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- Xref: sparky comp.sys.mac.programmer:21336 comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools:2007
- Path: sparky!uunet!psinntp!lupine!mellon
- From: mellon@ncd.com (Ted Lemon)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.tools
- Subject: Re: Stallman and friends
- Message-ID: <MELLON.93Jan12121019@pepper.ncd.com>
- Date: 12 Jan 93 20:10:19 GMT
- References: <1ig6dkINNdq5@shelley.u.washington.edu>
- <1993Jan10.014701.14286@usage.csd.unsw.OZ.AU>
- Sender: news@NCD.COM
- Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.programmer
- Organization: Network Computing Devices, Inc.
- Lines: 34
- Nntp-Posting-Host: pepper
- In-reply-to: troy@cbme.unsw.EDU.AU's message of 10 Jan 93 01:47:01 GMT
-
-
- >In practice, the situation doesn't really arise anyway. While the GNU tools
- >are generally better than their commercial counterparts, businesses are
- >nervous about buying products produced with free tools, primarily because
- >they have nobody they can blame if something goes wrong as a result of
- >an error in one of those tools.
-
- You could have fooled me. NCD uses gcc for all of our X terminal
- products, and our customers don't seem to mind terribly. We also
- provide great support, from what I've heard.
-
- A lot of people are discovering that having somebody to blame is cold
- comfort when you're being screwed over by a software problem. Many
- software vendors will only fix a problem in the next release, if then,
- and won't publicize known bugs in their software, so that you don't
- even know in advance what you're getting into.
-
- By contrast, bug fixes for the GNU tools typically come out very
- quickly because so many people are working on them, and a typical
- piece of GNU software will have a list of known problems and ideas
- that people have for how to solve them. Bugs are discussed in an
- open forum, and fixes are generally available to all comers.
-
- Which solution works for you can vary, but in general I think that the
- average end-user would rather have good service than bad service, and
- I think that even in the world of commercial software, companies that
- provide good service will tend to win in the long run.
-
- _MelloN_
-
- --
- mellon@ncd.com uunet!lupine!mellon
- Member of the League for Programming Freedom. To find out how software
- patents may cost you your right to program, contact lpf@uunet.uu.net
-