Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
Nothing like Dave Winer from Userland cashing in on the open source non-debate by twisting the whole thing back to how we shouldn’t pick on Manila, we shouldn’t pick on him, we can’t pick on “his” XML-RPC, and then goes on to talk about how open source developers never listen to the users. WTF!?!
I suppose that’s why Mozilla cared so little for getting comments from users that they created an entire open source bug reporting system (Bugzilla) just to manage user responses. I suppose that’s why the Apache organization wrote the following:
Not a software developer? Don’t worry, there are plenty of other ways you can contribute. Our customers, the users of our free software products, are part of the Apache community as well. Organizing local user groups, volunteering to work on user conferences, and helping less experienced users on the various on-line forums are all ways in which you can contribute to the ASF projects. Likewise, the Foundation project can often benefit from people with administrative experience or access to specialized communication facilities.
Not listen to users? Bullpuckey!
FYI — I’m not an open source groupie. Most of my work has been for companies that hide their code behind lock and key (though that is changing a bit now). However, I do believe in giving credit where credit’s due, and the open source community deserves more credit than they sure have been getting lately. A lot more credit, and a hell of a lot more respect.
As far as I’m concerned, there is no competition between closed or proprietary software organizations and the open source community. If anything, there’s a symbiotic relationship between the two. The proprietary software companies provide the salaries of the people who donate their time building much of the open source code. In turn, the proprietary software companies benefit from the innovation and creativity freely available as open source. Based on the benefits proprietary software companies have gained from the open source products, the concept of “open source” is a huge success.
I would even go so far as to say if there were no open source, you wouldn’t be reading this today. And if there were no closed, proprietary software companies, chances are you wouldn’t be reading this today, either.
-later-
Why am I getting into this BS? Arguing with the Userland Deus Ex Machina is like being nibbled to death by ducks — slow death by constant attacks by small, blunt toothless beaks. Chomp. heh Chomp. heh.
There’s this “tag, you’re it” type of thing that goes on — when one tires, another takes up the weblogging baton and it’s just you running against this big, bad remorseless Weblogging machine.
Anyone want to take the baton from me? I’m getting tired. All that “flailing” about open source, most likely.