[ajug-members] this is funny

[david wible]

I'm glad I wrote the email b/c this is my first time using OS stuff - even
$30 for MyEclipse.  But the mindset is different than purchasing a product.
If one complains... let the dev team know about it which is an option.
Complaing doesn't help the people at MyEclipse and that's a good point.
Like I said it is a different mindsetthan buying a product.

on the other side if I didn't pay anything for it and it breaks I shouldn't
be surprised and I better not let anyone else know it didn't work??  you may
not give me style points for the originating email but if you give
consideration for something and it doesn't work you have an option to get
your money back.  Whereas with OS if it doesn't work then what is your
option?  Put up the money?  That is a different discussion   But what we are
really talking about it managing risk.  Something always breaks!  Either you
pay for support or you get the source so you can debug it.

I don't have the source to Eclipse YET!  so when it gets a leak what am I to
do?  COMPLAIN!!!

Context:  I inheirited the solution I'm using now at my employer!  You never
change horses mid-stream and I can't.  So when I get bit I wanted to see
what the heck was going on.  I voiced my concerns to this group to see what
you thought.  Again I'm not getting any style points but if you haven't done
OS then beware when you do.  I've used Eclipse since 1.0, before that JEdit
so it's been good enough for me for a long time.

Part of the OS movement I'm sure was anti-Microsoft.  I don't care what we
use.  As long as it works.  One can carry the OS flag but if you haven't
donated any code than you have to be willing to take criticism, dare I say,
blame if it doesn't work.  I'm for-profit and time is money.

dw



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Wells" <jb at sourceillustrated.com>
To: "General AJUG membership forum (100-200 messages/month)"
<ajug-members at ajug.org>
Cc: "General AJUG membership forum" <ajug-members at ajug.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: [ajug-members] this is funny


> 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
>
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