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Re: [LUG] Excel mangles genes draft letter



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John Daragon wrote:
|
| It may be.  But I *still* don't see what this has to do with whether
the code
| is Open Source or not.

Specific instances of a software problem can rarely be traced to whether
the code is "open source", or even free software. Since to "the
programmer" the source code is generally available (although often
proprietary software uses libraries where this isn't the case).

Freedom impinges mainly on the process, i.e. how you would address this
issue (writing a macro to help underskilled users, versus changes to the
spreadsheet itself to avoid them in the first place), or what checks and
balances apply to the software development and release process.

Say if the spreadsheet vendor's developers insert a huge easter egg, or
make what would be unacceptable compromises for some users on the
algorithmns for which table cells to recalculate, or fail to support
your preferred platform, as random <sic> examples.

In contrast I suggest Outlook's security problems would not have
persisted so long in the free software world, as people who needed more
security than the base product offered would have fixed it and made
those fixed available to others. There are situations where this process
is slow but I think is demonstrable.

If there is a general trend it is to free software being more rounded,
more interoperable, less buggy.

You expressed concern at free loaders in an earlier post, rather harshly
naming Redhat despite the huge development efforts they have funded. But
free loaders aren't a problem generally (although I have an issue with
GNU Chess users whose PCs have viruses, where I see a small -ve cost per
~ MS Windows user to myself). But the point is freeloaders cost other
users nothing, and they may always discover (and in some cases even fix)
an obscure bug before you hit it, or request a useful feature you hadn't
thought of.

The more users of a software product in general the better it is for
individual users. This only seems to breakdown when the vendor is slow
to address issues, which is not a sustainable position, in the free
software world this can be addressed by forks or patches, in the
proprietary software world this generally results in other types of
failure (of both the user and the vendor).
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