/Hi, Gord. I think 'yet another xxx' is in the very deep nature of FOSS (Free or, at least, Open Source Software), GPLed, etx. It's something good and natural. It's the other side of the one-app-only proprietary monopolic scheme.
Maybe it isn't perfect, but is better. And you just live with it, in a similar way you live with people saying stupidities just for the sake of free speech (and is not for chance that 'free, as in freedom' appears again)./ Rivera, that's cool. Without FOSS there would be no free as in beer software. Its perplexing to the ambitious because free as in beer just does not make sense, as many of us have not found the bar that offers free beer. Please forward the google map and we will meet up. There are definite camps or schools of thought within software. Years ago, when I was using an Atari, with a 300 baud modem, it was just wonderful to see a new app and figure out what it does, after breathlessly waiting for a 'huge' 250kb download for an hour or more. Obviously the state of affairs have changed and I no longer use 360kb 5.25 floppies and double notch them to make 720k's out of them. Without FOSS I doubt I would have walked through installing Redhat on a Tandy IBM 'clone' that had my first internal disc drive and hard drive. Darned if I could get the monitor to work, and if it wasn't for the community on FidoNet, Usenet, RelayNet, and other BBS based forerunners of what we use today. It could take weeks to get a fussy monitor to work, even if 'supported', let alone other peripherals that 'just work' today in Linux. Your right no one is calling the shots as to what a programmer decides he or she wants to create. That's fine in the world where we go out to the garage and play with the hot rod. But hasn't Linux grown beyond that just a little? There are a few ambitious Linux creators that have done things and have faced a backlash of sorts from the Richard Stallman's of the world, who's website is starting to read a bit like a unibomber manifesto. What has the guy been up to for 30 years? Adding to the list of coulda, woulda, shoulda, is one thing I suppose. I try not to sound that that is it comes off as unappreciative. Stallman went after Ubuntu recently because certain things in the lens of Unity (I believe it was) were traceable at Canonical's servers. He refuses to see that there could be a price to pay for allowing some level of pay as you go, or pay as you will commercial type development to happen. I may be too simple in saying that all you have to do is change the desktop or move to Ubuntustudio without Unity and problem solved. It comes down to a chicken or the egg argument in situations like Stallman vrs Canonical. Without Canonical more than one distribution would not be as far ahead in terms of use as it is now. Redhat got involved with Novell sometime back, and there was something else involved with SUSE. Clearly improvements where and probably still are being made from entities with a commercial agenda, one's usually with an community version of their software that isn't quite FOSS. I am not here to debate or belittle the merits of FOSS or commercially raised contributions. I admit like many others my mission is more about the result of the software, hardware and OS than it might have been back in the learning curve of probably 20 years, but please don't let me admit to that number. It ages me so. I believe there is room for distributions to focus more sharply on use whether they be FOSS or whether they have a shot in the arm from the commercial sector. I think the world will stand up and notice a set of tools that is fairly quick to adopt, truly helps people along with their creative goals (or have fun trying), and is less geeky than it previously was. My comment was more about the state of affairs. There are some really good applications to pick from and the landscape shifts. Ardour I brought up because I don't think it is truly open source, though the front of their website says it is. In Stallman terms, its not truly free, as they have this trap that amounts to a tin cup for tips. Or at least this is where the terms of the free beer get a bit fuzzy. I wonder if anyone can freely distribute it, if they choose it for their distro, that's all. Your right you put up with this stuff, and if you have it contribute a buck to Paul Davis, because he and the rest of the crew have been doing a great job for a number of years. This does exist somewhat outside of FOSS by asking for donations, something not exclusive to their project. These are not the idiots you put up with in order to have free speech, these are the people you listen to because you have free speech, and optionally add your opinion. There are some who are adding to the unibomber type agenda and who are very unappreciative. Hopefully the balance of Linux users and even Mac and Windows users, bless them, will be a little better than that on the whole. Stallman has some interesting things to say on the whole, but unfortunately a visit to his website is a bit scary if you consider some of the people you have to put up with can also go there and take his intent and meaning a different way. I certainly do not wish to join the chorus of people who say this and that without appreciation for the hard work put into any project, but I also reserve the free speech to say I don't need another calculator or six ways to get to my steam account.
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