Tag: Open Source

3D Printed Guns (Documentary)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DconsfGsXyA

This one actually sent me into a lot of thinking (which is still not complete).  On one hand, I am very anti-gun.  On the other, I am very pro-Open Source.  I do agree with the point Cody raises about there being no more politics or politicians, just a pseudo-selection between the candidates who protect the same class of people.  Also, Nick’s saying that 3D printing technology is getting better and cheaper fast, and that law has always been way behind technology – this all makes 3D gun printing a complicated issue.

Thoughts?

You can certainly build open source software in .N…

You can certainly build open source software in .NET. And many do. But it never feels natural. It never feels right. Nobody accepts your patch to a core .NET class library no matter how hard you try. It always feels like you’re swimming upstream, in a world of small and large businesses using .NET that really aren’t interested in sharing their code with the world – probably because they know it would suck if they did, anyway. It is just not a native part of the Microsoft .NET culture to make things open source, especially not the things that suck. If you are afraid the things you share will suck, that fear will render you incapable of truly and deeply giving back. The most, uh, delightful… bit of open source communities is how they aren’t afraid to let it “all hang out”, so to speak.

So as a result, for any given task in .NET you might have – if you’re lucky – a choice of maybe two decent-ish libraries. Whereas in any popular open source language, you’ll easily have a dozen choices for the same task. Yeah, maybe six of them will be broken, obsolete, useless, or downright crazy. But hey, even factoring in some natural open source spoilage, you’re still ahead by a factor of three! A winner is you!

Jeff Atwood

I’m not inclined to make grand pronouncements abou…

I’m not inclined to make grand pronouncements about the future of software, but if anything kills off commercial software, let me tell you, it won’t be open source software. They needn’t bother. Commercial software will gleefully strangle itself to death on its own licensing terms.

Jeff Atwood

Major Linux Problems or Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop, 2012 edition

Major Linux Problems or Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop, 2012 edition

Every operating system has its problems.  Some things work better than in others, some do worse.  Here is an interesting (and very up-to-date) overview of the problems in the Linux space.  The good thing about it is that it’s not just bashing Linux over Windows or Mac and it doesn’tjust wine about minor things here and there.  There are issues all over, some are being worked on, and some are not, for a variety of reasons.  But just knowning these issues is already a good start in fixing them.