[scribus] Is Linux/Scribus viable? (was New Linux User...)

[John Brown]

Jan Schrewe wrote:
> 
> John Brown schrieb am Sonntag, 10. August 2008:
>> Gregory Pittman wrote:
>>> Scribus's role in this is to just keep pushing forward, so that it can
> 
>> Nothing in life is free. So-called free-to-air television is paid for by
>> advertisers. The money to pay for "free" software has to come from
>> somewhere. Why is it evil if it comes from the people who use the software?
> 
> It isn't - at least the way I see it. The evil part is the proprietary part of 
> the software. The part that is not open, where you have to deal with anoying 
> bugs and annoying designs and have no way to just fix something or you need 
> to adhere to absurd licenses. 

I understand the difference between "free beer" and "free speech".  I just wish
that more people would be honest and admit that they would be rather less
interested in "free speech" if they had to pay commercial prices for it. Those
dishonest people betray themselves by their constant references to  the evil M$.
> 
> After using linux for 12 years now I find it always absurd, when I can't check 
> out code from svn to get something I want or need, if I can't take a quick 
> peek in the sources to see how something works or why something isn't 
> working.
> 

Open Source indeed has a number of advantages, but they are overstated.
Possession of the source code is irrelevant if you do not have the ability to
"take a quick peek in the sources to see how something works or why 
something isn't  working". 99.999% of the population would be able to do
absolutely nothing with the source code or Windows MS Word, or whatever.

On the other hand, anyone can type 'svn update', although building the typical
open source program on Windows is harder than it is on Linux.

> What this boils down to for me is: If someone makes money with open software 
> that's cool. But I want the software to be open. 

OK.
> 
> Jan
> 

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