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by paulryanrogers 2679 days ago
> Be a serf in corporate walled garden for short term convenience...

There is a spectrum from the cathedral to the bazaar. And there are only so many hours in the day. You could become a serf to principles, spending time others have for social activities or relaxing instead on maintaining a purely libre work flow.
1 comments
yogthos 2679 days ago
There's a fundamental difference between you owning your tools and somebody else loaning them to you. You can save some time in the short term. However once the company starts going in a direction that doesn't work for you, then you end up getting screwed. I've been burned enough times over the years that I'd much rather use open source tools whenever possible. The beauty of open source tools is that they're not driven by need for profit. As long as there's a community of users who want to use a tool then it's going to keep being maintained and working the way the users want. It doesn't need to be profitable or grow it's market share.

So I'd much rather be a serf to principles and have control over my life than be a serf to a bunch of companies with their own goals and agendas. That's just me though.

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Silhouette 2678 days ago
However once the company starts going in a direction that doesn't work for you, then you end up getting screwed.

That is true, but if the more free/open alternatives were never at the same starting point in the first place, you were probably screwed that way too. Neither option let you start in a good place and then move in a good direction, and this is the unfortunate reality I was commenting on above.

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yogthos 2678 days ago
I think open source does let you move in a good direction though. I switched from a Mac to Manjaro Linux for my main desktop, and I haven't missed anything so far. Latest Gnome and KDE are both really nice desktops, there are apps for everything I need, and the OS is rock solid.

I've used Linux on the desktop previously and it left me wanting, so the fact that I haven't gone back tells me that things are indeed improving.

Meanwhile, OS X hasn't added a single feature I use since 10.6. All I've experienced over the years is that it kept getting more bloated, slower, and flakier.

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