Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

I don't like cults. I don't like the 'cult of closed software' any more than I like the 'cult of open software'.

This is not a war, and anybody that is trying to make it look like one is manipulating people.

There is plenty of room on this planet for both closed and open source solutions, let the market decide. Long term that should skew the table in the direction of open source, you really can't compete with free.

But there will always be closed source, just as there will always be open source.

No need for all this polarizing. Miguel definitely seems to have managed to get to the 'moral high ground' in this whole argument, he comes across as reasonable and nice, but that doesn't mean that that should decide the argument.

Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, nobody is entitled to their own facts, especially not in something as objectively qualifiable(sp?) as software.

This whole 'drama queen' episode has gone on long enough, let both deIcaza and Stallman go back to their respective IDEs (at a guess, Visual Studio and Emacs) and write some code to prove their point instead of all this prose.

It's Peyton Place for programmers.

I don't like cults. I don't like the 'cult of closed software' any more than I like the 'cult of open software'.

What you're saying is you don't want to make a concrete decision and you want options to be open to you.

This is not a war, and anybody that is trying to make it look like one is manipulating people.

It's a war between many businesses, non-profits, users, developers, etc. Do you want to be stuck with Microsoft Windows everywhere? Or Intel's x86 hardware everywhere? Intel, Microsoft, Apple, etc. will all do what they can to kill the competition.

That's not manipulation, that's the truth. You can try and ignore it, but computer history is full of conflict between various companies who tried to force their ideas and "standards" upon the rest of the industry and on their competitors.

Maybe you just hate the word "war". Call it competition then, or conflict, or a struggle, or whatever else you want.

No need for all this polarizing.

Yes there is. One idea is opposed to the other. How can there not be polarization?

This whole 'drama queen' episode has gone on long enough, let both deIcaza and Stallman go back to their respective IDEs (at a guess, Visual Studio and Emacs) and write some code to prove their point instead of all this prose.

This is actually Stallman's point, and it was also the open source movement's point. Code is not enough. There is also the discussion of freedom or the discussion of marketing.

You want to completely ignore the discussion. I don't mind, you can step out if you like, but what you're saying is exactly what a proprietary software company would like. They don't want discussion at all because discussion means legitimizing alternatives.

If you don't want to take part in the discussion, the confrontation and war of ideas, then don't take part in it.

> What you're saying is you don't want to make a concrete decision and you want options to be open to you.

No, what I'm saying is I want to be able to make my own decision regardless of people trying to make it seem as if the one or the other side is 'evil'.

I've long ago decided the world of closed source is no longer mine. But that doesn't stop me from having respect for those that try to change the closed source world from the inside, and it doesn't stop me from having respect for those that try to keep it alive.

I just don't agree with them.

> It's a war between many businesses, non-profits, users, developers, etc. Do you want to be stuck with Microsoft Windows everywhere? Or Intel's x86 hardware everywhere? Intel, Microsoft, Apple, etc. will all do what they can to kill the competition.

Possibly. But that does not mean I'm going to have to stoop to their tactics in order to make my points. The last time I wrote software for or explicitly supported closed source platforms is very long ago.

> Yes there is. One idea is opposed to the other. How can there not be polarization?

Because there is a lot of gray stuff in between. Closed source software that ends up being open sourced. People working for closed source companies writing open source in their spare time using company resources (with approval), closed source companies donating money, equipment, programmers and other resources to open source project and so on. Dual license software, etc. To polarize means that the issues are black and white. They're not.

> This is actually Stallman's point, and it was also the open source movement's point. Code is not enough. There is also the discussion of freedom or the discussion of marketing.

So, let's do it. Let's not attack people on the other side of the imaginary divide, if it even exists. The best way to make sure that Microsoft and company are irrelevant is to make their software irrelevant. To literally outcode them. Once that's done, there is really no fighting with free.

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