Hello all,
I hoped that this thread would die out sooner or later, but I realize that people have a lot on their minds. To the plain user, the critical difference between free software and the one you pay for, is that you don't have a number to call when something goes wrong. I know, there are companies offering support. But the classic model was that users looked for the solutions by themselves, and most of us still work that way. The argument always was, that searching for the answer on the web will take more or less the same time as explaining the problem to some tech support person, only the web is more likely to help you. And that even though free software isn't managed centrally, it evolves to become better than software developed by an organized team. And it just so happens that Haifux is running like a free software project. I'm not saying that everything's been 100% all the time, but somehow this system got Haifux a vast variety of lectures and glitches comparable with organized events. The issue about this last event is not where Orna or I were. The question is why the system failed. My personal impression is that the reason was more like people expecting a customer support. Had there been some good-old "Nobody solved the problem, so I'll solve it" spirit around, we wouldn't have an incident to discuss at all. What really worries me is not lecture organizations. I'm sure everyone is informed enough by now, so this will not happen again. What worries me, is that as recent Linux distros talk to us in terms of Windows ("lean back, the system now fixes your problem, don't ask me what I'm doing") that kind of spirit takes over the way we think. And if that's where we going, we will all be served by companies we depend on sooner or later, and it won't matter anymore whether the software is free or not, because we will be hostages to our supported distro providers. Eli -- Web: http://www.billauer.co.il _______________________________________________ Haifux mailing list Haifux@haifux.org http://hamakor.org.il/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haifux