4 ms·

Oh, absolutely. If given the choice between free software and functionally equivalent nonfree software, I'll choose the former. But in my line of work, the on

by na85 10y ago

Oh, absolutely. If given the choice between free software and functionally equivalent nonfree software, I'll choose the former. But in my line of work, the only real choice is proprietary software. Same for my phone, frankly. I'd love to live in the world rms lives in but most of the time free software just isn't good enough to be a viable option.

PeterisP 10y ago
Even while it's not good enough to be a viable alternative, it does act as competition - it provides a "floor" of price/performance that noone can afford to breach and acts as a (weak, but still) limitation against a particular proprietary product exploiting a de facto monopoly position. Even if now the only real choice is one particular proprietary software package, then you probably can imagine some level of price increase and/or usage restriction where the currently poor free alternative would be worth considering, if you and others put some effort and/or money towards it instead of the proprietary licence - and the proprietary vendor can imagine this as well, so the existence of the free alternative by itself is putting a limit on how much they can exploit the market.
- na85 10y ago
  Perhaps in some markets, you may be right. In aerospace there are very few free alternatives and most of the clients are large enterprises who can afford multi-thousand dollar license fees.
mschaef 10y ago
> I'd love to live in the world rms lives in but most of the time free software just isn't good enough to be a viable option. I've made this argument before myself, but I wonder how true it really is. The reality is, in 2016, that it's easy to assemble a free software environment that's far above and beyond anything I'd have had access to back when I started computing. It's true that that fit and finish of the best 2016 FOSS software doesn't match the fit and finish of the 2016 proprietary software, but in many ways, it's more than match for 1995 era software. While that may seem like faint praise, it was easily possible to do good, significant work in that kind of environment.
- mschaef 10y ago
  One other thing I'd add is that I also remembering struggling as a student to pay for compilers and other development tools. ($99 for Microsoft Quick C, etc.) These days, reasonable tools with far more diversity are available for free. Compared to the situation when I started, the current availability of development tools is nothing short of miraculous.

by na85 10y ago

PeterisP 10y ago

Even while it's not good enough to be a viable alternative, it does act as competition - it provides a "floor" of price/performance that noone can afford to breach and acts as a (weak, but still) limitation against a particular proprietary product exploiting a de facto monopoly position. Even if now the only real choice is one particular proprietary software package, then you probably can imagine some level of price increase and/or usage restriction where the currently poor free alternative would be worth considering, if you and others put some effort and/or money towards it instead of the proprietary licence - and the proprietary vendor can imagine this as well, so the existence of the free alternative by itself is putting a limit on how much they can exploit the market.

na85 10y ago
Perhaps in some markets, you may be right. In aerospace there are very few free alternatives and most of the clients are large enterprises who can afford multi-thousand dollar license fees.

mschaef 10y ago

> I'd love to live in the world rms lives in but most of the time free software just isn't good enough to be a viable option. I've made this argument before myself, but I wonder how true it really is. The reality is, in 2016, that it's easy to assemble a free software environment that's far above and beyond anything I'd have had access to back when I started computing. It's true that that fit and finish of the best 2016 FOSS software doesn't match the fit and finish of the 2016 proprietary software, but in many ways, it's more than match for 1995 era software. While that may seem like faint praise, it was easily possible to do good, significant work in that kind of environment.

mschaef 10y ago
One other thing I'd add is that I also remembering struggling as a student to pay for compilers and other development tools. ($99 for Microsoft Quick C, etc.) These days, reasonable tools with far more diversity are available for free. Compared to the situation when I started, the current availability of development tools is nothing short of miraculous.