Very Computer

I was talking to Axel Boldt on another matter in this newsgroup, and I made
a soapbox comment regarding commercial software on Linux.  Here it is, in
its own little thread.

I refuse to buy junk.  Don't port it here.  Software is only welcome here
if it's not junk.

I *also* don't want any "you open it, it's yours" crapola.  If it don't
work, I want to send it back, and get a refund.  I don't give two shits
*what* kind of license you create--from my point of view, if I *pay* for
something, I want it to *do* what the *seller* *said* *it* *would* *do* in
the *advertising.*  Period.  If it does not work the way it's supposed to,
I don't want to pay for it.

Is that clear?

--Chuck

P.S.  On NPR last night, I heard a legal scholar suggest that the First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not apply to advertisers.  I hope
he's right, because as far as I'm concerned, the majority of them are
*LIARS*.

: I was talking to Axel Boldt on another matter in this newsgroup, and I made
: a soapbox comment regarding commercial software on Linux.  Here it is, in
: its own little thread.

: I refuse to buy junk.  Don't port it here.  Software is only welcome here
: if it's not junk.

Is this just true for commercial software, or to free software as well?
There are many dreadful free programs available on the net. Would you
prefer that they _didn't_ work on Linux?

Look, if you don't want to buy something, don't buy it. There's no
need to demand that you (and others) don't have the option. Even if
it's junk, it might be better than nothing. If nothing else, it
adds depth to the market.

: [wants a no questions Money Back Guarantee]

A nice thing on any platform, but I can understand why many companies
don't offer it. Some do, though.

: Is that clear?

--
Douglas Ridgway
Department of Physics and Institute for Nonlinear Science
University of California, San Diego
http://inls.ucsd.edu/~ridgway/

Quote:> Look, if you don't want to buy something, don't buy it. There's no
> need to demand that you (and others) don't have the option. Even if
> it's junk, it might be better than nothing. If nothing else, it
> adds depth to the market.

Quote:> : [wants a no questions Money Back Guarantee]

> A nice thing on any platform, but I can understand why many companies
> don't offer it. Some do, though.

Look, people; I'm not trying to discourage people from making money on
their hard work.  Please understand that.  Here's an example, though, of
what I DON'T WANT TO SEE ON LINUX.  I ESPECIALLY don't want to see it when
I can't get the source code!!!

This quote os from an article in the April, 1997, issue of NT SYSTEMS
magazine.  It is from an article called "Managing NT and UNIX", by Garren
Shannon.  It's about NT 4.0 workstations:

"So far, I have only encounterd one significant performance problem with
NT.  Under high use (multiple logins and logouts) and high stress (running
Open GL applications, program testing and high level math computations,)
the workstations tend slowly to increase the amount of total RAM in use
(both physical and virtual) after the applications are closed.  If left
unattended, this would become a problem.     ... a simple shutdown and
restart takes care of the problem."

Almost everything I have been trying to bring out by my involvement with
this newsgroup is covered in just this little quote.  In particular, notice
the word "significant."  Notice how nicely it's covered up in the quote?
This is not just a significant problem; it's very serious.  And this
particular problem may very possibly put a real crimp in the development of
an enterprise system I'm involved with.  But people have been hyped so
badly by these blasted marketers that it's OK for a MAJOR OPERATING SYSTEM
to get re-booted every day.

And the folks at M$ aren't going to give me the source, so I can fix it.

I don't think I want this on Linux.  No thank you.

--Chuck

Quote:> I was talking to Axel Boldt on another matter in this newsgroup, and I
made
> a soapbox comment regarding commercial software on Linux.  Here it is, in
> its own little thread.

> I refuse to buy junk.  Don't port it here.  Software is only welcome here
> if it's not junk.

Quote:> I *also* don't want any "you open it, it's yours" crapola.  If it don't
> work, I want to send it back, and get a refund.  I don't give two shits
> *what* kind of license you create--from my point of view, if I *pay* for
> something, I want it to *do* what the *seller* *said* *it* *would* *do*
in
> the *advertising.*  Period.  If it does not work the way it's supposed
to,
> I don't want to pay for it.

If, however, the Linux market grows large enough to attract companies big
enough that they are *only* driven by money, then the *will begin to
roll in.  There will still be the quality stuff, but the low quality
software writers will try to capture the Linux98 users who don't even
know that Linux is free.

Quote:> Is that clear?

> --Chuck

--
Caesar Wong      May the Force be with you.

(remove .nospam for e-mail replies)

-Tim Watson
--
________________________________________________________________________
T    i    m    o    t    h    y              W    a    t    s    o    n

  __/| Something there is that doesn't love a wall, that wants it down

Quote:> Some Linux applications (most notably GIMP) DO stake out some shared
> memory - which is NOT automatically recovered when the application
> finishes. This memory can be recovered by using a special program or
> rebooting.

But my original intent in quoting the reboot problem was more about the
nature of NT-related publications than about the problem itself.  Also, it
was about how M$ can get away with allowing a problem like this to go on
as long as they feel it's not in their profit interest to fix it.

I don't know much about GIMP, but I assume that if someone wanted to, they
could make the problem go away without begging some company for a fix.

--Chuck

On Sat, 8 Mar 1997 17:52:53 -0600, Chuck Bermingham

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* Matthew Borowski, http://mkb.home.ml.org/                *
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