Re: Practicality of GNU project and libre movement (Sagar Acharya : 2)

[Miles Fidelman]

On 8/7/20 3:00 PM, Matt Ivie wrote:

> On Tue, 2020-07-28 at 02:24 -0400, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> > On 7/25/20 3:12 PM, Matt Ivie wrote:
> >
> > >      "And, yes, I rely on a Mac, and MS Office for lots of things -
> > > "
> > >      Hi Miles, this is not an attack bit a practical question. What
> > >      functions does the Mac do for you that you're unable to do in a
> > > libre
> > >      system? Same question on MS office.
> > >      I have been an IT professional for some years now and I have
> > > been able
> > >      to run my workstations using debian and I use LibreOffice
> > > without much
> > >      of an issue.
> > >      Do we need to start a new thread or discuss this privately
> > > since it is
> > >      a little bit of a side topic.
> > Not sure how much of a side topic it is - seems like it's right up
> > there
> > with "practicality of .. "
> >
> > To answer your question:
> >
> > - It's not about being "able" to do something, it's about being able
> > to
> > get real work done with the least amount of hassles.  I'm a systems
> > architect - computer hardware & software are just tools for getting
> > the
> > work done, and components in the end products delivered to customers.
> >
> > - When I'm trying to get work done, I like my tools to just work.
> > The
> > Mac is a nice piece of hardware, the GUI is polished, Apple Care is
> > a
> > pretty good deal for keeping stuff working, and Office is what
> > everybody
> > in business uses.  Sure, one CAN do it all with Debian & LibreOffice
> > (until you start sharing complex spreadsheets), but again, ease of
> > use &
> > support count for a lot.  (Now, with Apple about to change the
> > underlying chipset, and moving toward a more and more closed
> > environment, there's a good chance that my next machine will be an
> > MS
> > Surface - but that's another matter entirely.)
> >
> > - On the server side, Linux & FOSS are the things that "just work."
> > I've been running Debian, Apache, Postfix, Sympa, and MySQL for
> > years.
> > But what with systemd mucking things up, and MySQL now owned by
> > Oracle,
> > there's pretty good chance that my next upgrade is going to be to
> > either
> > BSD or SmartOS, or Erlang on bare iron.  Now if someone would just
> > come
> > up with a good, FOSS, distributed file system...
> >
> > - And, of course, when it comes to delivering stuff to customers -
> > more
> > often than not it has to run on an MS platform.  And, if not MS,
> > then
> > Red Hat (precisely because customers like to purchase service
> > contracts).
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Miles
> I see your points and don't agree with ease of use over freedom. The
> usability and functionality of Free Software can and does improve over
> time but the freedom aspect of Apple and Microsoft software is not
> likely to improve much over time.
>
> Thanks for taking the time to explain your perspective on the issue and
> sharing your experiences.

You're welcome.

I guess I should add one thing:  I'm a very big fan of open protocols & 
open representations (I've spent 50 years in the networking business, 
working on things like the ARPANET & Internet).  I figure that if I can 
read a document in multiple applications, and exchange information via 
open protocols - which tools I use are close to irrelevant.  (I.e., if I 
use Thunderbird to read mail on one machine, and MS Outlook on another - 
that's free enough.  On the other hand, Google has become evil for not 
supporting serious calendar interoperability, while Microsoft Exchange 
is on the side of goodness & light.

Cheers,

Miles



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown