See the massive snowball that is open source software that has been rolling ang growing and will be taking over everything, given time? So far, it has taken over the internet, the embedded space and supercormputing. It's coming for your phone and finally the desktop. In time, you won't even be able to code and sell a proprietary game engine, because good enough or better ones will be available for free.

But for all this to happen will take years or decades yet.

Anyway, linux and open source and software freedom will be rolling along. That's just inevitable.

More interestingly it is also right and good ethically, while proprietaryness (in all its usefullness and shinyness) is wrong and bad.

Eventually FOSS will be usable and shiny across the board too.

h3llraz0r is back making more utterly pointless flamebait threads, doing his best to ruin a great community

@ZShakespeare, ffffffuuuuuu and PradaBrada:

Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs is that you?

Btw: "What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?"

Here is a selfish reason for you to support/encourage open source....Just image the company/programmer/source of the program/code/etc that you love/use daily has disappeared from the face of this earth for some reason(eg. company bankrupt, programmer(the team) with the knowledge was disbanded/let-go, source code destroy by fire and etc) and you have just discovered a specific bug(that is critical to your need). What would/could you do now? So, here is what open source can do for you:

1. If you got the source code and you have the skill set and the time, you would fix the code yourself
2. If you got the source code, you can hire someone with sufficient skill to fix bug or add stuff for you.

A side benefit: you are not lock-in to the company that provides you the original program to begin with. You would choose to stay with the company, if they provide you with acceptable(ie. to your standard, eg. how long is too long to be waiting on the phone for the support call) of after sale-service(eg. bug fix, responses to enhancement requests)

Open source s/w development turns the s/w company business model from that of selling widget to that of services. Many traditional s/w companies do not like it; because they can no longer use the lock-in to make their money.

I will let other to discuss other non-selfish good social benefits of the Open Source development model and GPL.

Cheers,

Speaking of which... "Cheddar Cheese, 250 grams."

???

If we are to use the physical world as a rough analogue of what we've been building in our virtual/information universe... opensource has been very prevalent in creating the buildings, roads, interchanges, flyover, bridges and such... which are the infrastructure to house, transport and manage the contents (os, network stack, db, messaging services, etc) but not of the content themselves.

I think this is quite evident too when comparing the app selections between the handheld platforms...

You and your tired Basement dwellers argument is trite and old.
I understand how you might have inherited that idea, but point is the open source world has moved on to better and more important places but you have remained stuck in your mire - fossilised with your old idea.

Let me tell you - when I started playing with Linux on desktops and servers, corporate America wouldn't touch Linux with a bargepole.
It wasnt tried and tested and prioven in the financial field for example. Free brought to mind old ideas which you spout TODAY.

But TODAY - corporate America is all over Linux. All financial (and I mean ALL BIG) companies are running Linux in their data centers having abandoned Sun systems and IBM big irons a long time.
(In fact a manager would be questioned if he didn't examine Linux as a option in the datacenter today - since performance and cost wise it is one of the strongest contender).

The stage now is where even desktop solutions are being looked at from the open sourced world. I myself am involved with the architectural committee of a major financial investment bank and we use open sourced ETL tools instead of big brand names.

Many other companies I know use opens sourced and GPL'd (the basement dweller reference that you mention) software on their desktops too. And all this happening right where money speaks - corporate America.

So yes buddy Brada, you are as old as a fossil probably. The world aint waiting for you and your old trite arguments.

Uhh, dumbass, if it's open source, it's as good as WE make it. If you don't want to help, fine. STFU. It's not up to Nokia to do everything perfect right away.

(if that's harsh, i'm offended by his name )

What, you mean avatars have to be sensible or relevant now?!

The aqueduct?