[theamk]

you are using the wrong analogy. You are implying that people are using proprietary products, but not paying for them - pirating or stealing them instead.

This is very much not the case. True, people are not paying for tools, but they are not using them either.

It is like a person went to fast food place and got a food poisoning. From now on, they are avoiding all fast food places and cook their own food instead.

You could argue they are missing out or wasting their time, but there is nothing immoral or un-ethical there. Even if I am a commercial cook, I don't have a moral obligation to go to restaurant. And if I have working open source tools, there is nothing wrong with saying "let ADI keep their overpriced IDEs, I will stick with Linux, gcc and gdb"

[pjmlp]

If you are a cook I expect to be able to eat gratis at your place.

And I gladly will place a RFP for you using Linux, gcc and gdb, which I expect to be delivered gratis, regardless of the works put into it.

[theamk]

Yes, if I am a cook and I am voluntary giving out food for free you can expect to eat gratis. (Perhaps the place has recently opened and they are attracting new customers?)

If I am a cook and I didn't invite you, then this a theft and you are breaking the law.

You are welcome to place any RFPs you want, but you might not get too many proposals for them if you won't pay ehough. You are still welcome to do so, there is nothing illegal or immoral in doing this.

---- I think we have too many similes in this thread, so I am going to say it directly:

When choosing a software tool, there are many factors: monetary cost, time spent getting the license, time taken to get started, time doing the primary task (like writing application code), time reading documentation, time spent fixing bugs, experience learned, how easy to transfer knowledge for other people, and so on.

A lot of times we can ignore "monetary cost" because work will pay; but even then proprietary software does not always win. It often has much better "time to get started", but it is often worse in other aspects. We should choose the best tool for the job, and let the market decide.

For example, in embedded world, proprietary software is common, expensive, and for some reason, very bad. If I had to start a project on Blackfin, and my company would be ready to pay for whatever ADI SDK licenses I need, I'd still choose Linux/gcc/gdb if I could. This is not because "I don't want to pay for tooling" -- my org would pay anyway. No, this is because ADI SDK is horrible and ignores all modern software development practices. And ADI IDE is slow, crashes and does not support threaded debugging.

On a more minor front, I have an expense budget, and I am sure my work would be happy to Beyond Compare license for me, but I keep using open-source kdiff3. I am sure BC is nice and I wish them all the best; but I like to be able to teach other developers on my team, and they are not likely to have a BC license.

[pjmlp]

> You are welcome to place any RFPs you want, but you might not get too many proposals for them if you won't pay ehough. You are still welcome to do so, there is nothing illegal or immoral in doing this.

Ah, so you don't want to play by the same rules, thought so.