4 ms·

That's a generous interpretation of the article. This line in the article shows the author's purposefully distorted view: > For open source, poor-quality softw

That's a generous interpretation of the article. This line in the article shows the author's purposefully distorted view: > For open source, poor-quality software is a problem to be explained away or a reason to eschew the software altogether. For free software, it is a problem to be worked through. I cannot think of an OSS project that tried to "explain away" the quality issues they have (as in "It's poor quality because it is open source"), as opposed to working on them ("Yes, this is a bug. We'll fix some time in the future.").

worik 6y ago
I can When a Ubuntu update completely replaced the Desktop with buggy unity, with out warning or option, the response of Ubuntu developers was "it's open sauce software, you get it for free, stop complaining"
- ziml77 6y ago
  It's also common to see "It's open source, fix it yourself."
- merb 6y ago
  actually the first release was flawed, but I still liked unity. it's sad that it was so tangled to ubuntu.
  - worik 6y ago
    You miss the point, mostly. The update made a major change in the way the user interface worked. With the new user interface I found I could not easily access my programmes without spending a non trivial amount of time learning it, and there was no way back to the old interface, options fro running both etcetera. Ubunti was tremendously stable for a long time at that point, and I upgraded without hesitation. Not since! As you say the interface was buggy. Dreadfully buggy. It leaked memory badly, was clunky and slow. When I complained on my local Linux users mailing list (as did another member who had the same experience) the Ubuntu developers I knew personally took it as a personal affront. Since I had not paid for it, how dare I complain. They have a point. I do not use Ubuntu any more.
the_af 6y ago
I think it's more about the general stance that OSS is in general technically superior, than about particular projects. The problem that must be "explained away" -- according to the article -- is not a particular flaw of a specific project, but the observation that OSS is not, in general, technically better. TFA states that OSS, by claiming it's technically superior, must defend itself when it's not superior. On the other hand, FSS must not defend against technical flaws or limitations because it doesn't claim it's technically superior, only that it respects user freedoms better.
pessimizer 6y ago
You're not reading this correctly. It's saying that when somebody says "Open Source sucks compared to these proprietary options" Open Source people have to argue 1) that it actually doesn't suck, or 2) that it sucks because of reasons A, B, and C that will be overcome, or 3) agree that it does suck and will continue to suck (but maybe you should still use it because it's free or something.) Free Software people can just say "Yeah, that's bad. I hope it gets fixed soon. Can you fix it? Do you know a company that might sponsor someone to fix it?" There's no need to defend Free Software. It's ours and it would be great if it gets better. We should work on it. edit: Free Software is in a way less ideological than Open Source. Open Source relies on a sort of "invisible hand" that insists that the source being available for viewing and modification by the general public will make it more secure, result in fewer bugs, and in other ways result in higher quality. Free Software people hope these things are true, but they would prefer Free Software even if they weren't. They don't need to believe in any positive effect on software quality to believe in Free Software; instead they believe that people should have access to the control systems of the hardware that surrounds them. This is nearly orthogonal to software quality, other than that software quality can help propagate accessible control systems. If Free Software can't keep up with the state of the art, I guess I'm going to always have old things.

worik 6y ago

I can When a Ubuntu update completely replaced the Desktop with buggy unity, with out warning or option, the response of Ubuntu developers was "it's open sauce software, you get it for free, stop complaining"

ziml77 6y ago
It's also common to see "It's open source, fix it yourself."
merb 6y ago
actually the first release was flawed, but I still liked unity. it's sad that it was so tangled to ubuntu.
- worik 6y ago
  You miss the point, mostly. The update made a major change in the way the user interface worked. With the new user interface I found I could not easily access my programmes without spending a non trivial amount of time learning it, and there was no way back to the old interface, options fro running both etcetera. Ubunti was tremendously stable for a long time at that point, and I upgraded without hesitation. Not since! As you say the interface was buggy. Dreadfully buggy. It leaked memory badly, was clunky and slow. When I complained on my local Linux users mailing list (as did another member who had the same experience) the Ubuntu developers I knew personally took it as a personal affront. Since I had not paid for it, how dare I complain. They have a point. I do not use Ubuntu any more.

the_af 6y ago

I think it's more about the general stance that OSS is in general technically superior, than about particular projects. The problem that must be "explained away" -- according to the article -- is not a particular flaw of a specific project, but the observation that OSS is not, in general, technically better. TFA states that OSS, by claiming it's technically superior, must defend itself when it's not superior. On the other hand, FSS must not defend against technical flaws or limitations because it doesn't claim it's technically superior, only that it respects user freedoms better.

pessimizer 6y ago

You're not reading this correctly. It's saying that when somebody says "Open Source sucks compared to these proprietary options" Open Source people have to argue 1) that it actually doesn't suck, or 2) that it sucks because of reasons A, B, and C that will be overcome, or 3) agree that it does suck and will continue to suck (but maybe you should still use it because it's free or something.) Free Software people can just say "Yeah, that's bad. I hope it gets fixed soon. Can you fix it? Do you know a company that might sponsor someone to fix it?" There's no need to defend Free Software. It's ours and it would be great if it gets better. We should work on it. edit: Free Software is in a way less ideological than Open Source. Open Source relies on a sort of "invisible hand" that insists that the source being available for viewing and modification by the general public will make it more secure, result in fewer bugs, and in other ways result in higher quality. Free Software people hope these things are true, but they would prefer Free Software even if they weren't. They don't need to believe in any positive effect on software quality to believe in Free Software; instead they believe that people should have access to the control systems of the hardware that surrounds them. This is nearly orthogonal to software quality, other than that software quality can help propagate accessible control systems. If Free Software can't keep up with the state of the art, I guess I'm going to always have old things.