[LAD] Releasing source code is not enough, I think...

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 2014-01-21 at 17:11 +0000, Filipe Coelho wrote:
> What about all the freeware software I see in Windows/OSX?

Those will only run on special versions. They provide binaries for e.g.
98se/XP or Vista etc.. There are no different startup processes, no
different desktop environments, etc. pp.. My iPad 2 more often crashes,
then it's working and there's no official way to downgrade to a working
state, resp. to restore from a backup, Linux does provide ways to
downgrade and to restore from backups.

And as I already mentioned, Linux, FreeBSD etc. FLOSS has the intention
to pass on the knowledge. *buntus often try to clone Apple and
Microsoft, so many *buntu users don't get the good knowledge to set-up,
troubleshoot and repair their Linux userspace, but instead they need to
spend doubled that much time with using configuration GUIs, dconf and
all that annoying stuff. The KISS principle to set-up a Linux install
isn't harder to learn than all that click-automaticall-GUI-crap.

If a developer would set up something to install binaries by an
installer ignoring the package management, it perhaps is as time
consuming as building packages for each release of each distro.

You ask about the backup! Yes, people should make backups regularly, not
before building an app, but often enough to be able to restore a working
DAW without losing too much. Users in addition could visit the homepage
of the distro they use and read comments about updates etc.. Linux is
better compared to Windows, because this knowledge is shared and used.
If we stop sharing this knowhow and stop using it, Linux will not be
that good in the future.

FWIW, some provide binaries for free as in beer for Linux userspace but
no source code and this is often done for Windows too. The software is
free as in beer, but the knowledge is a secret.

Regards,
Ralf