On Wednesday 17 October 2007 21:36, Vidyadhar Gadgil wrote:
Don't know where this subject line is inherited from, the discussion seems to have strayed way off. Anyway, since this is my first post on this forum, I will refrain from tampering with it.
It is surprising that after being a power user and an expert in Linux, you still have a Windows partition in your system and it is used too. If linux experts ( I mean all experts) find Windows crappy, then why do they still have the partition in their systems?
Don't know about 'experts', but for ordinary folk like me, many of us have to deal with clients who work with proprietary software and sometimes want stuff in proprietary formats. Like, when some work is needed on an Indesign file, there is little choice for me but to go to Windoze. Thus, while I hate it and rarely go there, that partition stays undisturbed on my comp., ready for use when needed. Free software fundamentalism to this extent would mean some serious pain -- paapi pet ka sawaal hai!
The rants are not about somebody's personal decision to do as he pleases, but the completely wrong statement "abc is not ready for use". As u might have seen slightly skewing their arbitary metrics proves exactly the opposite. But even that is not the main point. The point is that the posters DO NOT want to understand the complexities and handicaps that foss faces daily. They do not understand that it's their hard earned money being used against foss (and themselves in the long run). They do not understand that their rant is because someone has fought hard against unbelievable odds to achieve their stunning successes. If you make a fair test bench and apply them to foss and non foss programs any advatntages that u see will be because of non availability of data sheets or are encumbered by patents or are already being addressed. It is extremely rare that something reasonable importatnt is not already addressed. There might still be some non foss programmes that are superior AFTER the above benchmark but i have yet to come across one in my areas of interest. And if they do exist all money to them. In my 27 yrs in the industry i have yet to come across a closed software that does not bite you really bad a few yrs down the line inspite of taking extreme precaution. It's the nature of this every changing industry.
But to each his own poison. And everytime somebody makes a blanket statement based on arbitary criteria i will jump at them.