I'm inclined to agree w/ Fred, but, Nelson, you have a great point. I tend to think about it in terms of competition. Before GS and a couple other recent customer service web services, there had been real stagnation in that area. GS will provide the competition to the FOSS options (like Miro's previous one) to innovate and one-up GS. Hopefully that happens and Miro will be able to switch back (dependent on data portability).
On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 6:11 PM, Nelson Pavlosky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: > It's not so much the use of a proprietary service like Get Satisfaction > that bugs me as the fact that Miro *was* using an open source forum and > migrated away from it. I'm OK with the march to freedom being long, > slow, and hard, but I become concerned when the trends start going the > other way, away from freedom. > > It's not so much that I want to open every service that I use, or that I > refuse to use proprietary services... Rather, if I have a choice between > a fully-featured open source service and a prettier/trendier service > with no "killer app" features that differentiate it, I will choose the > FOSS project. I don't see why Get Satisfaction is so much better than > the open source forum software Miro was using before, or why we couldn't > build something as good as Get Satisfaction. I think that Identi.ca has > stated loud and clear that we can build open source, decentralized > projects that have the capability of someday trouncing proprietary > services like Twitter. I was using Twitter on and off but I am now an > Identi.ca convert, and I hope that everyone will join me not only on > Identi.ca but on future open source, decentralized services sure to > eventually follow. > > I am not troubled by the existence of Get Satisfaction, or its use, but > by the abandonment of open source options for it. People should be > switching the other way! It is time to examine why open source projects > are abandoning open source support forums, replicate Get Satisfaction's > features in an open+decentralized model, and then if they cannot keep up > with the open/decentralized version, leave them in the dust. > > Peace, > ~Nelson~ > > Fred Benenson wrote: > > Yeah, I'm not totally convinced of the need to open EVERY service that I > > use. I think data portability is really the paramount issue, an issue GS > > doesn't seem that likely to abuse -- I suppose a "database" of questions > and > > answers could be downloadable in a format to be used in other contexts, > but > > its just text. > > > > And I'm wary of turning SFC into a software freedom project first and a > > functional organization that responds to feedback via a cool service like > > GS, second. > > > > F > > > > > > On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 6:35 AM, Stephen Paul Weber < > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > >>> Recently a number of open source projects including the Mozilla > >>> Foundation, Songbird, and Miro have switched to using a customer > support > >>> service called Get Satisfaction. Get Satisfaction's core code is > >>> largely proprietary software. > >>> > >>> How much of a problem is it for open source projects to use a > >>> proprietary customer support system? > >>> > >> Beyond the idealist concept that all software should be opensource, > >> how is this an issue at all? GS is a good service that does its job > >> well and has a great team behind it. I see no reason not to support > >> their service. Very few web services are open source - we applaud > >> those that are, but we don't boycott those that aren't. > >> > >> -- > >> - Stephen Paul Weber (Singpolyma) > >> > >> Web: http://singpolyma.net/ > >> Twitter: http://twitter.com/singpolyma > >> IM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Discuss mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > >> > >> > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Discuss mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss >
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