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You only need _one_ power user to disable the lock-in mechanism or to discover the security holes. After that, every user benefits even if they themselves canno
by piaste 10y ago
You only need _one_ power user to disable the lock-in mechanism or to discover the security holes. After that, every user benefits even if they themselves cannot do such things.
Of course open source projects also suffer from bugs and incompatibilities, that's obvious and uninteresting. The point is that when you run into one of those, you have options available other than calling Larry Ellison and begging him to please fix your problems.
- Karunamon 10y agoI only need __one__ power user (or employee) to do the same thing with the proprietary software. It happens all the time.
- piaste 10y agoYeeeeeah, that's kinda like saying you can get your drugs from a police evidence locker. You only need __one__ burglar or rotten cop! It happens all the time! Why do we need dealers or legal distribution anyway? Plus you're contradicting your own argument. First you state that open source doesn't matter unless you can personally read and modify the code. Now you state that you're fine with proprietary software, because you only need one of the company's employees to remove lock-ins and fix security holes for you. Which one is it? Do you require being able to solve problems yourself, or can you rely on others?
- Karunamon 10y agoI think you've misunderstood my argument (and not to mention mischaracterized with this loaded comparison of software to drugs!) One way or another, you're always relying on others. The contrived person who audits all their own source for all their apps down to the compiler level does not exist. Systems are too complicated for that. At that point, the question becomes "who do you rely on?" - and especially given recent history, I'm not convinced that "everyone who knows how to make a pull request" is a better answer than "only the people that made it". Certainly not convinced enough to begin moralizing about software development schemes...