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OSS Developers Provide A Glimmer of Hope
sebFlyte writes "In a recent speech at the ACCU conference in Oxford, software design guru James Coplein said that unless consumers start demanding more and putting up with less crap from software firms, the quality of proprietary software would keep spiralling down. He was full of praise for open source though, saying 'The complementary, independent, selfless acts of thousands of individuals can address system problems -- there are thousands of people making the system stronger.'"
For those not in the know like me. He is/was a researcher at bell labs and worked on all things related to the activity of developing software.
I'm not sure where he's drawing this "death spiral" conclusion from because I'm not seeing it.
Now, vendor lockin, DRM abuses, etc. etc. THAT I am seeing and OSS may be our saviour there.
Closed source is in many cases better. If you are required to use the best software available to generate profit then obviously you will pay the price for private software if that is the best alternative for your needs. I personally prefer the Gimp over Photoshop, but after seeing what features the professional graphics artist use in their day to day work I fully understand that firms specialize in that field are willing to pay the extra money for the Adobe series of products. Gimp is still a joke in the eyes of the very professional users.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
...the success of Linux as a household brand is compromised by the fact that non-proprietory software does not follow IID and hence doesn't actually deliver what is the customer wants, but in fact what the developers think the customer wants.
I take exception to this. You make it sound like proprietary software is doing a much better job of delivering what the customer wants. This has been a old refrain from Microsoft in particular. Many, many of Microsoft's problems, particularly in terms security and stability issues, have been the result of Microsoft delivering what Microsoft wants, not what the customer wants.
Issues such as "lock-in" and folding the browser into the OS to appease the DOJ have done more to hurt Windows than anything else. Additionally, all the time that Microsoft spent to generate changes in their prorietary formats and confound their competitors could have been better spent on QA.
One thing you have to remember though is that should linux pick up as a desktop enviro it will have spyware and viruses written for it. Granted linux has it's security measures but it also has buggy code that people will exploit. Much less than MS which is why i use linux and am an advocate for it. But We sometimes also have to look at the other side to make sure that we are critical of all and not just one because 'our choice reigns supreme'.
I do agree with you though that the linux desktop market will take a while to grow unless some REALLY good apps are built that make windows look like a chump in the eyes of the users. Many more people have heard of linux but still are reluctant because all they know is that the high tech people use it and it's complicated to learn. They want a graphical interface. When i hear this i mention the window managers and just start to get the glossy look from the windows user...:(