Re: Why PHP ? - devil's advocate

With all due respect... Nothing is free. For example, I got pdflib for 'free' this summer. It took *hours* to get it working properly. Was it 'free'? Only if my time is worthless. Yes, it's a hackneyed phrase, but I happen to believe it's true. Whether I'm running Windows or Linux or FreeBSD or Solaris, my time is valuable. If I can install something in Windows in 10 minutes, rather than hours or days of tracking down compilation issues, then Windows becomes more attractive. The positives and negatives of each system need to be taken into account, but I think that for *many* people, the perception of difficulty in compiling/using open source stuff becomes the reality. Those of you who've grown up in Unix or have the luxury of weeks or months or years of education at the low level of Unix can get past many issues - many others of us can't. And don't have the time to go further. I've been very grateful for many open source projects - there's some great quality out there. But compiling and installing many projects is still a headache beyond belief in many instances. Joe Stump wrote: > We (the open source community) give you SO many options, empower you with the > ability to do it your way, the ability to create your own way. The thanks we > get? "So many different versions around..." !!!! > > I'm (as most open source people are I'm sure) sick of hearing people complain > about "this is hard", "why this way?", etc. - if you like Bill telling you > how > to run your operations then go out and spend the capital to run it his way. > > I on the other hand would rather have a rock solid solution created to fit our > EXACT specifications - for free. > > --Joe > > On Mon, Dec 11, 2000 at 12:43:11AM +0100, Sander Pilon wrote: > > > > > > > > > > You can pay a company to get you precompiled binaries of the app. > > > There are > > > so many opensource companies out there. > > > I'm not sure if you tried looking for one of those? :-) > > > > > > Saludos... :-) > > > > > > > One of the primary (and recognised) problems of linux is that > > the distribution of binaries is a nightmare. So many different versions > > around, > > so many different libcs, so many different libstdc++'s, some of them > > thread-safe, > > some of them not, so many different graphical platforms.... etc, etc. > > > > --- > Joe Stump > PHP Programmer > www.Care2.com >