

You Get What You Pay For - Anon84
http://linux-haters-redux.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-get-what-you-pay-for.html

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brianto2010
This article reads like troll bait. Should this be on Hacker News? The author
(whoever it is) talks more about the problems with free software rather than
the _"two major problems that Linux faces concerning its spread on the
desktop"_. The rant itself seems a bit too incoherent.

> _Desktop-Users need commercial applications..._

Umm... no. Different users have different needs. The vast amount of free
software available should be able to cover most of this need. For example, the
default Ubuntu installation includes an Office Suite, a browser, media
players, and more. OpenOffice is free. Firefox is free. MPlayer is free. If
these applications are free and people use them, why would you _need_ their
commercial counter-parts?

> _The extra ten percent of features that makes an app usable for your average
> Desktop-User are the 10% that every developer hates; those features are hard
> and boring to develop, and implementing them is just no fun. You need to pay
> developers to implement them._

This is simply not true! Even though many projects have "hard and boring parts
to develop", that doesn't mean that a programmer would absolutely refuse to
code those parts without compensation. For example, the Linux kernel is made
from a "labor of love". People wanted to actually develop this, for free even!
I am sure that there are many parts in the kernel that have "hard and boring
parts", but that doesn't mean that programmers will not do it without pay.

> _PE calibre software will NOT be created by the community. It just takes TOO
> much manpower, TOO much work. No one is coding that in his spare-time._

GIMP, as the author stated before, is an alternative. The author dismisses
GIMP as inferior without stating why. GIMP _is_ a perfectly decent alternative
for people who don't want to shell out money for Photoshop.

More generally to the author's last argument, lots of things require a lot of
manpower and work. Just because it is hard work does not necessarily mean that
no one will do it. Some people might have a surprising amount of
determination.

> _This kind of software will also not be created by an open-source company.
> There is no business-model that would supports the effort. Just imagine if
> Adobe released PE as open-source - you think that people would still shell
> out 70€ for a boxed-version? Nope, people would just copy it. There are some
> exceptions. For example, Mozilla receives their money from Google not from
> their users._

First off: yes, it has! How has the open source community survived so long?
Secondly, not everything must be a business. Peope do create things out of
pure volition.

Thirdly, the real world isn't zero-sum. For every gain, there is not an equal
loss. If Adobe open-sources its products, it doesn't mean that no one would
buy it. A comparable example to this is the music industry's pirating problem.
Even though many people use torrents to get their music for free, there exists
this "sampling effect" that actually encourages people to buy music. Relating
this to the author's suggestion that people wouldn't "shell out 70 euros for a
boxed version", yes some would.

Source: [http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/01/dutch-government-
stu...](http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2009/01/dutch-government-study-net-
effect-of-p2p-use-is-positive.ars)

> _See? That is another typical example of the difference between open and
> closed source software. Will a great spell-checker be created by hobbyists
> in their spare time? No! It is a repetitive, boring task, and coding skill
> alone does not suffice. You also need language experts. Will they work for
> free? No! Then who will pay them?_

Um... yes. A great free spellchecker has been created before. It is called
Aspell (and others exist, also). Secondly, a _spell checker_ doesn't require a
"language expert", it simply requires a dictionary (or word list). Granted,
there are funky grammar rules in some languages like conjugation, but they can
be directly inserted into the dictionary. If you do need a "language expert",
ask your friends to help (or if you are attending college, ask a foreign-
language professor). Would they necessarily demand payment for their services?
Of course, there are exeptions...

> _For each of the software programs mentioned, there is a half-assed open
> source clone._

That is very rude! Programming for free is a labor of love! Why would a
programmer "half-ass" something as hard as a clone of another program. If the
programmer has no interest, then he or she would not even bother with creating
the clone! Again, that is a very insulting remark.

Regarding the second half of the author's rant, people create their own
resources for drivers. If it isn't there, make it! For example, open-source
wireless drivers. There are a lot of different kinds of wireless cards
available. Not all have a driver for Linux provided by the company. Therefore,
people create their own, like MadWifi. If you need a specific driver, chances
are that someone else probably already made it, especially the more popular
products.

Source:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_wirel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_open_source_wireless_drivers)

> _Linux on the desktop is a joke. Nothing more._

A lot of people use it; how is it a joke?

No one environment suits everyone perfectly. MS Windows works for some, OS X
works for others, and some prefer Linux. Please, do not generalize and say
that Linux is not right for everyone.

~~~
juliend2
"GIMP is a perfectly decent alternative for people who don't want to shell out
money for Photoshop"

It _can_. It really depends on the features that you need. I can hardly
imagine myself doing some professional Webdesign with Gimp. Im a Photoshop
user and i tried hard to learn Gimp to do some serious work on it. I think
that it may not suit every Designer's needs. But for Illustrator, i think
there is a valid alternative: InkScape. I think it's one of the most promising
piece of open-source software for graphic designers. I liked it. But i dont
use it since im more comfortable with Illustrator. ;)

------
smanek
The one point that I agree with the author on is that it is exceedingly hard
to write a non-trivial closed-source application that is easy to install and
works on all Linux distributions (or even just the major ones like RHEL,
Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, Suse, Gentoo, Mint, Mandriva, CentOS, Xandros, and
Slackware).

The app would have to support at least Gnome and KDE, and ideally should work
with XFCE, Enlightenment, and [flux/black]box. And then you have to deal with
the nightmare that is linux audio (oss, alsa, esound, arts, jack, gstreamer,
phonon, etc).

I mean, static linking, autoconf, etc. all help, but it's still a lot of work.
But testing each release on every (even major) combination of distribution,
CPU-type, Window Manager, graphics tool-kit, and audio framework quickly
becomes untenable. The return on investment for this sort of testing for a
software author is staggeringly small.

And this is from someone who uses Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) as their primary OS.

------
kragen
(projecting this article to 10 years ago)

Server-Users need commercial applications. That's just the way it is. The
extra ten percent of features that makes an app usable for your average
Server-User are the 10% that every developer hates; those features are hard
and boring to develop, and implementing them is just no fun. You need to pay
developers to implement them.

Do you really think that something like INFORMIX-ONLINE is going to be created
by the community? My coworker, who manages our customer service group, shelled
out 1500 deutschmarks for INFORMIX. He does not regret it, even though
installation is a PITA. Why? It just works: it works with our network; he gets
results fast; there are a bunch of skilled DBAs and books available, etc.

In Linux we are stuck with mSQL. Sorry, but no cigar! INFORMIX calibre
software will NOT be created by the community. It just takes TOO much
manpower, TOO much work. No one is coding that in his spare-time.

This kind of software will also not be created by an open-source company.
There is no business-model that would supports the effort. Just imagine if
INFORMIX released INFORMIX-ONLINE as open-source - you think that people would
still shell out 1500DM for a boxed-version? Nope, people would just copy it.
There are some exceptions. For example, Cygnus receives their money from chip
manufacturers not from their users.

------
froo
For every argument that states that something will "Never" happen there will
always be exceptions to blow their theories out of the water.

Here is one such case.

In the 3D modelling software world, Maya by Autodesk is arguably the "best" 3D
modelling program out there for the Film and Gaming industries. It also ranks
as one of the most expensive (the base version costs about $2k, and the
complete is around $7k)

It comes in a linux flavour.

That's not to say theres no good alternative open source solution - Blender is
one. While it doesn't have the depth of features that Maya has, producing
animations in Blender is typically a faster process due to its unique nature.

I've also (due to the nature of the open source of linux/blender) been able to
integrate Amazon's EC2 directly with my computer so that it becomes a virtual
render farm which I can dedicate as many machines to rendering
meshes/animations as I like, quickly and easily with little outlay in capital.

This is just too damn difficult to do under the other OS's (I will be
attempting it under OSX soonish though)

Generalisations just don't work IMO.

~~~
kragen
_Generalisations just don't work IMO._

All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in
some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense,
false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in
some sense. Consult your pineal gland! →←

------
illumen
This article is deeply flawed.

People _do_ pay for linux, and sometimes more than other OS's. So yes, you do
get what you pay for.

Most commercial applications run just fine on linux. This is because most
commercial applications are written for the web these days. Most of these web
applications work fine on linux.

You can't compare the 20,000+ included, and free applications that linux comes
with out of the box to a bunch of crappy legacy windows commercial desktop
applications.

"Linux supports more different types of devices than any other operating
system ever has in the history of computing." -- Microsoft even agrees with
this statement, and MS research confirmed it.

Linux has _way_ more drivers than windows. Out of the box, it includes many
more drivers... and going forward, many of the drivers will still be available
in 2-5 years than with windows. You often don't need to search random websites
for your drivers either... they come with linux.

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moe
What a nonsense article, why did that get voted up? He's uninformed at best,
what a waste of time.

