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> It's rarer that open-source software is more featureful and functional than competing closed source software. In fact I'm struggling to think of any that are

by cwyers 11y ago

> It's rarer that open-source software is more featureful and functional than competing closed source software. In fact I'm struggling to think of any that are clear-cut. I think the canonical example has been web browsers, for instance.

gress 11y ago
What is the example web browser?
- cwyers 11y ago
  Firefox and Chromium vs Internet Explorer.
  - gress 11y ago
    Today, no open source browser is clearly more featureful and functional than the closed source alternatives, so seems like a transient aberration rather than a canonical example.
    - cwyers 11y ago
      I mean, the people who maintain far and away the most used closed-source browser, IE[1], are deprecating it and have tried to distance themselves from IE as much as possible in Microsoft Edge. And this is entirely because IE lacks features that Chrome and Firefox have, largely but far from entirely related to standards support for HTML5. I have been using Microsoft Edge since it was available in the Technical Preview, and it is not on par with Chrome or Firefox yet as a daily driver. I hope it gets there someday, but it's not there now. [1] Safari is kind of a border case -- all the chrome is closed source, but the rendering engine and I think the Javascript engine are open source. I am lumping it in as an open source project here, I can understand why someone might argue the point though.
      - gress 11y ago
        Ok, I think it's reasonable to accept this. However one could equally well describe these open source browsers, as browsers funded by Google and Apple. Perhaps that's why they are outliers.
freeduck 11y ago
Or Linux which as an OS far surpasses e.g. windows. It runs on any hardware you can imagine from satellites to hand-held devices and the majority of the super-computers in the world.
- cwyers 11y ago
  > Or Linux which as an OS far surpasses e.g. windows. Linux is a lot cheaper than Windows. More importantly, it's a lot LOT cheaper than most proprietary Unices. And it's freely modifiable. If that makes it "better" for you, have at, I am not going to quibble. If you are talking about Linux as a desktop, rather than server, operating system... there are reasons that Windows users outnumber Linux users on the desktop on the order of about 90 to 1. It's not all because Microsoft is evil. If you use Linux as your primary desktop operating system, I'm happy for you. If you think it's better for you, great. May you go forth and prosper. If you think Linux far surpasses Windows as a desktop operating system in the general case, then you are incredibly delusional and should seek some help.
  - tingol 11y ago
    >I am not going to quibble >I'm happy for you >You are incredibly delusional and should seek some help Yeah you seem unbiased...
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Well, Linux is used every day as operating system by millions of end users – on mobile devices. And Linux and the BSDs are getting a lot more love on consoles, too – look at the SteamBox. With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even running better than on Windows (or expected to do so), it is getting more and more towards equality.
    - cwyers 11y ago
      > With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even better than on Windows You are literally making stuff up. The OSX/Linux port of Arkham Knight doesn't even have a release date yet.

by cwyers 11y ago

gress 11y ago

What is the example web browser?

cwyers 11y ago
Firefox and Chromium vs Internet Explorer.
- gress 11y ago
  Today, no open source browser is clearly more featureful and functional than the closed source alternatives, so seems like a transient aberration rather than a canonical example.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    I mean, the people who maintain far and away the most used closed-source browser, IE[1], are deprecating it and have tried to distance themselves from IE as much as possible in Microsoft Edge. And this is entirely because IE lacks features that Chrome and Firefox have, largely but far from entirely related to standards support for HTML5. I have been using Microsoft Edge since it was available in the Technical Preview, and it is not on par with Chrome or Firefox yet as a daily driver. I hope it gets there someday, but it's not there now. [1] Safari is kind of a border case -- all the chrome is closed source, but the rendering engine and I think the Javascript engine are open source. I am lumping it in as an open source project here, I can understand why someone might argue the point though.
    - gress 11y ago
      Ok, I think it's reasonable to accept this. However one could equally well describe these open source browsers, as browsers funded by Google and Apple. Perhaps that's why they are outliers.

freeduck 11y ago

Or Linux which as an OS far surpasses e.g. windows. It runs on any hardware you can imagine from satellites to hand-held devices and the majority of the super-computers in the world.

cwyers 11y ago
> Or Linux which as an OS far surpasses e.g. windows. Linux is a lot cheaper than Windows. More importantly, it's a lot LOT cheaper than most proprietary Unices. And it's freely modifiable. If that makes it "better" for you, have at, I am not going to quibble. If you are talking about Linux as a desktop, rather than server, operating system... there are reasons that Windows users outnumber Linux users on the desktop on the order of about 90 to 1. It's not all because Microsoft is evil. If you use Linux as your primary desktop operating system, I'm happy for you. If you think it's better for you, great. May you go forth and prosper. If you think Linux far surpasses Windows as a desktop operating system in the general case, then you are incredibly delusional and should seek some help.
- tingol 11y ago
  >I am not going to quibble >I'm happy for you >You are incredibly delusional and should seek some help Yeah you seem unbiased...
- kuschku 11y ago
  Well, Linux is used every day as operating system by millions of end users – on mobile devices. And Linux and the BSDs are getting a lot more love on consoles, too – look at the SteamBox. With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even running better than on Windows (or expected to do so), it is getting more and more towards equality.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    > With 16% of all current generation games being able to run on linux, often (like in the case of the new Batman game) even better than on Windows You are literally making stuff up. The OSX/Linux port of Arkham Knight doesn't even have a release date yet.