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I think having an open source application is useless to the end user. I mean really useless in and of itself. What really matters is that the user is alive and

I think having an open source application is useless to the end user. I mean really useless in and of itself. What really matters is that the user is alive and healthy. Say I'm dying of cancer. Two years later I die of cancer. What do I get as a user? What benefit do I get from X being open-source? Almost nothing. On the other hand, if X came with a cure for cancer, then I could get some real benefits. The only thing open source does is allow developers to gain understanding of how it works even if no one understands how it works, and then write tools to "liberate" data from itself and extensive documentation of data formats knowing that it matches the source code. But I suppose you're right, none of that is useful if you're looking for other people to solve your problems.

hasenj 11y ago
No one is claiming having an open source application will cure cancer. FSF promotes "free software" as a means of ensuring the user's freedom. When in fact, if you have a piece of free software that's old and unmaintained and the code is complicated and no one understands it, your software is by all definitions "free", but it doesn't really give you the freedom you are seeking, unless you are a developer yourself. Most of the time, you will get more freedom if the developers had documented their data formats and provided tools to liberate your data.
- copsarebastards 11y ago
  > No one is claiming having an open source application will cure cancer. What? I thought they were!!1! > When in fact, if you have a piece of free software that's old and unmaintained and the code is complicated and no one understands it, your software is by all definitions "free", but it doesn't really give you the freedom you are seeking, unless you are a developer yourself. Well obviously knowledge is power, but criticizing the GPL for users' lack of education is like criticizing the GPL for users dying of cancer. Actually, it's less reasonable: users are free to fix their own ignorance, while it's a bit harder to fix cancer. > Most of the time, you will get more freedom if the developers had documented their data formats and provided tools to liberate your data. ¿Porqué no los dos? I'm not sure why you seem to think that ensuring license freedom is mutually exclusive with documentation and tooling. If anything, I see a positive correlation with open source and well-documented, migratable data. Have you ever tried to pull data out of an Excel spreadsheet into a database?
  - hasenj 11y ago
    > I'm not sure why you seem to think that ensuring license freedom is mutually exclusive with documentation and tooling Really? Where did I ever say it was mutually exclusive? Why would you ever think that? It's a good thing, but it's not always necessary. It's tangential and kind of misses the point.
- marrs 11y ago
  Or you could google to see if anyone else has had and solved this problem

hasenj 11y ago

No one is claiming having an open source application will cure cancer. FSF promotes "free software" as a means of ensuring the user's freedom. When in fact, if you have a piece of free software that's old and unmaintained and the code is complicated and no one understands it, your software is by all definitions "free", but it doesn't really give you the freedom you are seeking, unless you are a developer yourself. Most of the time, you will get more freedom if the developers had documented their data formats and provided tools to liberate your data.

copsarebastards 11y ago
> No one is claiming having an open source application will cure cancer. What? I thought they were!!1! > When in fact, if you have a piece of free software that's old and unmaintained and the code is complicated and no one understands it, your software is by all definitions "free", but it doesn't really give you the freedom you are seeking, unless you are a developer yourself. Well obviously knowledge is power, but criticizing the GPL for users' lack of education is like criticizing the GPL for users dying of cancer. Actually, it's less reasonable: users are free to fix their own ignorance, while it's a bit harder to fix cancer. > Most of the time, you will get more freedom if the developers had documented their data formats and provided tools to liberate your data. ¿Porqué no los dos? I'm not sure why you seem to think that ensuring license freedom is mutually exclusive with documentation and tooling. If anything, I see a positive correlation with open source and well-documented, migratable data. Have you ever tried to pull data out of an Excel spreadsheet into a database?
- hasenj 11y ago
  > I'm not sure why you seem to think that ensuring license freedom is mutually exclusive with documentation and tooling Really? Where did I ever say it was mutually exclusive? Why would you ever think that? It's a good thing, but it's not always necessary. It's tangential and kind of misses the point.
marrs 11y ago
Or you could google to see if anyone else has had and solved this problem