[ale] Opera 7.11 Linux Final is Out

[Chris Ricker]

On Wed, 21 May 2003, James Sumners wrote:

> To write something off because they do not offer the source code for a
> specific platform is absurd. And it is not a valid argument to say that
> you must have to source because you are concerned about some security hole
> it might create. I am sure that 99.99999% of the people who make such an
> argument do not spend countless hours going through every line of source
> code to every single program they have installed on their machine.

It *is* a valid argument. I'm not an open source zealot and do use or
support closed-source applications, but I do weigh the availability of
source code when I'm deciding which app to use. It's an important criteria.  
I certainly don't peruse the source code for all apps before installing an
app (I have for some, but don't as a routine thing), but when problems arise
(and they always arise. Software sucks.), I value having the source to help
identify, and possibly fix, those problems.

I will, and do, use Oracle. It's better for many things than PostgreSQL, and
features are more important to me than source. I will and do use Solaris,
even though it's difficult to make any changes I might want (you can get
Solaris source, but it's mainly useful as a reference into how it implements
something -- the source releases don't track patches, and are rather
difficult to bootstrap) because, again, features matter more than ability to
change source meaningfully. I don't use Opera. It's not better than Mozilla
(IMHO -- I happen actually to like Mozilla, unlike most people it seems ;-),
and so source availability wins out....

Those are my own personal criteria. Other people have different criteria.  
And if their criteria happens to be that they won't run apps for which they
don't have source code (or even that they only run closed-source
applications), why is that an "invalid" personal choice for them to make,
and who are you to determine what someone else's personal choices should be?

later,
chris
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