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So you thought you bought some software
At the heart of the computer industry are some very big lies, and some of them are especially iniquitous. One is about commercial software.
[...] Anyone who chooses to use free and open source software on their desktop regularly gets asked why. Why bother? Isn't it more work? Isn't the pro-grade gear commercial? Isn't it worth buying the good stuff? Windows is the industry standard, isn't it simply less work to go with the flow?
[...] The practical upshot of which is that most of the time, the commercial stuff isn't significantly better. No, it isn't less hassle. Mostly, it's more hassle, but if you're used to the nuisances you don't notice them. If the free software experience was really worse, most of us wouldn't do it.
[...] Anyone who chooses to use free and open source software on their desktop regularly gets asked why. Why bother? Isn't it more work? Isn't the pro-grade gear commercial? Isn't it worth buying the good stuff? Windows is the industry standard, isn't it simply less work to go with the flow?
[...] The reason that it's not better to buy software is simple, but it's a lie. A lie at the heart of the entire computer industry, but nonetheless a lie that's very hard to see – "for the same reason that people in Trafalgar Square can't see England," to quote a good book.
It isn't better to buy commercial software because you can't buy software.
It is not possible for you to own paid-for, commercial software. You can't buy it. You probably think that you have bought lots, but you haven't. All you really bought is a lie.
[...] All you can buy is licenses. Serial numbers or activation keys or maybe even hardware dongles. Strange abstract entities that only really exist in lawyers' minds, which claim to permit you to use someone else's software.
As someone who started installing gcc in the 80's, I use more open source packages than closed source. The only "bugs" they have tend to be compatibility issues. As in, $GiantCorp releases a new version of $PopularProgram and suddenly the Open Source version can't open the new save files.
(Score: 4, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday October 06 2022, @02:05PM (5 children)
There wasn't anything in the article that I didn't already know. But it's a great place to point someone else to who both doesn't understand licensing vs. ownership and open source vs. commercial. (If they don't mind doing the LONG read to get to understand the issues).
At home I'm using Windows (there's always at least one program that I'm using that doesn't run on Wine, which has varied over the years). But I run LibreOffice and use Thunderbird, intentionally.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Thursday October 06 2022, @03:05PM (3 children)
This feels like an argument from the days nerds were nerds and stuff mattered.
People don't buy software now, they rent it -- office for $10 a month, a pdf reader for $57 a month, web browser and email for your personal data, etc.
It's less hassle for the average person to rent software than to license it in the "buy it" way it used to work.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday October 06 2022, @04:49PM
Considering that I have a lot of eight and sixteen bit software that won't run on a modern computer, there's not a lot of difference.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Friday October 07 2022, @07:17AM (1 child)
People pay $57/month for a PDF reader? You have to be joking! (You are joking, aren't you. Aren't you?)
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday October 07 2022, @07:21AM
Sorry, that also includes photoshop etc.
Just for acrobat it's about $20 a month, or $240 a year
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/pricing.html [adobe.com]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday October 07 2022, @02:44AM
I gave up even trying to get WINE to behave, or run at all--!! and now when I need a WinApp on Linux, I install WinXP in a VM and use that. Life is much easier that way. I can have WinAmp and my RTF editor (why is there no real native RTF editor for linux??) on my nice linux desktop, and not have to fight with some cranky not-an-emulator.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.