quantum computing on the horizon, there’s nearly unlimited potential
for software and no reason that programs won’t get more and more
complicated. Do the math: eventually there will be far too
much code out there for us to have a population of open source experts
on every piece of it. And when it becomes a million times easier to
exploit software than to fix it, the first obvious precaution is to
lock up access to all those exploits.

On the otherhand with quantum computing, we will need to write a lot more code, so with people having the code of open source apps, they will not have to code their software from the scratch. Rather they can use the foundation laid by others and build upon it, thus avoiding wastage of time and focussing on quality with the saved time.
And if there is less proprietory software, developers won't have to waste much time worrying about patent infringing and countless law suites. That will make life a lot better for part time and small programmers. Though I don't really feel this scenario is too feasible.

 

[mediator]

Whoever the author be, but I pity for the amount of knowledge he has!

1. Open source hasn’t proven it can produce better products, just comparable ones.
The reality of the matter is that most open source software is not
entirely ready for prime time. It’s buggy, its usability is generally
wretched, and the documentation tends to be rather slapdash and hard to
follow. In short: pretty much like regular, proprietary software.

Just one example, KOnquerer! Windows explorer + internet explorer dont hold a candle to it and both keep crashing sometimes even after appying several updates!

3. As software gets more complicated, open source will have a problem keeping up.
We’ve got limited space here on Earth for people, and only a limited
percentage of the population qualified to write software. But with
quantum computing on the horizon, there’s nearly unlimited potential
for software and no reason that programs won’t get more and more
complicated. Do the math: eventually there will be far too
much code out there for us to have a population of open source experts
on every piece of it. And when it becomes a million times easier to
exploit software than to fix it, the first obvious precaution is to
lock up access to all those exploits.

I guess the author is devoid about the knowledge of "Software engineering"! Maintainence is the major part of any software company. The day companies start creating new codes/softwares and ignoring the previous maintainence part they will be wiped out!!

 

[GNUrag]

The title of this post is a quote from sci-fi scribe and Infoquake author David Louis Edelman. he elborates:

So why am I down on open source’s prospects for the long term? A few reasons:


1. Open source hasn’t proven it can produce better products, just comparable ones.

Bull $hit.
Is Apache not up to the mark? What's wrong with CPAN libraries? And Emacs? And the world-class BIND9 which beats the pants off other proprietary alternatives??

The reality of the matter is that most open source software is not entirely ready for prime time. It’s buggy, its usability is generally wretched, blah blah blah....

Yeah right. And all those BSD distros are buggy.
Whoever claimed that OpenBSD had Only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 10 years!

2. Software is too cheap to worry about saving money on it.
Windows costs $150 or so out of the box; less if you upgrade or buy it
pre-installed on a new computer.

Cool! And Ubuntu's factory packed CD sets comes for $0.00 with shipping costs included.

And it comes with almost everything
the general user needs: basic word processing, web browsing, a media
player, e-mail. So if I’m a business owner, the question is, why shouldn’t I pay $100 per user for a product with complete user documentation and technical support?

Aah right. You mean i'll use Notepad for my word processing needs.
And Internet Exploder 6?? You got to be kidding me.

3. As software gets more complicated, open source will have a problem keeping up. We’ve got limited space here on Earth for people, and only a limited percentage of the population qualified to write software.
...
...

Crap.
If software gets more complicated, then more people are required to keep up with it. More eyeballs are required to audit the code and make sure its bug free.

ferrari, would you believe what a random guy has written on some random website??

 

[praka123]

I donno Y? ppl compares Open Source/Free Software with communism?even my state(Kerala) ruled by communists-CM declared state schools to migrate to GNU/Linux and uses a debian fork-it@school...

but i think definitely FLOSS have a bright future;not like the communists...

 

[GNUrag]

prakash, Communism as in what is practised in Russia/China means Forcing people to share what they have with other fellow people .. FOSS software doesnt force anybody. Its about building good community. nothing more.. nothing less.

there are plenty of people like David Louis Edelman who dont have any clue about FOSS, or communism and go on to speak on both topics as if they are some authority.

 

[JGuru]

@ferarif50, David Louis Edelman doesn't any idea how Linux is developed!! He is talking
pure non-sense!! Already Suse Linux is being used in Space. It's working perfectly.
They can't use Windows O.S in Space, it's not suitable for mission-critical applications,
also Windows will crash any moment!!

 

[GNUrag]

Debian also has flown to space several times;
*www.linuxjournal.com/article/2186

*www.debian.org/News/1997/shuttle1

It uses a miniature '486 PC-compatible computer, the Ampro CoreModule 4DXi. Debian GNU/Linux is loaded on this system in place of DOS or Windows. The fragility and power drain of disk drives ruled them out for this experiment, and a solid-state disk replacement from the SanDisk company is used in their place. The entire system uses only 10 watts, as much electricity as a night-light. The computer controls water and light for the growing plants, and sends telemetry and video of the plants to the ground

 

[shaunak]

Socialism failed due to the strict military like discipline it calls from everyone. Open source software doesn't demand anything of that sort.
Ne way a bad idea couldn't have survived for a couple of decades.

------------------------------off topic----------------------------------------------------------
I keep getting a weird feeling the writer typed the lot in MS word, is currently running Xp Pro, and surfs the net using IE 7. I wonder why?

 

[JGuru]

@GNUrag, thanks for that update. All Windows users know how vulnerable it is.
There are trying to act as if it's secure & stable & spread lies!! The Fortune 500
companies using Windows O.S have lost billions of dollars due to hackers, worm-attacks,
instability of Windows O.S etc., Read about Sasser worm attack on Windows 2000 & XP here from CNN.com