Free is never free
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@breffni-potter said in Free is never free:
"Paid software is awful because reasons"
I think you only sense that this was said because you were trying to promote that "unpaid software is awful because reasons" and so you feel that pointing out the flaws in that statement led to the opposite statement. But that's not what happened. No one said paid software was bad, only that it carried all of the risks that you listed and a few more. It seems unlikely that you got the impression that anyone was saying that unless you were saying the opposite - had you only been trying to point out that open source still carries some risks then I think you would have seen the truth in the reactions that yes, it does, but closed source non-free software carries the same risks and more.
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I think everyone agrees that free software, or open source (your post seems to mix the two making it difficult to discuss as they are different things at different times) has risks, but this is a common thing that people trying to push an agenda say all the time, that things really aren't free and introduce costs and risks that exists not just in closed source but moreso in closed source as if they are unique to software being free. Then ignore that in comparison to other things, the cost might be not only low, but negative.
In this way, even doing "nothing" is not free, because it will cost you something. It's great that people want to always figure out the cost of action, but this only makes sense when we also include the cost of inaction. Assuming that we must do something, we have to determine a baseline against which to compare. Things that "cost" more than the baseline cost us money. Things below the baseline save us money.
Much of what we do in IT is designed to save companies money. So the concept of "Everything costs something" is misleading, as much of IT actually pays us to do it. This creates all kinds of conceptual problems when we approach things in this way. Because we start seeing costs where savings might exist. And that is hitting us here.
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If it doesn't cost you anything, often YOU are the product.... except with FOSS
With FOSS I dont think the same maxim holds true.
FreePBX, for example, is not like Facebook. FOSS means a group of developers contribute and benefit from a common set of code. Everyone wins, for the most part.
A free hosted service, like Facebook, isnt free. You are the product, your attention is sold to ad marketers.
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you probably meant something like this.
Software that doesn't have a sales force that's willing to educate the buyers for what seems like no cost typically aren't what users end up wanting. Users really want a solution where they over pay for a product because that overpaying includes things they may or may not need.
It was clear that you were going after the fact that free software often doesn't have someone standing by to hold you hand to install something/figure out problems you run into during/after purchase.
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@bigbear said in Free is never free:
If it doesn't cost you anything, often YOU are the product.... except with FOSS
With FOSS I dont think the same maxim holds true.
FreePBX, for example, is not like Facebook. FOSS means a group of developers contribute and benefit from a common set of code. Everyone wins, for the most part.
A free hosted service, like Facebook, isnt free. You are the product, your attention is sold to ad marketers.
And think about people contributing to Facebook, they make posts for free. Or people posting on MangoLassi helping to fix someone's problem. It's really free.
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@scottalanmiller said in Free is never free:
@bigbear said in Free is never free:
If it doesn't cost you anything, often YOU are the product.... except with FOSS
With FOSS I dont think the same maxim holds true.
FreePBX, for example, is not like Facebook. FOSS means a group of developers contribute and benefit from a common set of code. Everyone wins, for the most part.
A free hosted service, like Facebook, isnt free. You are the product, your attention is sold to ad marketers.
And think about people contributing to Facebook, they make posts for free. Or people posting on MangoLassi helping to fix someone's problem. It's really free.
Well, it's free, but you have to look at ads.
So you are being paid to be an audience. -
@brrabill said in Free is never free:
@scottalanmiller said in Free is never free:
@bigbear said in Free is never free:
If it doesn't cost you anything, often YOU are the product.... except with FOSS
With FOSS I dont think the same maxim holds true.
FreePBX, for example, is not like Facebook. FOSS means a group of developers contribute and benefit from a common set of code. Everyone wins, for the most part.
A free hosted service, like Facebook, isnt free. You are the product, your attention is sold to ad marketers.
And think about people contributing to Facebook, they make posts for free. Or people posting on MangoLassi helping to fix someone's problem. It's really free.
Well, it's free,
but you have to look at ads. So you are being paid to be an audience.You NEVER have to look at ads. You choose to look at ads if you actually see ads while browsing.
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@rojoloco said
You NEVER have to look at ads. You choose to look at ads if you actually see ads while browsing.
You don't see ads on Facebook? You are a magician.
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@brrabill said in Free is never free:
@scottalanmiller said in Free is never free:
@bigbear said in Free is never free:
If it doesn't cost you anything, often YOU are the product.... except with FOSS
With FOSS I dont think the same maxim holds true.
FreePBX, for example, is not like Facebook. FOSS means a group of developers contribute and benefit from a common set of code. Everyone wins, for the most part.
A free hosted service, like Facebook, isnt free. You are the product, your attention is sold to ad marketers.
And think about people contributing to Facebook, they make posts for free. Or people posting on MangoLassi helping to fix someone's problem. It's really free.
Well, it's free, but you have to look at ads.
So you are being paid to be an audience.I didn't mention the site, but the CONTENT on the site.
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@brrabill said in Free is never free:
@rojoloco said
You NEVER have to look at ads. You choose to look at ads if you actually see ads while browsing.
You don't see ads on Facebook? You are a magician.
I don't really see much at all on FB, but I certainly don't see ads. uBlock Origin + the right filters = no ads anywhere, ever. I love watching Pandora try to play an ad and fail, then play another song.
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@breffni-potter said in Free is never free:
Now let's look at free software. Starts with the words "I want a free thing which solves this specific problem" It could be CRM, Finance, Security, It does not matter, the problem is we often look at open source software as being fantastic because it is free.
It's important to understand that open source and free are two different concepts. It's true, much open source is free, but the two are totally different concepts. One is about access to code, one is about cost. People who believe in access to code often also believe in free, but that those two things often overlap for humans is just that they have a tendency to be shared ideals, not that they are related. Like people who like fast cars often also like comfy cars. The two aren't related, but we aren't surprised to find the two together.
