Ethics of Software Ownership

[guids]

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Nothing that MS or any proprietary company puts out, as far as stuff for the desktop, can not be topped by an equivalent open source product.

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That's just plain wrong. There is no comparable open source Quicken, or a client that supports shared calanders half as well as Outlook does.

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http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=s&V=64787


http://www.appgen.com/

http://www.turbocash-usa.com/

[KipBond]

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There is no comparable open source Quicken,

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I use gnuCash

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or a client that supports shared calanders half as well as Outlook does.

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Zimbra looks really nice -- but last I checked, the full groupware version has license costs.

I've used Evolution and it was good. I use gmail & google Calendar now, though.

EDIT: There's also: http://opengroupware.org/

[tolbiny]

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Patents are intended to stimulate invention.

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Patents were, are, and always will be intended to stifle competition. They favor large businesses over small by increasing costs - filing for patents, researching to make sure what you are working on isn't already patented, watching out for those who infringe on your patents.

[GoodCallYouWin]

"
BTW, GNU has exactly the problem I described. There are open source GNU licensed programs being sold with virtually no modifications by unscrupulous operators. "

That's not a problem. Do you see why?

[kerowo]

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Nothing that MS or any proprietary company puts out, as far as stuff for the desktop, can not be topped by an equivalent open source product.

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That's just plain wrong. There is no comparable open source Quicken, or a client that supports shared calanders half as well as Outlook does.

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http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=s&V=64787


http://www.appgen.com/

http://www.turbocash-usa.com/

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The infoworld article, or page of links, apologizes for the quality of the software they link to more often than not.

Appgen looks like a small consulting company and not like an open source project, at least not on the pages I looked at.

Turbo cash or GNU cash I don't know about recently, but what I heard about them a few releases ago they did not match the features in Quicken. Just because an open solution exists in that application space doesn't mean it is better than a proprietary solution.

[KipBond]

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Just because an open solution exists in that application space doesn't mean it is better than a proprietary solution.

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True, depending on how you measure "better". But, I guarantee you that being open will always allow a well-supported application to evolve more quickly and eventually become a more superior application. Closed source applications will always thrive in niche markets where not a lot of open source developers are located. However, in any application space where open source developers are plentiful, open source development will out perform closed source development applications. The key, however, which is pertinent to the OP, is that the open source developers not be thwarted by software patents wielded by mega corporations such as Microsoft that care far more about their profits than about software innovation.

[kerowo]

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Just because an open solution exists in that application space doesn't mean it is better than a proprietary solution.

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True, depending on how you measure "better". But, I guarantee you that being open will always allow a well-supported application to evolve more quickly and eventually become a more superior application. Closed source applications will always thrive in niche markets where not a lot of open source developers are located. However, in any application space where open source developers are plentiful, open source development will out perform closed source development applications. The key, however, which is pertinent to the OP, is that the open source developers not be thwarted by software patents wielded by mega corporations such as Microsoft that care far more about their profits than about software innovation.

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I don't include whether an app is open or not in measure of it's goodness for a start.

You say that open source is going to rule the world, well why hasn't it?
Why is the only common open source software that is widely used Apache? Why haven't open source applications taken over from the propiatary ones? Why aren't there any good open source games? Where is all the open source windows apps? Open source has been around quite a while now and it seems most projects are either small niche projects or self destruct into lots of forks and then die. What is going to be the next Emacs or Linux? And how long until something of that quality is going to be easy to get, install, and use on a popular operating system?

[Duke]

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You say that open source is going to rule the world, well why hasn't it?

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Nobody gets paid to make sure that the stuff actually works, so we're reliant on people who want to work on certain things. Audacity is a fun pet project for Dominic. I don't know anyone who has a similar penchant for a really neat calendar.
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Why is the only common open source software that is widely used Apache?

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Because it works, is fast, and a web server isn't so complex that companies are worried about being able to point a finger at someone when it breaks.
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Why haven't open source applications taken over from the propiatary ones?

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Partly because companies need to point a finger, and can't deal with needing to fix things themselves if they break. Another is that they really aren't as good on the whole, because we're back to business applications being a lot less fun for people to work on.
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Why aren't there any good open source games?

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There are plenty of fun open source games, but the production costs that go into something like WoW are prohibitive for something that is free.
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Where is all the open source windows apps?

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There will be more in the future. The open source Office clones necessarily sucked nuts because of absurd file formats. OpenXML is plenty retarded, but at least it'll be possible to write applications that can handle it. Notepad++ is one of the best editors that I've ever used, and that's open source.
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Open source has been around quite a while now and it seems most projects are either small niche projects or self destruct into lots of forks and then die. What is going to be the next Emacs or Linux?

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Nothing, as those will just morph into new things. Emacs suffered the same fate as Office and got overly bloated. Gimp is pretty solid, but one primary detraction is that it doesn't share an identical interface to Photoshop. Close isn't good enough for the typical graphic designer who was trained in some technical school to use one product that's been around forever. Photoshop is still a nicer application, too, as the reward for bettering Gimp is miniscule.
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And how long until something of that quality is going to be easy to get, install, and use on a popular operating system?

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I'd look at the Mac first, as the BSD base makes it unnecessary to rewrite most of the "important" code. You just slap a new UI on it and you're up and running. Now, if more than 100 people in the world were any good with Objective C it might be even faster (imo that's the best and quickest way to write good mac applications).

[GoodCallYouWin]

There is no question free software will take over, especailly in corporations and governments, who actually pay for licenses instead of just downloading stuff like the rest of us. Why would someone pay $200 a license for something they can get for free?

[Duke]

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There is no question free software will take over, especailly in corporations and governments, who actually pay for licenses instead of just downloading stuff like the rest of us. Why would someone pay $200 a license for something they can get for free?

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Because they have to point a finger if things break.