Andrew,
Andrew Ballantine wrote:
Ian McNulty wrote:
As someone who has also been involved in computing for more than 30
years, I'd have to agree with the guy from MS who said that Open Source
is a cancer rotting everything it touches.
Ian,
I sincerely hope this is NOT what you meant to say, especially in an open
source mailing list.
Ehr. No. This is exactly what I meant to say. But I a apologise if this
has come over as exactly the opposite to that intended. The bit that I
perhaps ought to have emphasised "HAVE TO agree."
That in the context of the discussion about the impoverished existence
I've been leading installing open source in comparison with the almighty
fees my equivalents in Sage or Microsoft are charging for delivering
inferior product.
More to the point, my second sentence means to say exactly the same as
yours. You say:
If anything MS is the rotting cancer that has afflicted the computer
industry.
I said:
As a scientist who believes we see further only because we have licence
to stand on the shoulders of great men, I know he's got it completely
upside down.
Probably intoxication with my own verbosity concealed the message too
much here. But I hope it's now clear that we are singing from exactly
the same hymn sheet hear.
That aside, it's heartening to discover I'm not the only one who is
angry with MS!
In fact I may even be more of a swivel-eyed fundamentalist on this
matter than most. Imho, Bill's famous letter on software copyright to
the Home Brew Computer Club marked the beginning of the end for open
science and the free world. I still kinda hold out some hope that Open
Source might shed some kind of light on the end of that particularly
long, dark tunnel.
Everything else you say I agree with 100% - with knobs on!
Hope that explains it.
Best,
Ian
Open source and the business model that surrounds it is quite difficult for
the new people to grasp. It certainly took me a while.
The whole point about open source is that if what you've got doesn't
entirely do what you want, you can modify it to suit and if you contribute
it back to the community, the community will help maintain it for you.
However one cannot always expect an open source project to jump to new
contributor's requests.
Contribution and discussion of ideas is also of benefit to the community and
your contribution of ideas is welcome, certainly by me.
I would hope you might clarify your statement.
Kind regards,
Andrew Ballantine.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ian McNulty [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 04 January 2007 11:32
To: ofbiz-user@incubator.apache.org
Subject: Re: What does "OOTB front-end accessibility" mean to you?
Sounds extremely good to me.
My major client is currently complaining about a £60 bill for travelling
300 miles to recce their current installation, so I'm wondering how much
more of this I can afford to be involved in.
I'd certainly be interested in joining a group heading in the direction
we've been discussing. But I'm not sure how much of a contribution I
could make.
I barely have a handle on much of OFBiz at the moment.
In my ignorance I assumed Andrew's list of 'flavours' was what it was
already supposed to do - give or take a few semi-functional features
along the way - which really ought to be no big deal to sort - for those
who understand such things.
As someone who has also been involved in computing for more than 30
years, I'd have to agree with the guy from MS who said that Open Source
is a cancer rotting everything it touches.
As a scientist who believes we see further only because we have licence
to stand on the shoulders of great men, I know he's got it completely
upside down.
Ian
