Posts by The BigYin

Re: merchant account.

If he is install outside of Google Play, there's no way for him to know what modified, malicious crap he is installing.

Hang on, on Google Play there's no way to know what modified, malicious crap one is installing!

Re: This is a standard tactic...

"Really cos I heard it was shipping with Windows 8 installed on it, Windows 8 is not a proper OS, "

Hence why I said "can have" and not "does have".

Re: meh

Ok, gentle question. Have you told the project what you want? Logged a change request, filed a bug, got on their IRC, mailing list, whatever?

"I find this attitude extremely off-putting, and it's an attitude that you've demonstrated."

What's off-putting about pointing out that you can effect the change you want? If you are happy to let others put the changes in/decide the features, like choosing not to vote/protest/stand, you have abdicated all responsibility and have no right to complain. Sorry it that upsets you, but it's the truth.

Even with paid-for software, if you don't feedback to the OEM you won't get the things you want. They are not mind readers either. And they may still not choose to do what you want, then you are screwed. At least with F/OSS you can say "Sod that" and fork, if you have the chops to do so (and I realise that some people may not).

"You did say both of these, and they were your first responses."

They were part of a longer list and the reason they appeared first was they are the most immediate way to get the desired result. What is your alternative to either of those options?

"in the case of writing documentation, for instance, or testing current features - utterly useless so far as adding new features goes."

Not necessarily, as it releases the people who are currently doing to do other things.

Whenever I see "F/OSS X does not do Y" it reminds of the reviews for the 50p/free apps in the apps stores "This doesn't do Z. It's total shit! FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT FIX IT!" Which is utterly beyond the pale. It's a 50p/free app, get a sodding grip.

Re: meh

"Yes, you're saying DIY, or you're saying pay up."

"DIY", I took that to mean "you have to write the code yourself" which is manifestly not the case.

"Pay up" Seeing as the alternative is paid-for software, you have to pay up anyway! And I see nothing wrong with paying for F/OSS (be that money, time, other resources, whatever; i.e. get involved, it's your project too). Clearly one can't do everything, and that's where you make your cost/benefit choices.

I really don't get what your problem is. F/OSS software is there for you to take at zero-cost and when it's pointed out that it's down to you to get the things you want implemented, you go into a complete tizz.

If F/OSS does not do what you need, you don't want to get involved and some paid paid software does what you need at a price you can stomach....there's your decision.

Re: Slowly closing the gap with Microsoft Office?

" "Or pay a nominal sum of money to obtain commercial software that already has these features, along with support?"

£600 / license is a nominal sum?"

Be fair, £600 is a nominal sum relatively speaking. Let's make up some numbers. CMYK for GIMP, we've been told that's a hard job. How hard? One man year (including testing etc). How much is that? £60,000?

Only one person wants it. Cost to them? £60,000. That buys them a lot of licenses.

But wait. 10 people want it. Now the cost is £6,000 each. See where this is going?

Now yes, there will be other opportunity costs etc involved and one may still reach the decision that £600 at the pay-for vendor is the better option (especially if it's available right now). That's all fine and dandy, good on you, get the tool you need.

Re: meh

" "if you want it then go and write it yourself" (which you made in this thread) "

Poor summary, I said "It's your project too". If people want to abdicate all responsibility for things to someone else, there's already a model for that. They're free to lobby the vendor for new features too, then pay for the upgrade.

"give us money and we might consider it"

You don't have to give the project the money, do you? It may (or may not) take money. Depends what it is.

"but enough do that it's a major turn-off - and perpetuating the attitude helps absolutely nothing."

I'm not saying DIY, you're choosing to read that as my view and then argue against that. I am saying, get involved.

It's your project too.

Re: meh

"F/OSS expecting everyone to contribute back is the problem. Not everyone can or has the means."

Of course everyone has the means. It's not just code and massive test server y'know.

"The cost of a product that has already implemented the required feature and is not trying to harang me for money for something that should be in their product if they want me to use it. Which they do want me/ as many as possible to use or it would fail. "

Err...it does harang you. It's called "the price". If a piece of pay-for software does what you need, go buy it.

"it pays money and licenses for what it needs now. Not for future needs."

My comment was poorly written, I apologise. What I meant was the cash currently being spent on license fees and support contracts; some of that could be used to fund the development of their chose F/OSS tool. I fully expect them to still have a support contract, hopefully with an organisation feeding back into F/OSS (probably to make support easier...)

"but if a business needs a process now and it exists, why pay for someone to implement it maybe in the future. Somewhen."

I did not say they should. If another tool does what they need, go use that tool. What they should not do it select a tool that doesn't do what they want, moan about it and not lift one finger to fix the problem they have caused themselves.

Further more, many places do not have vanilla installs of (say) MS Office because they do not provide all the features. They go out and buy add-ons, or pay someone to write those add-ons. How is that any different to buying add-ons for F/OSS software, or paying someone to add to the F/OSS code base?

"If they want to beat the propriety software they need to put the features in."

Who said they wanted to "beat the proprietary software"? The most they want to do is scratch their own itch and fix their own problems. There will be some vendor somewhere who does want to beat proprietary software, I'll grant you that. But that isn't the project's problem and said vendor would almost certainly be involved in the project at some level, seeing to it that what they need gets done.

"Also note not everyone can contribute"

Everyone can contribute. Don't place limits. Even a decent bug report (or the steps to hit a problem) helps.

Re: Slowly closing the gap with Microsoft Office?

"Of the options you mentioned, only writing it myself or hiring someone to write it will actually guarantee the specific functionality gets created. That's not going to be free to do."

So what? Whoever said F/OSS has to also be zero cost software?

"If i need 4 copies immediately, the only sensible approach is to go out and buy something that already does it."

I have no problem with that. You could also form a cadre of like minded individuals and get the thing done.

Re: Slowly closing the gap with Microsoft Office?

Did he know that is is hard/impossible to add? He won't find out unless he asks.

Does he require CMYK support? Seems he does and as GIMP can't/won't provide it; then GIMP is the wrong tool for the job.

I'm not RMS, I don't have a probably with people buying proprietary software. What I have a problem with is people who get software (or anything) for no cost, bitch about it and demand it do something else for no cost.

Re: meh

"To be honest I'd be surprised if some projects haven't already implemented it."

Bug affects: 1,734 users

Bug priority: Medium (fix trigger level, $500)

Bug donation level: $0

That's why. It creates an incentive to chase the money rather than the functionality.

Re: meh

@Paul 135 - This already exists, it's called "getting involved". There is nothing to stop you, right now, getting together with a few others and hiring a coder/graphic artist/whatever and having whatever it is that annoys you sorted.

The slight problem with a straight money donation to bug fixes/features, it kinda creates the incentive for devs to not fix things until there's enough donations.

Re: meh

"asking a small or medium sized businesses to write its own office code is daft."

OH FFS! Who ever said they have to write it?

Re: meh

"Yes, we are all programmers"

No we are not. Why does everyone get so obsessed with code? Where did I say that you and only you must write the code and the only thing you are allowed to do is write the code?

You want to know what a massive help to a F/OSS project is? Reading the docs and checking for spelling mistakes, confusing structure, translating etc. Basic stuff that requires no knowledge of code.

Wanting everything for free and providing no contribution back is what harms F/OSS.

Re: meh

"If it does not have the features needed everyone says "write it yourself." "

If you read what I wrote, you'll see that I offered many option. Here's a question:

1) How much did LibreOffice cost you?

2) How much did the support contract cost you?

3) How much is that feature worth to you?

"A small business cannot do this"

Yes it can. See the money it pays for licenses and support contracts....guess where some of that could go?

"Open source needs to address this"

If does. It's call "People who want features in free/open source help get those features put in."

Re: meh

"Still no Draft view (bug 39080)."

Then write the 39080 patch, or hire someone to write it, or sponsor the project, or write the specs, or help with the testing, or the docs, or....

It's your project too, y'know.

Re: Slowly closing the gap with Microsoft Office?

"And the only thing I really need Photoshop for is CMYK image support."

Then write the CMYK support, or hire someone to write it, or sponsor the project, or write the specs, or help with the testing, or the docs, or....

That is, of course, assuming you have the time/resources/money.

Re: Slowly closing the gap with Microsoft Office?

LibreOffice and GIMP do do "real work" and one will find them excellent products. The toolchains are slightly different, but this is not a problem if you are only using one and either product is capable of matching their proprietary versions.

What people often forget when they say "You should use X instead of Y" is that "close enough" in file handling is simply not good enough in many cases. The fact that GIMP can read a Photoshop filse is of no use to a profession unless 100% fidelity is guaranteed. Gradients rendered the exact same way, layer and filters applied the exact same way etc.

But one stated out using GIMP, you can apply the same argument to Photoshop; it must render your GIMP files the exact same way otherwise Photoshop is useless to you.

So it really is more of a question on which one you start out with - for that choice is your lock-in and that is why you should choose freedom (if possible).

Re: Why the love for all the US aircraft?

In 50years it will be solar-powered AI drones getting dropped for lighter-than air floating battle stations.

Or something.

Re: "pillow biting"

"Homophobic"? Please explain.

I view it more about the MoD being the submissive in this BDSM relationship.

Re: The question is, what can we do about it?

None. The private companies now have your money, the MPs will have their kick-back and the top brass will have their nice directorships; so everyone who matters is happy.

Re: Why the love for all the US aircraft?

At a guess: cheap, understood, parts are plentiful, range and you can fire 'em off a carrier.

"With 1920 x 1080 resolution? Where where where?!"

Nowhere. And even 1920x1080 sucks donkey scrotum. 1920x1200 is what we want. At least, it's what I want.

Re: @The BigYin

From http://pcspecialist.co.uk

I swear blind that one of the Ultranote's was coming in at £680 when I looked earlier on.

Maybe I took the pre-vat price or something by mistake. Can get them configured for about £720.

I can get a Core i7, 16GB, 128GB SSD ultrabook with Win8 for less that £700. Why do I want his Surface Pro bollocks?

That's MS's problem right there.