Re: [tlug] GPL vs. paid version and ethics

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Attila Kinali writes:

 > Hmm.. It might be just me, but IMHO most of the things that Sun
 > fixed were UI stuff,

Yes, and no.  First, the UI stuff is the whole game in many
applications.  Second, they fixed a lot of issues with Japanese
language handling, as well as with screwball MS format files (eg, the
ones used by the Japanese ministries, where the secretaries usually
use Ichitaro to create the forms and then they are translated to
Word).

 > Given that quite a bit of my environment consists of psychology students...
 > And those who do not use a Mac use Ubuntu (the number of Windows machines
 > is quite small). So i guess, that for those students, who are admitably
 > everything but hackers, ubuntu and OSS seems to be good enough.

Excuse me, but Mac and Ubuntu are commercial products.  Some of my
best friends are paid (rather well, to boot) by Apple and Canonical.
*We're not talking about closed source here.  We're talking about dual
licensing by commercial entities.*

 > *g*
 > I tried Python, but it somehow never stuck to me. I always switched
 > back to C and perl ^^; And i think that learning Haskell is enough
 > for the moment ;-)

"perl"!?  Well, I know why you don't believe that anybody ever has a
good process. ;-)

 > But then again, i don't know any company that uses Haskell or even
 > Python in a larger scale around here. The only one might be big
 > G... but they thought about hiring me as a mere sysadmin...

Haskell is probably still pretty rare, although I gather financial
hackers use it a fair amount.  But I'd be very surprised if there
aren't a lot more Python shops (not to mention shops that adhere to
best practices) than you think.  Maybe you hang out in academia too
much (heaven knows the last thing anybody around here is interested in
is best practices!)