[LAD] Forgive me, for I have sinned, or: toss your Macintosh, as fast and wide as you can.

[Louigi Verona]

I can see what you are saying, Paul. That your typical bug is not as
extensive as a lock-out of the whole machine. I still don't feel that it is
fair to then conclude that Macs should not be used (at all).

It is also possible that different systems will have different "typical
complete system breakdown" problems, which will make them not so easy to
compare. For instance, I buy an "Ubuntu-certified" machine. I come home and
try to install Ubuntu on it. It turns out, Wi-Fi does not work, because
this "certified" laptop requires special wifi drivers that Ubuntu does not
have. Where do you get the necessary wi-fi drivers? Of course, on the
Internet.

So, my computer sat there for a day like a brick, until I could come to my
office and connect through Ethernet.

Or, Ubuntu Karmic came with no Ethernet at all. And when I went to Ubuntu
IRC to ask what's up, one of the developers said "Who uses wired internet
these days anyway?" To my knowledge this was never fixed.

Additionally, Karmic had a video graphics problem and many users, including
myself, would have their system randomly freeze up, with all work lost.

So, I would say that these kind of experiences might also evoke a very
emotional response, especially when you loose your work, etc.

Is it comparable to what happened on a Mac? It could be. I do know that
Macs typically do not lock out people. I have many-many friends who are
using Macs for years and they have not had this problem.



To Thorsten:

*I have to note you have no statistics, either, but of course that doesn't
stop you. It's as if you would ask for a level of sobriety, factuality and
precision that you yourself refuse to offer, while pretending otherwise.*

Your rebuke would be fair, but I don't think I ever pretended I had
statistics at hand?

I did offer a thought that if there is a customer relationship, then the
software developer has more incentives and even obligations to make sure
that critical errors do not happen. I do see that in the areas I am
interested in this rule seems to work - I have mentioned video editors.

It would actually be interesting to get some sort of stats there. OpenShot
is universally known to be extremely volatile, for example. Each time I
tried it - it crashes within 5-10 mins of usage. I tried many versions,
including OpenShot 2. And then there is Windows Movie Maker, which reliably
does not crash.

But then the fact that we don't have stats for open source products
reliability kind of hints to the fact that no QA is done anyway. Commercial
companies typically have good stats on how reliable the program is. Because
QA is done and statistics are collected. So, FLOSS might frequently be at a
disadvantage.

I think that these considerations might be a good basis of saying that
reliability is not the result of releasing a program under GPL. This alone
will not magically produce more reliability. Testing, QA does. It's as
simple as that.


" Anyway, ignoring the mood set with hyperbole like "... for I have
sinned", going all pseudo-analytical instead, is rather tone-deaf."

Yeah, maybe. I feel strongly about this. I might have chosen to just shut
up, which is the course of action I typically take anyway. But on the other
hand, I think that this discussion is quite contained and we all try to be
polite and considerate.

I definitely am far from being always careful and non-emotional, although I
am trying to follow this path as much as possible!

















On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 6:30 PM, Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 11:21 AM, Louigi Verona <louigi.verona at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I have reacted to the initial post because a person was claiming that
>> because *a problem* on a Mac happened - that means that everything which is
>> a Mac is now a problem. I have responded that this does not sound very
>> reasonable and that I can talk about *a problem* I had with Linux and apply
>> the same logic.
>>
>
> ​That's not really a fair summary. The *problem* which occured on a Mac
> potentially involved a complete lockout of the entire machine, for all
> time.​ It wasn't a bug in piece of software, it wasn't a crash during a
> live performance. It was the successful operation of a feature designed to
> take away all control of the machine from the person using it.
>
> It's entirely reasonably to say that you don't mind this feature, and
> consider its existence to be a net positive rather than a net negative.
>
> But you can't draw equivalence between this behaviour and some arbitrary
> "problem" on any other system.
>
> Exception: if it could be shown that Joern's experience was the result of
> a bug OR was easily reversible, then this would put the experience back
> into the same realm as other arbitrary system-specific "problems".
>
> ​
>



-- 
Louigi Verona
https://www.patreon.com/droning
https://louigiverona.com/
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