On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:47:02 +0000 (GMT) MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop allegedly wrote:
Sometimes thare are tools, techniques, capabilities or services which are NOT OSS based but which still might meet a short term specific need. Off topic? Almost certainly. Unacceptable? I leave that to others to decide.
This response suggests that it's not left for others to decide, because if anyone decides to call it into question, you'll get the hump massively. Or is it just left for anyone except me to decide?
I beg all posters *not* to suggest "NOT OSS based" services when the question specifically asks for an open one. If you're not going to help us free computing, then at least don't try to trick people into using closed solutions by giving them in reply to requests for open ones.
slef
I confess I'm puzzled by your reply. I have not got "the hump" at all, and I'm not at all sure why you think I have - but no matter.
My point was (and is) simple. If a questioner here asks for advice about how to do something quickly using FLOSS and someone on the list happens to know that there is an on-line resource which will meet a short term need without much development being necessary, it should be perfectly acceptable to point that out. Development using appropriate tools can take place in longer time.
Yes, ideally all responses should point solely to "the one true way". But in reality that may not be possible. It may be complex, it may take more time than the questioner has immediately to hand, it may be that the FLOSS alternatives to proprietary offerings are not yet mature enough, it may be that there /are/ no such alternatives yet and so on and so forth.
I bow to no-one in my advocacy of FLOSS over proprietary software. And, personally I abhor what companies like google (which purportedly support FLOSS ideals) are doing. Nevertheless, if someone on this list said "I need a really quick way to develop a web based meeting scheduler, I'd say "have you considered doodle?", if they wanted a quick way to post photos on-line, I say "what about flickr, or picasa" - you get my drift I'm sure.
The people on this list are all here because they share a common passion - linux and FLOSS. But let's not be blinded by that passion.
Oh - and I'm not trying to "trick" anyone into doing anything. I was simply pointing ouut a possible solution.
Cheers
Mick
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The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this?
Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------