- With non-free softwares, you can be sure of what features are present
and what are not and what are the known bugs (as the company producing it is bound to make those details available to its customers). But with
Really? Please check your facts. Almost every bug with the Windows Operating System is patched after some one writes a exploit virus for it. (Melissa, w32Blaster, Sazzer,..)
free s/w, Careless developers might not feel the same responsibility to
Free software is not developed by careless developers. It is developed by volunteers. Volunteers who love to program. Who love computing. These volunteers cannot be compared with regular programmers employed in software production houses. Here, the programmers are usually forced to do something that they probably dont like. One of my friends working in Infosys hates computers (He is a EEE engineer). He is programming today for a living. Please note., there is a difference in programming for a living and programming for passion. A passionate programmer puts his best effort to make beautiful programs. He knows the trade very well.
Have you ever used gcc + binutils + gdb. Do you think the people who programmed that are "careless developers??". Please look into the autotools (Autoconf + Automake + Libtool). That is not some mediocre joke. It is so professional that even propreitary production houses shamelessly use it. Can someone think of having a network of GUIs?? Did a "careless developer" think of making the X so powerful that I can actually open two GUI applications on a remote machine whose display comes on my terminal? Did a "careless developer" develop Guile.. I dont see even one single "heavily funded" proprietary software development house bring out something so smart and neat as Guile.
Cheers, Joe