16 Aug
2013
16 Aug
'13
9:27 p.m.
On Fri, 2013-08-16 at 12:07 -0700, J. Liles wrote:
On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 11:27 AM, Ralf Mardorf
<ralf.mardorf(a)alice-dsl.net> wrote:
On Fri, 2013-08-16 at 11:14 -0700, J. Liles wrote:
Then I get it ;). It's a disclaimer.
/* This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but
WITHOUT */
/* ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY
or */
/* FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General
Public
License for */
/* more
details.
It was not put there without reason.
The reason for this is coverage, but the target of FLOSS is to
provide a
quality level. Again, it's not black and white. If music apps
shouldn't
be perfect it's one thing, but regarding to e.g. security,
privacy even
this disclaimer won't protect an evil coder against a lawsuit.
I don't think you get it. It's not about protecting people from evil
programmers. It's about protecting programmers from litigious,
self-entitled
people who assume that just because something exists, then it must
have been tailor made just for them and work in every way as they
expect. The kind of people who will shoot themselvse in the foot and
blame the maker of the pistol. It is to allow the programmer to write
something that works FOR THEMSELVES and share it freely with other
people WHOM IT MAY OR MAY NOT WORK FOR, without being held accountable
for the fact that it simply may not work for everybody. It is
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to write software that works
in environments and use cases that the programmer has never seen.
Consider free-software not as you would a tool that you bought from
the hardware store, but as a hand-crafted work of art that happens to
have functional applications.
You can't present children at Halloween candy bars with razor blades in
them and a disclaimer and guess you're off the hook.
I don't care about the abilities that Linux audio apps might have or not
have, but about a quality level for Linux. That something is a gift
doesn't mean there is no demand on e.g. privacy. If somebody makes
something public, even for free as in beer, there are still rules, laws
to take into account. If a coder does not want to take care about rules
and laws, the coder better don't release his software. _Again_ I'm not
talking about the abilities of Linux audio apps, I'm thinking of data
protection.
Dialog is needed if quality should raise, the other way, no dialog and
use it or don't use it is legitimate too, don't get me wrong. I only
want to point out, that the argument that something is free as in beer,
doesn't mean that there are no quality standards.
I programmed audio software myself ages ago and when I gave it away for
free I didn't care about it's quality as much as I do care when I give
away a power supplies for free.
Something that is for free still shouldn't be dangerous crap.