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It's two years old. Give them time, they're evolving their site constantly. Also, I don't think you know what a shell game is. I love the product, but it bothe

by unalone 17y ago

It's two years old. Give them time, they're evolving their site constantly. Also, I don't think you know what a shell game is. I love the product, but it bothers me that it's not open source. (Not their problem or anyone else's, but I prefer not to use close-source software if I can help it.) They created one of the fastest and best methods of syncing there is, maybe the best one if simply being intuitive counts. They make their money by licensing it to you. How would you take that and open-source it without killing dhouston's method of making a living? Also: What's this about not liking closed-source? That's like saying you dislike songs that you can't download as individual tracks. Maybe it's cool that some things are broken down and easy to tinker with, but it's silly to turn that into disliking the ones you can't break.

telemachos 17y ago
> Also, I don't think you know what a shell game is. If my imprecision bothers you, feel free to s/con game/shell game/. >Also: What's this about not liking closed-source? That's like saying you dislike songs that you can't download as individual tracks. Maybe it's cool that some things are broken down and easy to tinker with, but it's silly to turn that into disliking the ones you can't break. I don't think you know what the value of free and open software is. It has nothing to do with wanting things "you can break." I have no idea how you make that leap (open source == breakable?). I would add that a closed source application built (as far as I've read) on open source pieces (SVN? Python? Rsync?) is especially off-putting to me. To clarify one other point. Ubuntu has already reverse-engineered Dropbox (as Ubuntu One), so if Dropbox's profit relies on their having the sole access to the magic formula, it's already too late. Anything can be (and generally will be) reverse engineered. I don't think that closing off the source is a royal road to success.
- unalone 17y ago
  If my imprecision bothers you, feel free to s/con game/shell game/. Your imprecision, as you call it, is that you are associating Dropbox saying they're working on an API with a shady person trying to steal your money. Unless you've paid them for an API that you didn't receive, they haven't conned you. I don't think you know what the value of free and open software is. I'll hazard a guess: It's free, and also anybody's able to improve it if they want. I've only got five years' experience with open source, though, so perhaps I'm still an amateur at this. To clarify one other point. Ubuntu has already reverse-engineered Dropbox (as Ubuntu One), so if Dropbox's profit relies on their having the sole access to the magic formula, it's already too late. Anything can be (and generally will be) reverse engineered. I don't think that closing off the source is a royal road to success. So they use Dropbox's exact code? Or are you saying that they saw what Dropbox did and decided to copy it? Because that's not reverse engineering. Funny story: Once upon a time I thought that open source would lead to everything getting better. I thought Firefox, for instance, would just continue to be an unstoppable beast because, after all, anybody who wanted to could make it do anything any other browser did. Then I realized Firefox was slow and ugly on the Mac, moved to the closed-source Safari, and enjoy its incredibly sleek design. It was around the time I stopped using Ubuntu because I realized the closed-source OS X was better. Now that Windows 7 is spreading, I think Ubuntu's dropped to my third-favorite OS. The problem with your line of thinking is that open source doesn't pay. The best people in certain fields, meanwhile, only work for money, and occasionally only for large gobs of money. That includes interface designers, and a lot of the people who work on fixing the ugly problems that nobody really likes working on. So open source's downfall is that it can't compete with the quality and focus of closed-source. It's the problem with democracy, so to speak. I like open source for some things. I still haven't found an open-source application that's as cutting-edge as its closed equivalents. Even Quicksilver left me dissatisfied until I discovered the Google-sponsored Quick Search Box.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
    - palish 17y ago
      I upvoted it because I agree with "The problem with your line of thinking is that open source [usually] doesn't pay. The best people in certain fields, meanwhile, only work for money, and occasionally only for large gobs of money", among other reasons. I realize Dropbox might be able to open source their client without significant risk, but why take any unnecessary risks at this point? There's no reason to. Or maybe Dropbox feels that their source code's quality is nasty, and don't want to put in the effort to clean it up before open sourcing it. It's solely the decision of Dropbox whether the Dropbox client is open sourced, and they should not be blamed for deciding against it.
    - unalone 17y ago
      There are lots of pro-open source people, and lots of people who still need convincing. I don't think we can easily be sorted as a community into any category beyond "ambitious". All other traits are up for grabs.
  - akkartik 17y ago
    +1. One caveat: building motivated teams is hard, even if money does seem to be in the mix. - Motivated teams are a confounding factor in startups, I think. A common reason for starting a startup is 'independence' which I take to mean 'choosing who I work with'. But I have no confidence whatsoever that I can do a better job if I take on that infrastructural task. Perhaps it is under-estimated?
  - Erwin 17y ago
    Safari is based on the KDE browser's open source rendering engine, however. I don't know how much of it is left but certainly it was a huge boon for them -- and later Google -- to start with a highly standards-compliant and open code base. I've found the best OS projects are system libraries and utilities and tools where the developer is also the end user. The more UI is piled up, the more non-developer involvement is needed the worse it gets. The worst are open source games; nothing good since Nethack.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  To clarify one other point. Ubuntu has already reverse-engineered Dropbox (as Ubuntu One) Having an automated sync of folders with the cloud is hardly rocket science. Dropbox packaged it up nicely but I doubt Ubu' really reverse engineered it they more likely started with something like rsync or unison and made a nice clean and simple frontend modeled on the simplicity of Dropbox.
blasdel 17y ago
Do you not see how useful it would be for the client-side to be open source? Most of Dropbox's value lies in their servers, especially the web interface, but they've stumbled a bit on the client-side.
- unalone 17y ago
  How so? It's a folder that syncs. I can't think of how to improve that. Perhaps add versioning? But that's not exactly an essential.
  - cschep 17y ago
    The one thing I want is to be able to turn certain folders off/on depending on the machine.
    - newsdog 17y ago
      I agree - it also syncs certain files I don't want synced - like log files.
      - cschep 17y ago
        yes! .dropboxignore please!
    - 83457 17y ago
      This is the only feature at the moment that i need which dropbox is lacking. Makes it difficult to use Dropbox in more than one environment such as work versus school when everything is synced everywhere.
  - mtrichardson 17y ago
    Maybe make it so certain clients don't take up the entirety of your CPU while they try to add bits onto the icons of the files themselves...
    - 17y ago

by unalone 17y ago

telemachos 17y ago

> Also, I don't think you know what a shell game is. If my imprecision bothers you, feel free to s/con game/shell game/. >Also: What's this about not liking closed-source? That's like saying you dislike songs that you can't download as individual tracks. Maybe it's cool that some things are broken down and easy to tinker with, but it's silly to turn that into disliking the ones you can't break. I don't think you know what the value of free and open software is. It has nothing to do with wanting things "you can break." I have no idea how you make that leap (open source == breakable?). I would add that a closed source application built (as far as I've read) on open source pieces (SVN? Python? Rsync?) is especially off-putting to me. To clarify one other point. Ubuntu has already reverse-engineered Dropbox (as Ubuntu One), so if Dropbox's profit relies on their having the sole access to the magic formula, it's already too late. Anything can be (and generally will be) reverse engineered. I don't think that closing off the source is a royal road to success.

unalone 17y ago
If my imprecision bothers you, feel free to s/con game/shell game/. Your imprecision, as you call it, is that you are associating Dropbox saying they're working on an API with a shady person trying to steal your money. Unless you've paid them for an API that you didn't receive, they haven't conned you. I don't think you know what the value of free and open software is. I'll hazard a guess: It's free, and also anybody's able to improve it if they want. I've only got five years' experience with open source, though, so perhaps I'm still an amateur at this. To clarify one other point. Ubuntu has already reverse-engineered Dropbox (as Ubuntu One), so if Dropbox's profit relies on their having the sole access to the magic formula, it's already too late. Anything can be (and generally will be) reverse engineered. I don't think that closing off the source is a royal road to success. So they use Dropbox's exact code? Or are you saying that they saw what Dropbox did and decided to copy it? Because that's not reverse engineering. Funny story: Once upon a time I thought that open source would lead to everything getting better. I thought Firefox, for instance, would just continue to be an unstoppable beast because, after all, anybody who wanted to could make it do anything any other browser did. Then I realized Firefox was slow and ugly on the Mac, moved to the closed-source Safari, and enjoy its incredibly sleek design. It was around the time I stopped using Ubuntu because I realized the closed-source OS X was better. Now that Windows 7 is spreading, I think Ubuntu's dropped to my third-favorite OS. The problem with your line of thinking is that open source doesn't pay. The best people in certain fields, meanwhile, only work for money, and occasionally only for large gobs of money. That includes interface designers, and a lot of the people who work on fixing the ugly problems that nobody really likes working on. So open source's downfall is that it can't compete with the quality and focus of closed-source. It's the problem with democracy, so to speak. I like open source for some things. I still haven't found an open-source application that's as cutting-edge as its closed equivalents. Even Quicksilver left me dissatisfied until I discovered the Google-sponsored Quick Search Box.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
  - palish 17y ago
    I upvoted it because I agree with "The problem with your line of thinking is that open source [usually] doesn't pay. The best people in certain fields, meanwhile, only work for money, and occasionally only for large gobs of money", among other reasons. I realize Dropbox might be able to open source their client without significant risk, but why take any unnecessary risks at this point? There's no reason to. Or maybe Dropbox feels that their source code's quality is nasty, and don't want to put in the effort to clean it up before open sourcing it. It's solely the decision of Dropbox whether the Dropbox client is open sourced, and they should not be blamed for deciding against it.
  - unalone 17y ago
    There are lots of pro-open source people, and lots of people who still need convincing. I don't think we can easily be sorted as a community into any category beyond "ambitious". All other traits are up for grabs.
- akkartik 17y ago
  +1. One caveat: building motivated teams is hard, even if money does seem to be in the mix. - Motivated teams are a confounding factor in startups, I think. A common reason for starting a startup is 'independence' which I take to mean 'choosing who I work with'. But I have no confidence whatsoever that I can do a better job if I take on that infrastructural task. Perhaps it is under-estimated?
- Erwin 17y ago
  Safari is based on the KDE browser's open source rendering engine, however. I don't know how much of it is left but certainly it was a huge boon for them -- and later Google -- to start with a highly standards-compliant and open code base. I've found the best OS projects are system libraries and utilities and tools where the developer is also the end user. The more UI is piled up, the more non-developer involvement is needed the worse it gets. The worst are open source games; nothing good since Nethack.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
To clarify one other point. Ubuntu has already reverse-engineered Dropbox (as Ubuntu One) Having an automated sync of folders with the cloud is hardly rocket science. Dropbox packaged it up nicely but I doubt Ubu' really reverse engineered it they more likely started with something like rsync or unison and made a nice clean and simple frontend modeled on the simplicity of Dropbox.

blasdel 17y ago

Do you not see how useful it would be for the client-side to be open source? Most of Dropbox's value lies in their servers, especially the web interface, but they've stumbled a bit on the client-side.

unalone 17y ago
How so? It's a folder that syncs. I can't think of how to improve that. Perhaps add versioning? But that's not exactly an essential.
- cschep 17y ago
  The one thing I want is to be able to turn certain folders off/on depending on the machine.
  - newsdog 17y ago
    I agree - it also syncs certain files I don't want synced - like log files.
    - cschep 17y ago
      yes! .dropboxignore please!
  - 83457 17y ago
    This is the only feature at the moment that i need which dropbox is lacking. Makes it difficult to use Dropbox in more than one environment such as work versus school when everything is synced everywhere.
- mtrichardson 17y ago
  Maybe make it so certain clients don't take up the entirety of your CPU while they try to add bits onto the icons of the files themselves...
  - 17y ago