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John Daragon wrote: | | It may be. But I *still* don't see what this has to do with whether the code | is Open Source or not.
Specific instances of a software problem can rarely be traced to whether the code is "open source", or even free software. Since to "the programmer" the source code is generally available (although often proprietary software uses libraries where this isn't the case).
Freedom impinges mainly on the process, i.e. how you would address this issue (writing a macro to help underskilled users, versus changes to the spreadsheet itself to avoid them in the first place), or what checks and balances apply to the software development and release process.
Say if the spreadsheet vendor's developers insert a huge easter egg, or make what would be unacceptable compromises for some users on the algorithmns for which table cells to recalculate, or fail to support your preferred platform, as random <sic> examples.
In contrast I suggest Outlook's security problems would not have persisted so long in the free software world, as people who needed more security than the base product offered would have fixed it and made those fixed available to others. There are situations where this process is slow but I think is demonstrable.
If there is a general trend it is to free software being more rounded, more interoperable, less buggy.
You expressed concern at free loaders in an earlier post, rather harshly naming Redhat despite the huge development efforts they have funded. But free loaders aren't a problem generally (although I have an issue with GNU Chess users whose PCs have viruses, where I see a small -ve cost per ~ MS Windows user to myself). But the point is freeloaders cost other users nothing, and they may always discover (and in some cases even fix) an obscure bug before you hit it, or request a useful feature you hadn't thought of.
The more users of a software product in general the better it is for individual users. This only seems to breakdown when the vendor is slow to address issues, which is not a sustainable position, in the free software world this can be addressed by forks or patches, in the proprietary software world this generally results in other types of failure (of both the user and the vendor). -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Comment: Using GnuPG with Debian - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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