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.'"

Comments

it will go down?

[Amiga Lover]

> unless consumers start demanding more and putting up with
> less crap from software firms, the quality of proprietary
> software would keep spiralling down.

I don't think it has far "down" to go. People are too used to the rubbish they've not only been served with currently at home, school or work, but they've grown up with bad software and expect it as a part of normality. If the machine crashes in the middle of something people are trained now not to get angry at it - it's expected. If it gets infested with spyware then it's running slow and needs fixing by a tech, or reinstalling by some techier users. If their internet drops out multiple times a day, they just re-dial or wait for their DSL/cable to come up again.

People are adaptable, and can get used to anything - and quickly, if they don't know better. Many software vendors take advantage of that.

I'm not totally concerned about quality

[91degrees]

Apart from the areas where there is no competition, the quality of software is pretty good. Even Windows has become fairly stable since Linux showed up.

The reason Free software appeals to me is simply that I don't have to agree to hand over my first born son to use it. I'd like it if consumers would get a bit more assertive over the stringent and really quite unfair licencing terms. Then we can worry about quality.

Re:Summary

[kfg]

A really good piece of software will tend to get that way through the work of experienced and talented individuals.

So the question devolves to one of, "Where do these experienced and talented individuals tend to end up?"

In my experience they tend to be over in the corner banging their heads against the wall.

KFG

I love these bland quality proclamations

[Timesprout]

OSS is better than yada yada yada. I am perfectly happy to pay for several commercial development tools because they are far superior in terms of quality, functionality and performance than anything I have seen from OSS. When the OSS offering is better I use that.

Rather ironically the lie to the OSS is always better is provided by the recent Bitkeeper kerfuffle. Linus choose Bitkeeper because for him it was the best tool for the job. The zealots moan about it but do nothing so 2 years later when politics interfere there is still no superior OSS alternative, let alone a comparable one.

Lets just focus on letting the user choose the product that suits them best and let them get on with it.