Free Software As Nigerian Scam 685
djeaux writes "In the November 4 issue of Syllabus, Howard Strauss, manager of technology strategy and outreach at Princeton University, presents 'The FREE, 0% APR, Better Sex, No Effort Diet' in which he scattershoots at open source software. The Nigerian scam is part of his imagery, leading to a great quote: 'While you are installing your free open source software you may want to write Mrs. Ahmed a check. Her $8.5 million will help pay for the real cost of that free software.' Elsewhere, Strauss describes the open source community as 'a smattering of teenagers too young to work at Redmond, hackers, virus creators, and a menagerie of others with whom you will feel great pride in entrusting your IT infrastructure.'" Not everyone at Princeton agrees.
I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Though it's a parody and I generally try to take those lightly, he's made one critical error that really stands out in his assertion that free software is the domain of hackers/tinkerers/students, etc. I think Howard Strauss ought to be informed of the billions of dollars being invested in free software development by major corporations, many of whom have salaried and talented employees developing such applications. His condescending attitude towards the talented programmers who have created so much of the infrastructure the Internet depends on (Linux, BSD, Apache, MySQL anyone?) is a bit infuriating, to say the least.
On another note, what is responsible for the recent surge of anti-free software propaganda? I'm sure that some could present a viable argument that nefarious sources (SCO/Microsoft/whoever) are essentially astroturfing on a media-wide scale (not like they haven't done it before), but things like this, plus the Forbes article and other critiqued rants that have been posted on Slashdot before, have me a bit worried about how the worldwide computer-using community is perceiving free software, especially when peoples' critiques contain such glaring factual errors as this particular one does.
Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody said most college students are masters of project management or the big picture, but they are a talented group of programmers. To dismiss them as worthless is to ignore a valuable and cheap source of labor. You may not want to make them PM just yet, but I gaurentee they'll work their asses off, with a little direction, more than that 30-year veteran who has become acustomed to the University's indiference towards laziness. Union YES!
Most computer science students I know haven't been corrupted yet and still have a high work ethic, they just need a little direction and be brought down a level to reality. Once they get past thinking they can change the place overnight, they make some excellent, hard working individuals.
But alas, the University I attended didn't hire any of its graduates either. While I was working there, not one of my supervisors had any sort of degree and they weren't eager to give anyone from the inside a chance upon graduation (again, I'm not talking about management positions, but I've seen plenty of entry level jobs that turned down countless grads from the Uni. I guess they don't have faith in what they teach.)
Mr. Howard Strauss... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Reply.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I work on OSS in my spare time, and I don't fit the stereotype... and I don't call every pro-MS a money-scrounging heartless profit-driven capitalist. Just Bill Gates.
Bill and Howard. Yeah... them two.
Does it matter what anyone says about open source? (Score:2, Insightful)
But in the end, won't results speak louder than allegorical assertations?
Empty (Score:5, Insightful)
This article wouldn't bother me as much if it presented a single independently verifiable fact. Since it doesn't, it's a rant and nothing more. The real queston is "Why did Syllabus choose to publish it?" This guy isn't even a professor, is he? With the title of "manager of technology strategy and outreach", it sounds like he's just a department employee. Not that that invalidates his opinion, mind you! That is discredited by his vacant non-awareness of facts.
analogies substituted for evidence (Score:2, Insightful)
Too young to work at Redmond? (Score:5, Insightful)
an object lesson in argumentation (Score:5, Insightful)
What Mr.Strauss forgot to mention (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeech (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, it does make a point that the "establishment" has a very hard time coming to terms with - Free Software can and does work. For some fraction of people, this seems to somehow represent a personal insult. Probably the same people who get upset at anyone who questions whether our current economic system is absolute perfection suggest regulation might serve some purpose after all.
Commercial software provides only two things open source software can't provide - software that is extrememly difficult to create and has a small target audience (think very high end engineering CAD software or exteremely complex movie rendering) and someone to sue if the product doesn't work as specified. That doesn't sit well with people who think capitalism is the One True Way, and just for more fun people compare open source with Communism(?!). As if the spirit of goodwill is somehow corruptive to our way of life.
So, whether the author set out to write satire, troll all of slashdot, or actually denies the evidence right in front of him, this article is quite childish and silly. The evidence that free software does work is right in front of him, if he's interested in looking. Whether he WANTS it to work might be the real issue.
Ever notice that, that some people are personally interested in the failure of open source? It seems to be an affront to them, for no reason I can discover. No one has the RIGHT to make money, and open source taking away commerical markets for software is something they'll just have to grow up and deal with. If they can't make a more compelling product that people are willing to pay for and stay ahead of volunteers, tough.
Linux/Free Software is for real. I've used it exclusively on my own machines for four years, with great success. Community spirit is powerful and can accomplish great things, and if our social system has forgotten/doesn't want to accept that then we're in some deeper trouble than just questions of software.
since i am a public school teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
1) I am finishing a Master's in Ed Technology. We are required to submit our work, etc. in either
2) Everyone in the Master's program, and I think in the credential program, canget Office for $20.
3) In my district, the district technidiots (the same ones who didn't understand how my linux box could get internet access on the school network, and had no idea what TCP/IP was) get thrown all sorts of freebies at the tech conferences. The tech at my school laughed about getting XP Pro, VS
Those are a few examples. I could go on. Microsoft has gotten the Ed. crowd the way Apple did years ago. Worse is the way technology is used in schools. PowerPoint has become the favorite tool of choice for projects. Plus Microsoft gives lots of money to schools, and has VERY long tentacles. They get involved in many ways. You can be sure, this guy is not on Microsoft's payroll directly, but he is certainly the recipient of much Microsoft "benevolence". Teachers are just like everyone else really, just a few freebies, and we're yours.
But here's the biggest rub. The truth is that it takes far more techs to maintain a windows network, then say, a *nix network. Which means the tech department get more jobs, money, etc. And if something breaks, and they fix it, it only reinforces their importance. F***ed up? You bet. And the sad truth is that most school personell are not the best qualified. So, you try to give them linux, which requires more "expertise", they're gonna reject it. Simple really. You'd think that schools would care about cost, security, etc. But they don't.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is what seems to be driving adoption now. It used to be a bunch of us zealots, fanboys, hackers, admins, the list goes on... It used to be these types making promise after promise about open source software. We knew its capabilities and we'd be damned if we didn't know a perfect fit for OSS when we saw one. It's not that way anymore. Now my manager's coming to me, and my co-workers. More and more often we find him consulting us about equivalent open-source software solutions to proprietary products he's considering purchasing. Thanks to our honesty (no, sir, I'm afraid we don't have anything to compete with Macromedia Flash... yet...), adoption is higher than ever.
I guess what I'm getting at is this:
We've all seen this FUD before. It's old news, it's an old battle. They're bringing it up again. But this time isn't like the last time. It just FEELS like, this time, somethings different. Like they're losing... They're not losing their castle, but the little provinces on the edge of their kingdom. Open source is slowly encroaching on their land, and they know it. This minor FUD is nothing. These guys are pawns. The big counter-attacks we can look forward to are more things along the scale of SCO. Not just misrepresentation of the facts, but real major threats to users of open source software. True attempts to stab at the heart of our force.
Bad Software (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a ton of bad closed source software too. For the most part it ends up in the $4.99 bin, if it ever gets into stores at all.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:5, Insightful)
If he said it was useless, ok.
If he said it was worse than proprietary softtware, ok.
If he just said he did't like because he didn't understand it, ok.
But to make such an assumption on the charachter of lots and lots of people AND companies he clearly has no idea are involved with OSS is just plain, well, stupid.
He doesn't even get that IBM and sun back OSS projects to some extent.
What a dimwit!
What Mr. Strauss needs... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, some people do get the product for free. That does not mean that some programmers were not paid for their services. Ask any Red Hat or SuSE employee.
The freedom Mr. Strauss does not understand is the freedom to improve given with the software. Not only the right to improve the software, but to improve the community by the giving of ones services and improvement in ones self by learning from previous programmers.
I hope that this is satire, as some of you have posted. Otherwise this serves as a sure sign of failure in our education system. The fact that someone this closed minded, short sighted and greedy is teaching our future generations is a tragedy.
Re:Bad Software (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, in the open source environment, it gets turned into the only video player that we have for months on end...
For the humour-impaired, I'm joking. On a serious note though, the state of affairs with many of the audio programs that I've tried working with aren't particularly rhobust. I can't complain too much, after all they aren't charging me, but I'd even strongly consider paying for some professional multichannel audio recording software, if it were within justification. Right now, the open-source tools aren't completely horrid, but they do lack either the reliability or the features that would be particularly useful.
I very much hope... (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I don't know his personal views on Open Source, but I do know that his voice would carry considerable weight on this matter, for the following reasons:
Ok, so what do I conclude from the above points? Well, Open Source is essentially one possible implementation of cooperative economics, and therefore should produce superior results per effective dollar spent than the competitive model.
Secondly, the idea of not getting in each other's way (very nicely summarized in the movie, btw, even though I doubt it's quite how events were in real life!
Third, IBM and SGI are in business to make money. They don't exist because of some idealistic notion. Ergo, their embracing Open Source is because they believe there's gold in dem dere hills. And, again, you see cooperation. This time over NUMA. Technically competing companies working together so that everyone gains, and so that their energies can be directed to useful ends.
A summary for those who detest my long-winded style: The manager's view contradicts those with money, those with experience at the top of industry, and those with knowledge of how things work. I'll side with the ones in the know, until I'm given a damn good argument as to why not. And FUD ain't cutting it.
Pessimist Professor (Score:1, Insightful)
As I read the piece the one thing that set my teeth on edge was the tone of incredulity. The characterization that somehow someone who hasn't possibly toiled away within the system that this professor holds near and dear and worked hard to obfuscate and proprietize under the auspices of corporate/academic credibility couldn't possibly create something meritable. Is there a professional wrestler with a penguin fetish we could convince to elbow drop a professor?
What I think we're seeing is an affirmation in the circles of higher education; that they still hold themselves as being the one true way to enlightenment. That they are the anointed high-priests, keepers of sacred seal and maintainers of the divine covenant (Touch the PDP-11 and repeat after me! By the sacred printwheel do we solemnly swear...in the amber glow of the vacuum tubes and by the robes I wear, to sell what I know to the corporate line, to booby trap it all and make it mine, to pass it on when I'm finally paid, with backdoors aplenty, with keys I can trade, I'll deal with evil if it gets me laid, pays for the toys to ply my trade, by this I swear in this hallowed place, with a fez on my head and a smile on my face)
--forgive me my ad-hoc poetry gentle reader--
I would say they are highly-overvalued now, in an age where there's an API that fully embaraces the toiled for grails of sparse-matricies, linked-lists, and a sort for every season. Free/Open-sourcery may be creating wraiths of the instituions, draining them of their art, making it public-domain so that the much feared/maligned hacker-student-rogue programmer-anyman will touch once-sacred code with un-anointed hands.
More squeaking from the ivory towers.
To which I say...
Bah (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes it can be a bit of a bother to drop in an open source solution but the same also holds true of licensed software. You don't just sqat and shit an oracle installation. You don't just install Windows and have the computers magically doing everything you want them to.
There is no magic bullet that instantly makes the computers do everything you want them to. Not in the Open Source world and not in the commercially licensed software world. Unless you want to make a slashcode site. That really is as easy as "apt-get install slash apache-perl".
Re:My response to howard@princeton.edu (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, a "company" with 75 paid customers and 13 employees - until 3 left enmass to compete with their former employer. Just the kind of strategic partner you want when starting a $2M project planned to be in production 10+ years.
there are times... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Mr. Howard Strauss... (Score:3, Insightful)
>
Think CIS, and it will simultaneously explain the stupidity and the anti-Free sentiment.
And this rant will probably be rewarded with big donations so he can do more of this kind of "research" for the needy software businesses who feel threatened by FOSS.
Reasoning by analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
The simple fact that escapes the Professor and others who don't understand free software, is that there are virtually no manufacturing (duplication) costs for reproducing software. It is therefore possible to design or author software once and reproduce it infinitely especially where the costs of reproduction and distribution are bourne by the copier. Moreover, the previous design and authoring efforts are not wasted but build upon successive itterations.
Instead of explaining this further, let's use an analogy (since the professor likes analogies so much). Instead of horribly flawed analogies comparing open source to Nigerian email fraud let us use a genuinely equivalent analogy.
Imagine if Ford motor company or anyone else could make vehicles for free at the press of a button. That's right, just infinitely replicate any vehicle you come across just by pressing a button and coming back a few minutes later jumping in and driving away.
How would this change the business of vehicle manufacture?
Given this situation let us further imagine that Ford still sold vehicles and moreover that the vast majority of people on the highways drove around in Fords and agreed not to copy any of the vehicles despite their innate ability to be copied. You couldn't even tinker with the engines or change the oil never mind make a whole new copy of a car.
Now given this unresaonable restriction on the way the universe works naturally (in our scenario), wouldn't an enterprising bunch of mechanics team together to design a vehicle that anyone could duplicate freely, and wouldn't others quickly join to improve that vehicle from a primitive wagon into fine vehicles of all descriptions from sportscars to towncars to SUVs that anyone could copy in order to use the highway freely.
Now realize that this IS the nature of software and wonder why Professors still foolishly try to impose the business models and thinking processes suited to traditional manufacturing industries onto a software industry that so naturally matches the above scenario of infinite free replication and incremental creative design.
Re:yeesh, talk about article -1troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, you knew that, and chose instead to make a smart-assed reply that makes you look about as mature as the little kid sticking his fingers in his ear and yelling "lalalalalala" when he's criticized.
30 years too late (Score:3, Insightful)
But he's 30 years too late. He's predicting the past, and getting that wrong is just stupid.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:since i am a public school teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
What Howard Strauss is doing is a bunch of emotional, sarcastic
It's not OS/FS, it's PeopleSoft (Score:5, Insightful)
The Office of Information Technology at Princeton is divided between thoughtful and clueful people who are an absolute pleasure to work with --- and, regrettably, a few people like those who wrote the above article for Syllabus.
If you look beyond the cheap shots at OS/FS, he's defending PeopleSoft, which makes the CRM-like software that runs the University's bureaucratic systems. The company certainly needs some defending. Case in point: up until last year, Princeton course registration was paper-based. Fill out a scan-tron sheet, have your adviser sign it, and take it to the Registrar. Simple, but students complained about the long walks to remote parts of campus.
Last year, the Registrar finally implemented a new computerized system based on PeopleSoft. The steps for a student to register as follows:
Maybe I'm not subtle enough, but I fail to see how this represents a step forward. It would seem trivial to save the course information on the registration system so the adviser could approve it with a mouse-click at their meeting with the student. But let me guess --- does PeopleSoft not support that? In fairness, PeopleSoft might support it. But if it did, one wonders why the registrar chose a more inefficient solution. Why a three-way paper-shuffle? Is that what PeopleSoft's "aging, over-21 staff" thought was a good idea?
I will not begrudge Mr. Strauss his vitriol --- he reminds me of the apologists for any broken platform. If you're stuck with it, you might as well at least pretend that you like it, and that the competition is junk.
Also -- I can't help but note the omission of a link to the student-run [princeton.edu] Linux/Unix Users' Group at Princeton. (Consider this a shameless plug.)
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets not be stupid here. Just because one dumbass is actually going to claim that WebCT is worth the money while blanketing all open source software under the control of murderers and thieves, doesn't mean that all teachers cannot do. Hell here [smlnj.org] is a open source project written by some Princeton "teachers" that is an example of how there are some really smart people creating some amazing open software.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, I am a hacker. I take nothing for granted - not the way software functions, nor the way the laws of physics are applied. I will always question the reality around me and seek to refine the answers that I have found.
Some others want to silence my nature and force me to take their word as the final truth - they are the high-school dropouts of this world, ignorant to every new truth that passes them by. But I can learn from them as well.
There is no negative consequence in my life, only education and experience. I have no regrets. My first day of life and my last are equally valuable to me, no matter how many years seperate them.
Besides, anyone who believes that hours of creativity (and programming is an art, not a science, as far as I'm concerned) can be compensated by a paycheck is deluding themselves. Free software allows a programmer to trade one esoteric thing for another - creativity for community, perseverance for recognition. And the programmer who does so will be fulfilled by it, and can thus tolerate selling other of their works for money.
-Elentar
Re:Article in case of /.'ing (Score:4, Insightful)
Who exactly is he reaching out to with his blatant insult of many free software developers. I produce quality products during my spare time as a hobby and during the day time I have a professional job. I for one call for Mr. Strauss' immediate resignation. He is clearly short sighted doesn't see the big picture. He is certainly not an individual I would trust to manage my technology outreach program.
E-mail to Mr. Strauss (Score:5, Insightful)
Mr. Strauss,
You *are* kidding, right?
Many of those spams to which you compare open source software are now being sent using mass-mailing viruses. Funny thing about viruses is that they usually exploit security flaws - stupid things like buffer overruns - which are by and large eliminated by the peer review process in open source software. (Never mind the poor Windows security model which allows these viruses to do actual damage.)
The writers of open-source software, which you dismiss as being a bunch of children, include organizations like IBM and NASA's JPL. The rogue programmers at NASA must alone be accountable for half the world's virus problems.
I know that when I reboot my FreeBSD webservers (which happens only when the power goes out or I have to vacuum the inside of the computer), the list of credits in the dmesg as it starts up makes me seriously consider how intelligent the choice of open source was, in the face of the legendary reliability, security and standards-compliance of Microsoft IIS.
Not for one second would any reasonable person suggest that student labor is a suitable choice for managing proprietary university systems. But that wouldn't be open source anyway. Nor would there be enough open source interest in developing systems like WebCT (which I haven't personally found to work that well anyway, being all too familiar with administration of WebCT 3.2).
Open source solutions like Linux remain generally unsuitable for the desktop - the very things which make it excel in a server environment are the very things which hobble its mass acceptance and usefulness as a desktop operating system. But that will be fixed before too long.
Where open source currently excels - and has almost since the first newsgroup message where someone said, "You know, I think you could improve your program by..." - is in the implementation of the open standards-based systems which are the very infrastructure of the network.
Open source isn't free. Download a source tarball. Compile it. Use it. Enjoy it. And if you find a feature is broken or missing, your contribution will be to edit the source code and send it back so that other people can share the changes.
And so what if a 14-year-old kid with a cable modem reviews the source, finds a bug or missing feature, and contributes a patch? That patch is still subject to the same peer review process. And it's still public, so that it can be documented by others if not by him.
The most important thing I learned as a student in university is that higher education is not a barometer of intelligence, creativity or aptitude, but a barometer of diligence and funding. Over the years since, I've hired several gifted programmers with ability far eclipsing many of the university graduates I've employed. Mostly they were gifted programmers because that's what they loved to do... kind of like a 14-year-old kid who may have started into C++ when he was 10, has a natural mind for developing algorithms, and is capable of developing efficient software while freshly-minted science degrees are still writing bubble sorts.
Frankly, the ignorance displayed in your article is an embarrassment to you, your professional reputation, and your university.
[signed in real name]
Closed source software isn't supported (Score:5, Insightful)
-
Find a clear defect in a Microsoft product. Document it.
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Call Microsoft (425-882-8080). Try to get it fixed.
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Record how long it took to get it fixed.
Any questions?A+ #1 troll! (Score:3, Insightful)
You can have highly paid programmers at IBM [ibm.com] or Sun [sun.com] build your critical university systems.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:4, Insightful)
The way I look at free software is basically published research. Sometimes it's just about ready for use right off the FTP site, and sometimes it takes a commercial entity to bring it to the masses. Software is more likely to work stright off the FTP site than, say, quantum mechanics, but it's a similar issue.
Software either holds up to the tests (i.e. netcraft uptimes, business successes, longevity, failure rate, etc) or it doesn't, just like scientific research.
The logic of the guy writing the article is flawed: would he criticize a mad scientist working out of his garage if he ended up curing cancer?
So, if you look at software as research, most of the FUD just disappears. Free software is just the collection of public knowledge about software, and commercial companies can only exist when standing on the shoulders of these giants.
He wants quality control, version control, accountability? Well, there's nothing about free software in contradiction to that idea. Pay commercial companies for what they're good at (or what they are theoretically better at, the reality of quality control in mainstream free software projects is amazing), not whatever proprietary algorithm that they think they're the first to implement. I'm sure commercial companies will eventually be just there to integrate the software with your business processes, more like consultants.
so let's do not do the same in the other direction (Score:2, Insightful)
However, your posting made me think about how people might feel about some opinions/postings about them personally or their community (regardless if they are in the open source camp or not).
Let's ne honest, I have seen many similar insulting postings about people working at Microsoft in general and of course specific Microsoft individuals. I always like to treat ppl with ate least the same respect I would like to receive myself, even if I not agree with them.
I hope we can learn that it is no fun and probably counterproductive to insult people or IT/business practises, especially with so-called facts, and that the open source community would refrain from such postings and instead focus onall those informative, interesting and insughtful postings that makes slashdot and open source such a grand community.
Probably wishfull thinking, but wanted it said anyway.
Re:So stupid, it's not even wrong.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I went so far as the visit the PeopleSoft web site. Wow! Completely content free gobbledy-gook, but at least I know where to go for a complete "Human Capital Managment" system, whatever the hell that is, if I ever need one.
At WebCT I can get "flexible pedagogical tools."
Yummy! Can I have my electronically delivered pedantic formalism with extra cheese, please?
So, what this guy seems to be saying is that a major university with one of the finest CS departments in the world of whom Brian Frikken' Kernighan is a member isn't qualified to put up the university website, but a bunch of MBAs selling expensive electronic snake oil to tech clueless corporations are?
Is that what that incoherant rant was about?
KFG
Re:Wilkins' "universal" language is English? (Score:2, Insightful)
- Kid's Book
- Crazy Cartoon
- Japanese Cartoon
- English Paper
Anyways, it's worth a look around. Just don't go there when you have alot of homework to do.Free as in Freedom, not as in free beer (Score:4, Insightful)
"Free software" as we understand the term nowadays is all about basic freedoms, not about getting a free ride. The freedom to inspect and modify for example, and the freedom to reuse.
The annual IT budget of our clinic is about $30,000. Most of that money goes into "free software" development. We pay software engineers per project or per hour, and we pay decent. But once a project is completed, it belongs to us. And we release it under the GPL.
It makes economical sense: if everybody does the same, developers still get paid well for their work, and everybody can build and extend upon an increasing heap of quality software components.
Everybody wins, only the big coporates depending on cutomer lock in would lose out. I wouldn't shed a tear for them.
Re:Bah (Score:3, Insightful)
In my personal experience, code written for open source projects is written by professional programmers (or by a subset of them who enjoy programming), only not under a deadline, and for kicks not for money. It makes a difference.
Re:So stupid, it's not even wrong.. (Score:1, Insightful)
Lets be intellectually honest with ourselves. 99% of all software is dross.
No more quality control ??? (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand you've got companies selling propreity software, who, wen you report a problem make you wait about a year for their next hotfix or service pack
In my opinion, the end-user is the final quality-control, and if you don't put enough effort in trying to solve this user's problems, then the end-user WILL be throwing away your software. So you better get your act together.
Makes you wonder how long it will take Redmond to catch on
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:3, Insightful)
The fundamental concepts in computing and mathematics that drive current software development methodologies were developed decades ago.
It is ignorance (just lack of knowledge, so don't get offended) like this the condemns the field of computer science to continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. Who was that Dijkstra guy? Whatever, I've got a great idea, let's use goto. It's so much more flexible than all that structured programming stuff.
The first Turing Award was given in 1966. The concepts that drive modern database management techniques were developed in the 60's and 70's. Dijkstra received his Turing Award in the 70's, Codd in the early 80's. Decades ago.
Re:Article in case of /.'ing (Score:2, Insightful)
But many people believe the marketing hype from the manufacturers that their software will bring huge benefits to your organisation for relatively little investment in their software.
Sorry, but Nigerian Scam emails are much more like the marketing materials of large corporates, promising the world but failing to deliver. Open / Free Software at least tends to do what it says on the tin.
Re:E-mail to Mr. Strauss (Score:4, Insightful)
The letter I wrote to him begins:
First let me say that I hope your rambling diatribe is not indicative of the writing abilities of the average Princeton employee. If it is, then Princeton has indeed fallen as a school.
I just could not resist the dig and, frankly, that is one of the most poorly written articles I have read in a long time.
-sirket
Re:Bad Software (Score:5, Insightful)
temojen wrote:
.... And some of it sells -- sorry -- licenses -- for thousands of dollars. Mr. Strauss's two examples of "good" commercial software, WebCT and Peoplesoft, are exemplary. In my experience, they are some of the worst stuff ever made. I am fairly confident that I could do better than WebCT in a couple of months at a fraction of its cost.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a ton of bad open sourced software out there simply because anyone and everyone can submit code.
For some of the smaller projects that's true. Try submitting a bad kernel patch or something to a larger, managed project though and then hold your breath waiting for it to see life in the next release.
Furthermore, your assertion seems to be that closed source software won't be bad simply "because" programmers from outside the organization can't submit code. I've worked in several places where whole sections of code had to be replaced when somebody with better skills/knowledge was able to show massive problems in the existing tangle of tripe - written by a professional on the payroll.
The company I presently work for hired a major consulting firm to railroad us into the current multi-million dollar "solution" that requires that we hire a full-time employee at just under six figures to do nothing but patch the poorly cobbled enterprise software. There's a lot of slop in those numbers that could have paid the real price of "free" software and still given five grand several times over to various Nigerian hoaxes.