>This is not "bullying" the pathology and radiology corporates. >No, it is offering a competetive alternative in the marketplace. >This is a good thing. >And to make this possible, Argus needs to have a little bit of registration code. >This doesn't deter me in the least. We need to get encrypted email going. Argus is here, it's free, and it works.
Maybe I'm a cynic, but (forgetting the additional benefit of open source), the difference seems to be as simple as "Who is paying for it". Argus has received "funding", whereas the other developers have had to "pay their own way" from the outset. Unless those at Argus receive no pay, the only real difference is that public money has been used to seed Argus. Both Argus and the "others" have a product that they want to succeed, that they realise must be made to pay or the research and development dries up. They must both succeed in generating revenue to pay for staff, buildings, development, even coffee. This shifts the difference to "with proprietary software, those using it must pay" to "everyone must pay for it, even if they don't want it" (through the initial funding), and then "the people who do want it pay again, if they want support". As they say, there are many ways to slice an apple. I have long been an advocate of a single download client and strong views have been voiced against me in many forums. All I ask is to cut down on the rhetoric. Argus is a good idea, but those things that make it good are being eroded because the project is having to exist in the same commercial marketplace as other offerings. Chris. _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
