On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:59:46 +0530, Rony
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> Kenneth has echoed my thoughts exactly and put it nicely in words.
> Having bugs in a software is possible but after more than 5 years if a
> software behaves as if it was a beta and released just yesterday for
> the first time, then this is a flaw in the software not some mistake
> or attitude problem of the installing person. There is nothing
> hilarious about a person complaining about such grave issues in the
> software. The cell colour problem I had highlighted was not even
> connected to any proprietary file formats. It happens in Open formats.
I, like some others on the list, have been unable to reproduce
it. Have you filed a bug with the distribution you are using?
> M$ softwares may have more bugs, be less stable than nix based ones
> but when they are in the stable working mode, at least they do the job
> they are intended to do.
This does not match my experience. I have been using Linux since
'86, and VMS since '83; and windows since, umm, '91. I can't say I can
agree with that statement.
> And if FOSS fans feel it is below dignity to compare libre software
> with M$ ones, then why is it that whenever a problem is pointed out in
> the libre software, they start counting the bugs in M$ ones.
This seems to be a mischaracterization of what actually
happened. A statement was made extolling the virtues of a non--free
application, and a free one was stated to be worse; people just pointed
out that their experience does not match. The non-free application is
not as bug free as it was being represented to be; and the free
applications bugs were not universally reproducible.
> Why can't they except that the particular software has serious flaws
> that need to be corrected.
Oh, sure, any application can have bugs. However, if I can not
reproduce them, I can't help debug the problem; and I also can't say I
can see the serious flaws in the application; which is not to say you
are not seeing the bugs.
I just can't see them.
> Free software is no longer the free blood donation camp.
It never was one, as far as I can tell.
> Today major libre software and distro development is taking place
> through huge sponsorship and donations and by corporate
> participation.
Heh. How come none of the money comes my way?
In any case, if you feel these corporate money bags owe you
something, you ought to go complain to them directly, neh?
> The programmers are compensated for their efforts, so while the
> institution is giving away the software for free, the developer is not
> doing any charity. Then why not expect quality work instead of a 'Fix
> it yourself' community kit.
Hmm. Which programmers are these? Perhaps you should try
complaining to their supervisors?
As far as this free software developer is concerned, I have
never been given a farthing for any of the work I do, so I am wondering
how accurate your characterization of free software development is,
really.
> Simplifying a procedure means that one can do more work instead of
> wasting time running scripts. How would we feel if we got a mobile
> phone where instead of pressing buttons, we had to create and run
> scripts every time we wanted to dial a number or access the phone
> directory or any other function. The same process is happening in the
> background but the programmers have provided a beautiful interface to
> simply press a button. If scripting is so important, why don't we
> start doing all our home and office work in assembly language or
> machine code? This will give us better control of the hardware. It is
> up to the programmer to make software intuitive and easy to handle. It
> has no relation with scripting skills of the vendor or user. Let each
> one do his job properly.
Frankly, I do find scripting to be an important aspect; I find
gui's too hard (I never can remember which button in which menu to
press); so I prefer the simplicity of writing scripts to do tasks for
me. I think I might not be the only one.
manoj
--
To know Edina is to reject it. Dudley Riggs, "The Year the Grinch Stole
the Election"
Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://www.golden-gryphon.com/>
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