I have to admit that this quip pisses me off because open source developers have been so very generous to me.<p>That their work is done in public and in front of the world should not give us extra ammunition to put their efforts down.<p>There are countless closed source packages that are arcane and hard to deal with - we just don't see them so there not able to be criticized.
I assume this is just meant as an observation, not a criticism. I've certainly experienced this with some free software for various purposes, where you wade through 3000 forum posts to get it to run and someone chimes in, "oh, it only works if you install in in X directory...". Sure it sucked to read 3000 forum posts and google things for 2 hours, but, once it worked, it worked.<p>I don't know why this would be a "problem" though. This year I got a free snowblower. it had all the parts, but it didn't work. After much reading, disassembly, and other mess, I got it to work and now I have a snowblower.<p>To me, commercial software is often about ergonomics and immediacy - if I can pay to have it now, with no work, great. But, free software can be about capturing marginal value below the market clearing price. If I need to put in some time and effort but I don't need to spend any currency, then great! I've succeeded at getting a job done and exchanged time for cost. Seems reasonable, and it's nice to have the option. (obligatory hardware example: just look at youtube for the humongous number of things made with washing machine motors. Sure, they're inconvenient, but they are free and available. For a lot of people this trade is worth it.)
As a person who has acquired several "free" pianos, I personally love this analogy and in no way view it as a criticism.<p>Free pianos _are_ free - when I was broke and 22, it was the only way to get a piano. I had lots of other broke 22 year old friends with nothing to do, we hauled it up the steps and then I was playing piano!<p>If I were rich and busy, I wouldn't have bothered, but I wasn't.<p>I think this is an important counterpoint to the "FOSS solves all problems and is perfect" or "commercial software is always bad" attitude that some folk present.<p>I'm so thankful that any developer opens up their code, even when it's not perfect. I've often learned how to do something, borrowed a function, or learned what the right configuration option is from FOSS projects that I didn't even attempt to use wholesale.
This made me laugh, but if you think about it most non-free software is like an expensive player piano. Just as difficult to move, but it only plays music approved by the manufacturer, and requires special tools to tune that they only sell to approved partners.
Maybe yes, and it is also free like in free puppy, but guess what: The expensive puppets needs house training as well and they bite too <i>and more worrying their previous owner refuses to agree that he has sold it - and he bites</i>.<p>My qualifications: I've installed and supported Oracle databases for customers for years and I frequently wished they were Postgres.<p>Also more expensive pianos generally won't play automatically either and if they did you'd probably pay for them to stop sooner or later.<p>Software setup and installation is in many ways an art. Sometimes done on site with the customers watching, other times meticulously crafted as install and getting started wizards or whatever.
Speaking as someone who tries <i>not</i> to make my open-source software "free as in piano" and also got a free piano, my free piano is insanely fun.<p>I've learned to tune it, I lubed the keypins to reduce friction, I stuck a shim in the soundboard where it was buzzing…<p>And it emits music when I play it.
Not every open source project is polished. Fair enough - that's evident. However, that doesn't mean it's not useful. Sometimes a snippet from an abandoned project on GitHub is exactly what you need.
Then proprietary software must surely be a pianola (a player piano that plays automatically): it plays alone, but it is always the same song and you cannot change a note.
This isn't such a great analogy (in the way it is presented) because ...<p>- There is light-weight software that is easy to understand and use: like piccolo or flute, rather than a piano.<p>- This light-weight software can be both proprietary and free (in beer and speech sense): there are expensive flutes, and there are free flutes.<p>- There is heavy-weight software that users wrestle with, like getting a piano up the stairs. Likewise, this can be proprietary and free (in both senses).<p>- In proprietary software, support contracts can be extra, or part of the deal. Just like if you buy a piano, you may have to arrange for your own moving (exactly like with a free piano) or the piano shop could arrange it for you, factored into the piano price or itemized separately.<p>If we don't take the viewpoint that free software is always like a free piano, but allow for free flutes, then we can repair the analogy. Otherwise it is just bigoted.<p>It is quite insulting, actually, because, for instance, free GNU/Linux, though a complex behemoth, is a lot more wieldy to ordinary end-users than proprietary Unix ever was.
Many users report being more happy with a friendly GNU/Linux distro than with the proprietary OS they used previously.
This is a great analogy. Unfortunately the person has a cynical view on it. Another view on the same analogy: the work of one person in a public space can benefit many of those around them. Be it a piano, or Free Software.
For 10 years I have been working on this open-source HTTP app. server.<p>During this time only 4 external parties have used it afaik:<p>1) Some CS class at an Indian University.<p>2) An Indian startup to share physical things freely.<p>3) A Japanese university doctorate study about analyzing concurrency!<p>4) A Minecraft map server.<p>To me this is mindblowing, here you have the simplest and most performant version of the most used protocol on Earth and nobody cares!<p>Nobody wants to learn!
One improvement* over the "old days" is that there are fewer popular platforms now.<p>There used to be a lot of otherwise good free software that was very painful to compile on a platform other than what the author had access to. Getting something written on a SunOS box to compile on, say, AIX, was often a chore.<p>* Yes, other aspects of this aren't improvements.
So on top of the free piano, they also want a free piano delivery service, free piano tuning and maintenance, and free piano lessons?<p>The word that comes to mind is entitled..
Well, I think this is true. Many devs are slaving over high quality software that is technically fine and a real achievement but nobody truly loves the niche except for them. I think the real talent is in writing software that other folk are inspired by and actually want. Too much focus on the technical side of things, not enough focus on the human side of things. But then, it is important to be true to yourself, if you love that software, then you love it. Depends on your reason for working on it, whether your profit is your own enjoyment or the enjoyment by others.
I don't get all the backlash in this thread. There is truth here. The critique misses the mark a little by focusing on compiling and patches, but the analogy is sound.<p>I have a secure computing environment I can trust, a plethora of online nyms isolated into different VMs and IPs, my phone surveils me as little as possible, private email, tv/movies play easily and immediately, local music in good quality that plays out of nice speakers but can controlled by any handy device, conversations with friends that aren't being analyzed by surveillance companies, very little advertising exposure, secure non-cloud backups, security cameras that only I can view, etc.<p>But all of this took <i>work</i> to set up, and takes occasional ongoing maintenance. I certainly don't fault everyone whose primary focus is not computing for not expending the effort to be as Free. If we want Free solutions to succeed for larger adoption, it behooves us to recognize this barrier and improve the situation.
Say I do accept this analogy. For some people, getting a free piano would be life-changing. Composers, Song Writers, aspiring musicians...<p>Some people would look at a free piano as “that would be nice to have because it’s free”.<p>Clunky free software that needs TLC, but is valuable may still be worth it to the people who care.<p>So you can make this comparison, but I don’t like the attitude.
I wish this submission pointed to a longer article instead of two tweets; especially since it's opinionated and addresses a complex topic. I feel like I'm missing the real world context and that I'm seeing only a part of the author's point.
Actual piano players are more likely to appreciate a free piano.<p>As opposed to the the people who buy a baby grand, then let it sit there hoping for a piano player to visit.
All software has a learning curve. I have never bought paid software that instantly solved my problems with no configuration or learning. I think the time cost is intrinsic in all software, it's just that free software doesn't have a dollar cost.<p>It is something that annoys me, for sure, but it's not unique to "free software".
The author of this tweet is really making fun of indie gratis software, which is pretty rude, since that software is hard to use because the authors don't have many resources and are volunteers.<p>Is Firefox hard to use? Does the author struggle to use Twitter, built on libre software as a base? Is the Android kernel free as in piano?<p>Twitter people are stupid
Tell that to users, authors and contributors of Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Firefox, Apache, nginx, mySQL, Postgres, Redis, PHP, Ruby, Python, Go, Kotlin... Jeez, such an awful example of narrow-mindness and ignorance.
How ungrateful does one have to be when they want a piano, are given one for free but don't want to take the bare minimum effort of moving it into their house?
After reading the rest of the quote, I agree. It's an apt quote and a challenge to FOSS founders to bring make their software better.<p>From that standpoint, Challenge Accepted.