17 Nov
2011
17 Nov
'11
12:56 p.m.
Well said. And those of us who use expensive,
proprietary software can
easily feel victimised by it. (In my case, in a previous career, Adobe.)
The "support" which is supposedly the privilege of paying through the
nose and enduring lock-in - frequently just isn't really there. When was
the last time a Windows user followed a bug through Microsoft's support
system? Mostly they get endured and worked around.
That's just things get done, in Proprietary Land... unless, I suppose,
you are Fortune 100 and can use a red telephone.
THis matches my experiences too. I have never received useful techncial
support from any computer company on either hardware or software. I've
sent e-mail to the support address of several large software companies
and never got a reply. I've sent letters to large computer comanies and
had them ignored.
Conversely, I've sent e-mail to the authors of open-source stuff -- who I
fully realais are udner no obligation to help me at all -- and received
useful infroamtion the next day.
The reason I prefer open-couce software is not ideological, it's
practical. If I have the source code even I (not a good programmer) can
make an attempt to get it working properly.
-tony