[ajug-members] this is funny

[John Wells]

Rob Kischuk said:
> I realize you had a problem, and it was frustrating and time consuming.
> I can tell you truthfully that I've spent just as much time chasing
> nasty glitches in commercial software as I have open source.  Internet
> Explorer bites me MORE than FireFox/Mozilla.  DB2 freaks out on us far
> more than PostgreSQL, which just works.

Agreed.  And with Open Source, the power to determine what happened is in
your hands and level of interest/persistence.  With commercial software,
you're entirely at the whim of support contracts, Nth-level support teams
and sheer apathy.

> At the end of the day, hey, use what works for you, but implicitly
> slamming Eclipse, JBoss, Struts, and Open Source software in general
> because of a problem that is probably either due to *commercial
> software* (MyEclipse is not OS, AFAIK) or Eclipse (meaning the same
> error would probably happen in WSAD under identical circumstances) is
> more than a little over the top.

I can tell you that as a the Director of Software Development at a fairly
large company, I will *never* hire someone who dogs software, commerial or
not, in this manner...and if a current employee does it they are ribbed
pretty hard by the rest of the team.  The rationale is that if you're so
quick to judge an entire application, much less an entire community, based
on an unexplained problem that you obviously haven't researched, then
you're much a problem solver or inquisitive mind...you're a blamer.  We
don't have any room for that sort of attitude.

Nothing against you, David, but when you run into situations like this,
perhaps it's better to collect relevant information and submit it to the
development teams involved with the software you are using.  That way, you
at least have the potential of making a positive contribution...by simply
complaining to a mailing list you do nothing but spread FUD.  Open source
software is a great benefit to both commercial and non-profit companies
and individuals.  Our company is much more likely to choose to fund an
open source project over purchasing a commercial app, given equivalent
features, because we value the common goals of empowerment through
collaboration and sharing.

Then again, you could scrap open source completely, purchase a commercial
OTS product for hundreds if not thousands more, and then complain loudly
to all when it breaks (it will...all software does).  At least then, you
might have an inkling of ground to stand on.

John