[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“While many OSS projects are not as feature laden as some of
their commercial counterparts, they frequently make up for those
deficits in other ways (price excluded for my point here, since
that would be an obvious one). Truth be known, I vastly prefer the
GIMP to PhotoShop. While your opinion might be different, I find
that I can do far more, and easier, using the GIMP. This pattern is
prevalent among the geek culture, as new users discover and use
OSS, they are not always drawn merely by a program’s
lack-of-financial-investment-necessity, but by its utility,
features, and performance….”
“I stopped studying software programming in college because the
programs my instructors wanted me to code were too boring, and not
of interest to me. Many of the OSS developers (who actually
contribute) do it as volunteers because they love what they do, and
want to have input in a product. At work, they have to do what “the
Man” tells them, whether or not their opinion of the project is
different. On their own time, they code what they want to, and many
of them code OSS projects. It’s obviously not to make money, so why
do they do it? Is it because they want to make something better, or
perhaps they would like to exert some level of “control” in their
lives. If an OSS project is designed better than what they’re
working on at their place of employment, wouldn’t it stand to
reason that one compelling reason OSS can and does succeed is
because at some level, it is designed to be superior to existing
products?”
“Granted, this is idealistic, and not all developers with side
projects choose the OSS model, so I’ll go on. There are few who are
truly experienced with both who would argue that Win9x is more
stable than Linux. I know this is flamebait, but lets keep reading
for a moment. I’ve heard it said that commercially developed
software will always be superior and desirable over OSS software
because money drives said development. I contend the opposite
(although there’s always room for the occasional exception). Please
permit me to show why.”