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> On the other hand, recompiling libinput in 2020 takes about as much time as taking out a credit card from your wallet and paying for another closed source mac

> On the other hand, recompiling libinput in 2020 takes about as much time as taking out a credit card from your wallet and paying for another closed source macOS app. Without the reference you've provided here I would estimate about three hours for me to do all of that, and that might be pretty optimistic. From figuring out what to search for, to understanding the code that needs to change, to making the change, to building it, to determining what's ~~best practice~~ at least not worst practice for installing it. And I'm someone who's fairly confident in my abilities, has been using linux for about 15 years, and is comfortable in C and familiar with other packaging systems. I'm sure I could come up with at least a dozen exercises like this that would take me under a minute but would take the average HN reader hours if not days to complete. My point is that it's incredibly unfair to take something with which you're obviously quite familiar with and claim it takes less time than buying an app online, just because with experience you can do it that fast.

Liskni_si 6y ago
> My point is that it's incredibly unfair to take something with which you're obviously quite familiar with and claim it takes longer than buying an app online, just because with experience you can do it that fast. You're kind of right and kind of not. It is indeed incredibly unfair to claim that anyone can do it in 2 minutes if I could, especially considering that I did it this fast after mentally preparing to do it fast to demonstrate that it can be done fast. But also remember that I really do believe that we should all participate in the development of the software that we get to use for free. Fixing a bug in some piece of software should, in my opinion, be the most normal thing you do every once in a while. Just like everyone can use a screwdriver at home, every programmer should be able to modify, build and run the software they use. If we did live in such a world, this wouldn't be specialized knowledge, this would really be something most people could do under 10 minutes. Yeah, I realize that we don't live in a such a world. But please don't take away my hope that if we all try hard enough, one day we just might. :-)
- emj 6y ago
  Buying an closed source app has taken us in my family something like 1 month on avarage. It's all about how often you do it and how much goes wrong.
- folli 6y ago
  I see what you're getting at, but you're missing that not everyone can be a specialist at libinput development, someone might spend his day developing software for 3D rendering, someone else is a data scientist, a third one designs websites. It makes more sense that each one spends his time doing what he does well instead of spending 4 hours figuring out how to modify libinput.

Liskni_si 6y ago

> My point is that it's incredibly unfair to take something with which you're obviously quite familiar with and claim it takes longer than buying an app online, just because with experience you can do it that fast. You're kind of right and kind of not. It is indeed incredibly unfair to claim that anyone can do it in 2 minutes if I could, especially considering that I did it this fast after mentally preparing to do it fast to demonstrate that it can be done fast. But also remember that I really do believe that we should all participate in the development of the software that we get to use for free. Fixing a bug in some piece of software should, in my opinion, be the most normal thing you do every once in a while. Just like everyone can use a screwdriver at home, every programmer should be able to modify, build and run the software they use. If we did live in such a world, this wouldn't be specialized knowledge, this would really be something most people could do under 10 minutes. Yeah, I realize that we don't live in a such a world. But please don't take away my hope that if we all try hard enough, one day we just might. :-)

emj 6y ago
Buying an closed source app has taken us in my family something like 1 month on avarage. It's all about how often you do it and how much goes wrong.
folli 6y ago
I see what you're getting at, but you're missing that not everyone can be a specialist at libinput development, someone might spend his day developing software for 3D rendering, someone else is a data scientist, a third one designs websites. It makes more sense that each one spends his time doing what he does well instead of spending 4 hours figuring out how to modify libinput.