[mythtv-users] Why Free Software has poor usability ?

Jason Antman jason at jasonantman.com
Sat Aug 9 00:25:24 UTC 2008



David Brodbeck wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Aug 2008 12:31:22 -0500, Nate Bargmann wrote
>   
>> Obsolete in software has more to do about its licensing than any 
>> other reason.  For example, the license may not allow installation 
>> on another computer or transfer to another computer or the vendor could
>> revoke your license to use the software at any time.
>>     
>
> It can sometimes also mean the software only runs on hardware that is no
> longer available/replaceable.
>
>
>   
Yes, I unfortunately ignored that, seeing it as an extreme edge case - 
this discussion mainly focused on things that run on off-the-shelf x86 
hardware, so that's not a usually-valid scenario (yes, it is in certain 
instances even in x86-land, but not very often for the end user).

And as to licensing... *shudder*.... I haven't even thought of the word 
in *years*. Granted, I work for a university in an almost exclusively 
F/OSS shop. Maybe it's from working with Linux for too long, but I don't 
understand how a company could buy software that's tied to a specific 
physical machine. Your user's desktop blows up because he used the CD 
drive for a cup holder... and you need to buy new software licenses? Sigh...


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