Takes like this are so bizarre to me ngl. I highly respect developers of free software - especially those that give up their time without any compensation. However, at the end of the day people are going to use what they know works best for them. If that’s the free alternative for you, then great! But digging your heels in the ground and only using certain software - not because it’s better functionally or in any material way, but only because it’s free, at the expensive of your own productivity (or worse, the productivity of your peers because now they have to deal with your broken shit) is incredibly childish. No one actually cares in real life. Being a smug open-source zealot, and belittling people who don’t have the same narrow perspective isn’t “making a stand,” or really doing anything besides making you sound insufferable lol. Saying this as someone who’s contributed to and maintained several FOSS projects, as well as commercial ones. (edit for clarity: I’m using free/open-source/FOSS interchangeably, not referring to freeware.)
I understand your practical/functional approach. But I think the approach that sounds radical to you might also be a practical one that considers long term and big scale effects. I mean, the same happens in many aspects of life. Sometimes you do something in a more difficult way because you bet it will bring you benefits in the long term. Sometimes it really pays over but other times you think it will bring you benefits (and for example instead of doing something manually you write a script that does it) but you miss it and end spending more time on the job than if you’ve had just solved your specific problem manually. When we talk about sociology, politics and other complex subjects that go beyond our short term/personal benefit impact, we really frequently don’t have the knowledge to make the best decisions, so we kinda guess based on our experience and convictions. I think that’s what making us disagree right now. Personally, for me using libre software was a chimera until 6 years ago or so when I think it reached a mature point in which nowadays it can solve most needs with more practical benefits by far than proprietary software. Before that, I used Windows, Adobe and other proprietary software and dealt with its limitations. I mean I also have to say that I also used it because it was comfortable, easier and familiar for me (I was trained on Microsoft/Macromedia/Adobe ecosystem since a small kid) Probably, if I had no experience with computers before (and as I can confirm from the experience of installing GNU/Linux on other people’s computers, those that have no former experience with Windows nor Mac whatsoever have so much better/faster adoption of GNU/Linux), I could have adopted it earlier. The thing with libre software (contrary to most things in the material world) is that the more people use it, the better it gets, so that makes a special point on why using it could be beneficial for the whole system called humanity. Well anyway… Thanks for reading!
I understand your practical/functional approach. But I think the approach that sounds radical to you might also be a practical one that considers long term and big scale effects. I mean, the same happens in many aspects of life. Sometimes you do something in a more difficult way because you bet it will bring you benefits in the long term. Sometimes it really pays over but other times you think it will bring you benefits (and for example instead of doing something manually you write a script that does it) but you miss it and end spending more time on the job than if you’ve had just solved your specific problem manually. When we talk about sociology, politics and other complex subjects that go beyond our short term/personal benefit impact, we really frequently don’t have the knowledge to make the best decisions, so we kinda guess based on our experience and convictions. I think that’s what making us disagree right now. Personally, for me using libre software was a chimera until 6 years ago or so when I think it reached a mature point in which nowadays it can solve most needs with more practical benefits by far than proprietary software. Before that, I used Windows, Adobe and other proprietary software and dealt with its limitations. I mean I also have to say that I also used it because it was comfortable, easier and familiar for me (I was trained on Microsoft/Macromedia/Adobe ecosystem since a small kid) Probably, if I had no experience with computers before (and as I can confirm from the experience of installing GNU/Linux on other people’s computers, those that have no former experience with Windows nor Mac whatsoever have so much better/faster adoption of GNU/Linux), I could have adopted it earlier. The thing with libre software (contrary to most things in the material world) is that the more people use it, the better it gets, so that makes a special point on why using it could be beneficial for the whole system called humanity. Well anyway… Thanks for reading!