Personally, I feel that the ability to share files is one of the least useful features of a PVR. If there is something I really want to see, its trivial to just record it myself. Plus with the way cable TV works, the same shows will often get repeated multiple times on the same day or the coming weeks, so if my friend comes to me and says "did you see this show, you gotta see it" I would just find it on the schedule and record it myself. Plus there is a going trend of network shows to appear on basic cable during the next two weeks. Not to mention that it will be repeated at least two or three times later in the TV season.
I do think that a major victim of file sharing TiVos will be HBO, as I can see "The Sopranos" and other non-basic cable shows to be most shared files out there, and I don't think that's right. I'd say a feature that isn't really necessary, is highly controversial, and in IMO most likely to be used illegally should be removed right now, especially if it threatens the overall survival of the excellent service.
It seems to me that a drone is an all-around better solution than a piloted aircraft. For one thing, they can be controlled from the ground and if there is a decent uplink, then reaction time should be negligible - this would obviously save human lives during combat. Does a pilot really get a lot of useful sensory data by looking out of the window at mach-whatever? Don't tell me military jets aren't drive-by-wire... Second, in the event of a partial mechanical failure, a drone AI will blissfully plunge to its death as it steers toward some unoccupied area, where a pilot would bail out. Plus a drone AI would be impervious to blackouts and other G-force effects.
It is certainly possible to succeed without going to a great college or even going to college at all. But, it is much easier to be successful if you go to a prestigious school. Many companies use alumni as recruiters, and there is often a preexisting relationship between the best companies and the best schools. In other words, going to a good school puts you on the inside track.
Maybe I haven't had enough caffeine today, but I'm not understanding what this team has changed, exactly.
I've had plenty of caffeine and I can't figure it out either. It seems like the "back" behaviour they are trying to fix is like when you go a site with frames, navigate for a while, then click "back" and you go back to the previous site - though not many sites are like that today,
I don't understand where he's coming up with that the roots of linux are in wintel. It has been Unix, and always will be. Everything is a file; you can administer with vi from across the world; the OS is extremely modular; etc etc. I also think his point is completely undercut by OS X, which is true Unix derivative but maintains a feature set impressively close to Windows. Just because Linux isn't there now doesn't mean it can't be there eventually.
As someone who wants to have children, I think this is a good thing. However, this is still not a substitute for parenting and monitoring what your kid does on the Internet. Consider TV - sure all the "Action Figure Man" cartoons and candy commercials are "kid-friendly", but you shouldn't just turn your kid loose on the boob tube all day.
Sure, Uzi Nissan probably has the right to nissan.com. But lets be realistic about things. 99.9999% of people who type in nissan.com are looking for the car company. The only people expecting to see a 2-person computing shop probable saw nissan.com on a business card, and just as easily could have typed in "nissan-computing.com". I doubt anyone has ever thought "I need a computer company, lets try nissan.com". Mr Nissan is going quite far out of his way to confuse a lot of people. Just because hes within his legal rights (maybe), I still think its cruddy thing to do to both the company and potential consumers. It would also be nice for him to provide a hyptertext link to nissandriven.com, which he currently is not doing.
The kind of publishing that needs formatting, fonts, and color is mainly about deception. With rare exceptions, text is the truth, and the window-dressing tries to hide it. From Madison Avenue advertising shills to corporate Annual Report polishers to the legions of "PowerPoint(tm)
Engineers" infesting government contracting, its all about getting your words to be judged by something other than what they say.
...
In a more ideal future, all presentation issues will be decided on the client side. You send me the data, and I've configured my software to present it the way I prefer. It won't happen for a while yet, but I can dream. And the continued use of PDF blocks this dream.
I think you have a good point, but there are other reasons to use fonts and colors besides besides deception - there is the simple matter of self-expression. Your argument taken to its logical conclusion will apply equally to HTML as well - but there are legions of people who hand-craft web pages with a carefully chosen look and feel. The same thing is true with companies, for example Google's beautifully spare page compared to some others. This subconscious communication can be very powerful. I sympathize about the PowerPoint engineers, but its still really the fault of the people who are listening and simply are unwilling to seriously analyze words despite a glitzy window dressing. Despite the fact it has the most attractive front page, I would not use Google if I didn't think it was the best search engine.
Yeah, but I'm willing to bet that most of that 99.9% aren't "their most ardent supporters".
What is your point? No company can ne expected to cater to.1% of its audience, no matter how "ardent" they are
Yes, and how many years ago was that?
And (since we're talking Kali) what happened to future support for that? Oh yeah, Blizzard killed it - and sent C&D letters to Kali threatening them...
Kali is still available and usable, for anyone who cares to look. As for cease and desist letters, I googled around and didn't find any mention of that, only a summary of the case that says that Kali never did receive such a letter. See also this. Make of these what you will...
Ahh.. no, it didn't.. in fact bnetd NEVER supported WC3, and when the bnetd maintainers refused to add support for it, the people asking forked it.
You (and Blizzard) seem to be blaming the bnetd people. So why aren't YOU blaming the right people?
Yes, thats Blizzard's point - even if the bnetd people were totally scrupulous, other people can swoop in, modify the source, and create servers for illegally obtained clients. So what is Blizzard supposed to do? Turn their CD key validation code over to the public? Then what is the point of having keys at all? It ridiculous to expect Blizzard to do so. As I said before, it's exactly the same thing is requiring Microsoft to turn over their Office CD validation code to the public. What is your solution to Blizzard dilemma, simply trust that people won't use illegal clients and beta leaks? Oh wait, they already tried that one didn't they... The sad truth is that it really does only take a few morons to ruin it for everyone. I don't know if Blizzard has a legal leg to stand on, but I really don't think they have a choice.
Furthermore, I have yet to hear a single reason how or why that the "ardent supporters" are "fucked". Because they have to use Kali (which is currently free and support up to Starcraft Brood War)? Because it takes them an extra 10 seconds to set up a game on Battle.net? As I said, its a complete joke.
and they've fucked their most ardent supporters (bnetd anyone?)
Oh please... this is a joke. 99.9% of Blizzard's customers have never even heard of bnetd. Furthermore, Blizzard is one of the best companies as far customer response. Back in the day when games could only be played over IPX networks, the biggest IPX over TCP program was kalled Kali. Blizzard went out of their way to make a binary that optimized for this game service (war2kali.exe). I can't think of any other company doing something similar. To this day, WCII and SC users can still use such programs (Kahn, Kali, etc) to play multiplayer net games that completely bypass battlenet. I don't see how anyone has been "fucked" as you put it. Finally bnetd became a haven for people playing illegal betas for WCIII. Notice that they let the whole thing slide *until* that happened. A few people (probably a lot more) playing pirated games ruined it for everyone. Blame the people playing the WCIII betas, not Blizzard.
Superman's real "weaknesses" are his morals. Sure he is all-powerful, but he is also strictly confined within his own rules. Defined purely by his own boundaries he has become a predictable, pliable tool.
Batman's weakness is clearly physical and his boundaries seem to be imposed upon him by nature. However he will do whatever is necessary to break and bend these shortcomings. Can't fly? Get a batwing. No heat-ray eyes? Use lasers. As such Batman's real limit is his ingenuity.
Batman has the exact same issue as Superman - he refuses to kill. Batman's "pliability" was recently explored in the Planetary/JLA crossover
No really, check it out. Always a good business model to try to tap into the insatiable desire for more pornography, but I can't imagine why its not working!
I don't know the history of this idea, but the book Mind Transfer (1988) by Janet Asimov was about the exact same thing - building a robot to hold you "self" that lived on after your biological body died.
A far more likely cause for the abundance of contridictory holy books on this planet is that people in power tend to want to design easy ways to keep their subjects under control.
The earliest Christians led lives of self-sacrifice and fear, and nearly all the apostles were martyred for their beliefs. For the first few hundred years in which Christians were brutally persecuted, I don't really think they were in it for polital power.
You seem to think you have the truth about the unknowable, and that your moral code derives from a higher source than mine. Sounds pretty "holier-than-thou" to me. Other people think God's will has been plainly revealed to them too, yet for them it justifies entirely different things. Construct your idea of God apropriately, and you can in fact justify whatever you please. I do not believe in god(s). Therefore I believe your moral judgements are your own. You are responsible for them, and thus putting that responsibility on God is a "cop-out". As far as what has offended me in the past, it is not the beliefs of religious people, it is that I am expected to take their belief in God more seriously than a childs belief in Santa.
Your logic is flawed. Its equivalent to me saying "I like tacos because they are crunchy", and you saying "Crunchiness is completely subjective. I don't believe in crunchy food. You like tacos because they have cheese". This makes no sense. Furthermore, you describe God as "unknowable". You are therefore implicitly stating that God *might* exist, but we cannot know for sure. Then how can you possibly verify whether or not I'm telling the truth if I say I get my morals from God? For all you know, perhaps I have discovered a way to communicate with the God you don't know about. Perhaps you haven't even tried to find God. Also, your use of the term "cop-out" continues to confuse me. Just what exactly am I "copping-out" of? For not claiming ownership of "love your neighbor before yourself"? For not writing I Cor 13? Sorry, but I don't deserve the credit. I don't know your story, but I do know that your position has some serious problems.
While I do agree with a few things you think, I think you have it wrong. Being a liberatarian and an atheist I think he deserved the personal attack. Here's my justification... I live in the south... every day several people throw their god up in my face... I told, at least once a week, that I'm being prayed for... I'm told weekly that I'm going to go to hell if I don't accept Jesus...
So, basically, if this guy has to get some sort of an attack for 20 seconds I can't really feel bad for him. Him and his religion attack my beliefs every chance they get (and yes, the church does promote trying to "convert" everyone... though I'm sure just so they can get those tithes), so it's a taste-of-your-own-medicince sort of thing. Maybe, one of these years, his kind will realize that I don't want to be barricaded with their beliefs; when that happens I'll have no more to say on the subject.
I can certainly understand your frustration. No Mr Abu from Nigeria, I don't want to help complete your bank transaction. But I really don't see the connection between your frustration, and the fact that someone here "deserved" an attack. I don't think Nigeria deserves to be attacked either (yes, much of that scam spam *does* originate there). Also keep in mind that the South is a very Christian area, up here in the north east, one can go years without getting prayed for. So again, does someone here on/. "deserve" to get attacked because you live in the south as opposed to the northeast? Well, I guess you get my point. No one should feel attacked, either you by Christians or Christians by atheists.
I impose my own moral constrains upon myself, thanks. I'm not very fond of others imposing their moral constraints upon me, but what really ticks me of is their ascribing those constraints to an invisible, unprovable super-being. That's a cop out. They're just dodging the responsibility for imposing *their* constraints, and assigning *their* constraints superior status. God can explain or justify anything, and hence explains and justifies nothing. A lot of people use God to justify some perfectly fine things, but if they'd have some guts and admit it is they themselves that are making the judgements, they might have a harder time justifying terrible things.
All Christians struggle on a daily basis with sin and obeying God's laws. I regret than many professing Christians come off with a "holier-than-thou" attitude, I sense this has offended you in the past. But beleive me, the last thing going through a true Christian's head is "I will twist what God wants in order to do what I want". Rather, a Christian will go far out of his way to make the morally correct decision, even if it is perhaps a difficult one and not what we want to do. The statment that "God can explain or justify anything" simply is not true - His will has been plainly revealed. For example, a Christian should not use God's name to justify killing pagans or abortion doctors. Those that do so are either not really Christians, or have been overcome by sin and really need some help. Anyway, I just wanted you understand a little more about Christian morality, and the struggles we go through trying to be moral people - the very last term I would is "cop-out".
btw, youve been told that so that youll believe that you are something special, as opposed to simply an animal like the rest of the species that inhabit the planet. that much should be easy to see.
So, if I happened to run you over with my car, the penalty should be no more than if I ran over a squirrel. Or I should feel no more remorse than if I killed a deer. Even most non-Christians understand that man, while still a creature, has more inherant worth than say, a dead skunk on the side of the road.
F'cryin' out loud... why, on a website frequented by rabid Libertarians are Christians always jumped on by atheists like a pack of pirahna? Should we return the favor? Is that what you're looking for? Some justification for your vitriol?
I think it's that many non-Christians simply do not feel comfortable with Christian concepts of sin and accountability. Many people just want to live their life the way they want and don't want anyone telling them what to do, and they view the existence Christianity as some kind of personal attack. This can be seen even in the responses to the original article - people do not like moral constraints being imposed on them, whether it be God doing it or Wal-Mart.
I agree with you on the most part however I find it that idealism doesn't really accomplish anything other then logically consistency. Which really doesn't mean anything either since you can construct a logical consistent argument for anything. No, its the pragmatic people who are to able to bend and find solutions to problems. Bitkeeper is only an idealogical problem at this time if it becomes a problem that deters effciency then it becomes one of pragamatism.
There would not be such a large debate today on this particular issue if it were only idealogical. The BK license may already be too restrictive, see here. It could mean that anyone who works for a company that distributes any competing source control product (Debian, Red Hat distributing CVS, subversion) would now be forbidden to use BK. This could potentially slow kernel development. At best the situation is ambiguous, and its time to consult the lawyers. Now RMS's point is that if Linus had been using a free-as-in-freedom version control system, there would be no ambiguity, and the community would not have to deal with sneak license changes. The problem is that you have now placed your destiny in the hands of some other company that could, on a whim, revoke your license. Now if this happens, you could of course switch to CVS or subversion, but then why weren't you there in the first place?
It doesn't matter. A company has the right to shoot itself in the foot as far as pricing. Their software, their rules. You will find , however, that a large majority of companies do in fact have reasonable educational discounts.
From what I gathered in the article, it seems like he is proposing a scheme by which normally unused registers (MMX, etc) can be used as general purpose registers. To do this, he considers an aliasing system. My question is, why can't a x86 programmer today just use those MMX registers for more general purposes? I'm sure there's a good reason, I just can't figure it out from the article - thanks
If I have a copy of lightwave 3D that I am not licensed to have, would I have bought this $5,000 product. BTW I'm a student with an annual income of arround a $5,000 loan.
No. Thats right. Lightwave inc. havent lost out.
Did you know there is a Lightwave student edition? Looks like Lightwave is down $395 to me. That looks like 1/4 of their normal price of $1600 or so. Or heck, there is even a free version that has some reduced capabilities, but would be perfectly suited for learning the product. This is the offer Lightwave has chosen to extend to students and those who wish to learn the software, it is not fair for you to just say, "Nah I just want to use an illegal copy of the full product"
How about we live in a world where we make free software the "best" for many purposes? That way we don't have to have the Freedom Police goose-stepping their way onto my computer to make sure I'm making the right choices for the benefit of "society at large".
Happily, that's the world I live in. When free software is the best, I use it. When it's not, I pay up. And either way, I contribute back to the community, widening the space in which free software is the best.
You (and the other responders to my post) have completely missed my point... Unfortuntely, software is either free-as-in-freedom, or its not - there is no gray area when it comes to this. With free software, all rights for personal use and modification are in the hands of the end user. You have control. With non-free software however, your rights can be taken away on a whim. This problem is only getting worse now that many companies are adopting subscription models.
Now I'm not saying right now there is no reason to use proprietary software - the issue at hand is the attitude "if its the best product, use it". It is a naive attitude that does not reflect real-world concerns. It tends to reward nasty, anti-competitve companies like Microsoft that use monopolistic practices to create the "best" product, but only because they stifled competition. My point is not to debate which model produces better sofware but to acknowledge the role of free-as-in-freedom software in the debate - too many people don't think it should be factor.
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Personally, I feel that the ability to share files is one of the least useful features of a PVR. If there is something I really want to see, its trivial to just record it myself. Plus with the way cable TV works, the same shows will often get repeated multiple times on the same day or the coming weeks, so if my friend comes to me and says "did you see this show, you gotta see it" I would just find it on the schedule and record it myself. Plus there is a going trend of network shows to appear on basic cable during the next two weeks. Not to mention that it will be repeated at least two or three times later in the TV season.
I do think that a major victim of file sharing TiVos will be HBO, as I can see "The Sopranos" and other non-basic cable shows to be most shared files out there, and I don't think that's right. I'd say a feature that isn't really necessary, is highly controversial, and in IMO most likely to be used illegally should be removed right now, especially if it threatens the overall survival of the excellent service.
It seems to me that a drone is an all-around better solution than a piloted aircraft. For one thing, they can be controlled from the ground and if there is a decent uplink, then reaction time should be negligible - this would obviously save human lives during combat. Does a pilot really get a lot of useful sensory data by looking out of the window at mach-whatever? Don't tell me military jets aren't drive-by-wire... Second, in the event of a partial mechanical failure, a drone AI will blissfully plunge to its death as it steers toward some unoccupied area, where a pilot would bail out. Plus a drone AI would be impervious to blackouts and other G-force effects.
It is certainly possible to succeed without going to a great college or even going to college at all. But, it is much easier to be successful if you go to a prestigious school. Many companies use alumni as recruiters, and there is often a preexisting relationship between the best companies and the best schools. In other words, going to a good school puts you on the inside track.
I've had plenty of caffeine and I can't figure it out either. It seems like the "back" behaviour they are trying to fix is like when you go a site with frames, navigate for a while, then click "back" and you go back to the previous site - though not many sites are like that today,
I don't understand where he's coming up with that the roots of linux are in wintel. It has been Unix, and always will be. Everything is a file; you can administer with vi from across the world; the OS is extremely modular; etc etc. I also think his point is completely undercut by OS X, which is true Unix derivative but maintains a feature set impressively close to Windows. Just because Linux isn't there now doesn't mean it can't be there eventually.
As someone who wants to have children, I think this is a good thing. However, this is still not a substitute for parenting and monitoring what your kid does on the Internet. Consider TV - sure all the "Action Figure Man" cartoons and candy commercials are "kid-friendly", but you shouldn't just turn your kid loose on the boob tube all day.
Sure, Uzi Nissan probably has the right to nissan.com. But lets be realistic about things. 99.9999% of people who type in nissan.com are looking for the car company. The only people expecting to see a 2-person computing shop probable saw nissan.com on a business card, and just as easily could have typed in "nissan-computing.com". I doubt anyone has ever thought "I need a computer company, lets try nissan.com". Mr Nissan is going quite far out of his way to confuse a lot of people. Just because hes within his legal rights (maybe), I still think its cruddy thing to do to both the company and potential consumers. It would also be nice for him to provide a hyptertext link to nissandriven.com, which he currently is not doing.
In a more ideal future, all presentation issues will be decided on the client side. You send me the data, and I've configured my software to present it the way I prefer. It won't happen for a while yet, but I can dream. And the continued use of PDF blocks this dream.
I think you have a good point, but there are other reasons to use fonts and colors besides besides deception - there is the simple matter of self-expression. Your argument taken to its logical conclusion will apply equally to HTML as well - but there are legions of people who hand-craft web pages with a carefully chosen look and feel. The same thing is true with companies, for example Google's beautifully spare page compared to some others. This subconscious communication can be very powerful. I sympathize about the PowerPoint engineers, but its still really the fault of the people who are listening and simply are unwilling to seriously analyze words despite a glitzy window dressing. Despite the fact it has the most attractive front page, I would not use Google if I didn't think it was the best search engine.
What is your point? No company can ne expected to cater to .1% of its audience, no matter how "ardent" they are
Yes, and how many years ago was that? And (since we're talking Kali) what happened to future support for that? Oh yeah, Blizzard killed it - and sent C&D letters to Kali threatening them...
Kali is still available and usable, for anyone who cares to look. As for cease and desist letters, I googled around and didn't find any mention of that, only a summary of the case that says that Kali never did receive such a letter. See also this. Make of these what you will...
Ahh.. no, it didn't.. in fact bnetd NEVER supported WC3, and when the bnetd maintainers refused to add support for it, the people asking forked it. You (and Blizzard) seem to be blaming the bnetd people. So why aren't YOU blaming the right people?
Yes, thats Blizzard's point - even if the bnetd people were totally scrupulous, other people can swoop in, modify the source, and create servers for illegally obtained clients. So what is Blizzard supposed to do? Turn their CD key validation code over to the public? Then what is the point of having keys at all? It ridiculous to expect Blizzard to do so. As I said before, it's exactly the same thing is requiring Microsoft to turn over their Office CD validation code to the public. What is your solution to Blizzard dilemma, simply trust that people won't use illegal clients and beta leaks? Oh wait, they already tried that one didn't they... The sad truth is that it really does only take a few morons to ruin it for everyone. I don't know if Blizzard has a legal leg to stand on, but I really don't think they have a choice.
Furthermore, I have yet to hear a single reason how or why that the "ardent supporters" are "fucked". Because they have to use Kali (which is currently free and support up to Starcraft Brood War)? Because it takes them an extra 10 seconds to set up a game on Battle.net? As I said, its a complete joke.
Oh please... this is a joke. 99.9% of Blizzard's customers have never even heard of bnetd. Furthermore, Blizzard is one of the best companies as far customer response. Back in the day when games could only be played over IPX networks, the biggest IPX over TCP program was kalled Kali. Blizzard went out of their way to make a binary that optimized for this game service (war2kali.exe). I can't think of any other company doing something similar. To this day, WCII and SC users can still use such programs (Kahn, Kali, etc) to play multiplayer net games that completely bypass battlenet. I don't see how anyone has been "fucked" as you put it. Finally bnetd became a haven for people playing illegal betas for WCIII. Notice that they let the whole thing slide *until* that happened. A few people (probably a lot more) playing pirated games ruined it for everyone. Blame the people playing the WCIII betas, not Blizzard.
Batman has the exact same issue as Superman - he refuses to kill. Batman's "pliability" was recently explored in the Planetary/JLA crossover
It really depends on the writer - that particular Frank Miller story isn't DC canon anyway
No really, check it out. Always a good business model to try to tap into the insatiable desire for more pornography, but I can't imagine why its not working!
I don't know the history of this idea, but the book Mind Transfer (1988) by Janet Asimov was about the exact same thing - building a robot to hold you "self" that lived on after your biological body died.
The earliest Christians led lives of self-sacrifice and fear, and nearly all the apostles were martyred for their beliefs. For the first few hundred years in which Christians were brutally persecuted, I don't really think they were in it for polital power.
All Christians struggle on a daily basis with sin and obeying God's laws. I regret than many professing Christians come off with a "holier-than-thou" attitude, I sense this has offended you in the past. But beleive me, the last thing going through a true Christian's head is "I will twist what God wants in order to do what I want". Rather, a Christian will go far out of his way to make the morally correct decision, even if it is perhaps a difficult one and not what we want to do. The statment that "God can explain or justify anything" simply is not true - His will has been plainly revealed. For example, a Christian should not use God's name to justify killing pagans or abortion doctors. Those that do so are either not really Christians, or have been overcome by sin and really need some help. Anyway, I just wanted you understand a little more about Christian morality, and the struggles we go through trying to be moral people - the very last term I would is "cop-out".
So, if I happened to run you over with my car, the penalty should be no more than if I ran over a squirrel. Or I should feel no more remorse than if I killed a deer. Even most non-Christians understand that man, while still a creature, has more inherant worth than say, a dead skunk on the side of the road.
I think it's that many non-Christians simply do not feel comfortable with Christian concepts of sin and accountability. Many people just want to live their life the way they want and don't want anyone telling them what to do, and they view the existence Christianity as some kind of personal attack. This can be seen even in the responses to the original article - people do not like moral constraints being imposed on them, whether it be God doing it or Wal-Mart.
There would not be such a large debate today on this particular issue if it were only idealogical. The BK license may already be too restrictive, see here. It could mean that anyone who works for a company that distributes any competing source control product (Debian, Red Hat distributing CVS, subversion) would now be forbidden to use BK. This could potentially slow kernel development. At best the situation is ambiguous, and its time to consult the lawyers. Now RMS's point is that if Linus had been using a free-as-in-freedom version control system, there would be no ambiguity, and the community would not have to deal with sneak license changes. The problem is that you have now placed your destiny in the hands of some other company that could, on a whim, revoke your license. Now if this happens, you could of course switch to CVS or subversion, but then why weren't you there in the first place?
It doesn't matter. A company has the right to shoot itself in the foot as far as pricing. Their software, their rules. You will find , however, that a large majority of companies do in fact have reasonable educational discounts.
From what I gathered in the article, it seems like he is proposing a scheme by which normally unused registers (MMX, etc) can be used as general purpose registers. To do this, he considers an aliasing system. My question is, why can't a x86 programmer today just use those MMX registers for more general purposes? I'm sure there's a good reason, I just can't figure it out from the article - thanks
No. Thats right. Lightwave inc. havent lost out.
Did you know there is a Lightwave student edition? Looks like Lightwave is down $395 to me. That looks like 1/4 of their normal price of $1600 or so. Or heck, there is even a free version that has some reduced capabilities, but would be perfectly suited for learning the product. This is the offer Lightwave has chosen to extend to students and those who wish to learn the software, it is not fair for you to just say, "Nah I just want to use an illegal copy of the full product"
Happily, that's the world I live in. When free software is the best, I use it. When it's not, I pay up. And either way, I contribute back to the community, widening the space in which free software is the best.
You (and the other responders to my post) have completely missed my point... Unfortuntely, software is either free-as-in-freedom, or its not - there is no gray area when it comes to this. With free software, all rights for personal use and modification are in the hands of the end user. You have control. With non-free software however, your rights can be taken away on a whim. This problem is only getting worse now that many companies are adopting subscription models.
Now I'm not saying right now there is no reason to use proprietary software - the issue at hand is the attitude "if its the best product, use it". It is a naive attitude that does not reflect real-world concerns. It tends to reward nasty, anti-competitve companies like Microsoft that use monopolistic practices to create the "best" product, but only because they stifled competition. My point is not to debate which model produces better sofware but to acknowledge the role of free-as-in-freedom software in the debate - too many people don't think it should be factor.