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I think you are looking at it wrongly. Most would look at this and say "How wonderful it is that we can use these things to do X." Honestly, no one put a gun t

I think you are looking at it wrongly. Most would look at this and say "How wonderful it is that we can use these things to do X." Honestly, no one put a gun to your head to use Matlab. No one prevented anyone from creating libre free Matlab. For some reason I think someone was incentivized with something, not sure what it was, to create such a useful system for doing numerical analysis. You say you've spent your "professional" life doing these migrations ... Do you regret the money you've made? =) I mean working with proprietary formats has issues but I don't think it is always intentional vendor lockin. As far as the integrating payment systems and github etc etc ... It makes wonder if you're under the impression that there are no integration issues with free software systems??

dingaling 13y ago
> Do you regret the money you've made? =) I'm not the OP but I do these sort of grinding transitions from one proprietary system to another in project after project. Yes it pays my salary but it is mind-numbing, soulless work that offers no intellectual stimulation or prospect for technical learning. So I regret that it is what I have to do to make money.
- roel_v 13y ago
  So, do you think if these proprietary systems didn't exist, you would be able to do more interesting work, or not have a job at all, or just spend your time on writing scripts that convert file formats between version2.forka of database software x and version48.forkb of software x? If you find your work mind-numbing, maybe you should have a look at yourself and find other work, rather than blaming others for the problems in your life. (ooh those evil software companies, they make me work a job where I get to sit on my ass in an office all day and still get paid double (/triple/ten times, depending on where you live) the median salary).
mariusz79 13y ago
You're forgetting that it may seem like no one put a gun to our heads to use Matlab, if you're in school - you're required to use it. The same goes for MS Office, Visio, and hundreds of other programs. Can you imagine how good Octave, LibreOffice or any other open source application would be, if instead of forcing users to buy proprietary versions of software schools and/or students were required to donate just 1% of the cost of proprietary software to open source alternative?

dingaling 13y ago

> Do you regret the money you've made? =) I'm not the OP but I do these sort of grinding transitions from one proprietary system to another in project after project. Yes it pays my salary but it is mind-numbing, soulless work that offers no intellectual stimulation or prospect for technical learning. So I regret that it is what I have to do to make money.

roel_v 13y ago
So, do you think if these proprietary systems didn't exist, you would be able to do more interesting work, or not have a job at all, or just spend your time on writing scripts that convert file formats between version2.forka of database software x and version48.forkb of software x? If you find your work mind-numbing, maybe you should have a look at yourself and find other work, rather than blaming others for the problems in your life. (ooh those evil software companies, they make me work a job where I get to sit on my ass in an office all day and still get paid double (/triple/ten times, depending on where you live) the median salary).

mariusz79 13y ago

You're forgetting that it may seem like no one put a gun to our heads to use Matlab, if you're in school - you're required to use it. The same goes for MS Office, Visio, and hundreds of other programs. Can you imagine how good Octave, LibreOffice or any other open source application would be, if instead of forcing users to buy proprietary versions of software schools and/or students were required to donate just 1% of the cost of proprietary software to open source alternative?