[mythtv-users] Why Free Software has poor usability ?

[Nick Rout]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 2:21 PM, Raphael <rpooser at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nick Rout wrote:
>> On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Udo van den Heuvel <udovdh at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>> It is a certain area of problems that would have been fixed by now in
>>> some way in commercial software.
>>
>> I say what? You must be joking! A problem that no one else can
>> replicate? You think you would get ANY response from the average
>> commercial software company as a lone user with unusual usage
>> complaining about an alleged memory leak? At least you got some
>> traction on this list with people trying to help. Most commercial
>> software companies wouldn't even have responded in my experience. But
>> anyway this is OT this discussion.
>> _______________________________________________
>
> Not in my experience. I've had software companies actually help my debug
> my own code before, after I assumed the bug lied in their own work.
> Didn't have to do it, but they did anyway. I was just one guy, no one
> else was reporting the same problem.
> Sure I agree many software companies will just take your money and leave
> you high and dry. But not all are like that. Also just because something
> is FOSS doesn't suddenly mean the support is going to lightyears better
> than anything else. There are also usergroups for people who use
> commercial software that help each other just as we do. Their capacity
> is somewhat diminished by the lack of anyone on the list who actually
> has access to the source code directly. Nonetheless, I find it odd that
> people seem to assume as soon as you're not using FOSS anymore, there is
> no such thing as a community of people who are willing to help each
> other....

Well try getting something in word or outlook fixed!

I guess the thing is that with FOSS there are often quite a big group
of "support" people because they CAN read the source, or get access to
the developers.

Each camp will have mixtures of good and bad support.

The thing is that neither camp has a monopoly on good or bad support.
For Udo to say his problem would have been fixed by a commercial
company is as ludicrous as saying no FOSS software has good usability.