LOCAL IT developers are being stifled by the dominance of US software companies that hold on to government business through "vendor lock-in", industry observers say.
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Anybody up to writing good directory software?
Tue, 2007-02-20 11:17 — David JonathanSince the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Is better education the key to finding better software?
Sat, 2007-03-03 03:25 — Edward RusselI read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
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motters
4 years 6 weeks 2 days 11 hours ago
Ok, so tell us something we don't already know
The software industry is still relatively young - only two or three decades old - so I think governments and other large organisations have been fairly naive when it comes to purchasing software. They just went with whatever seemed popular at the time (or what often not entirely impartial consultants told them was good). However, I think people around the world are now getting much wiser to the "lock in" tactics frequently used by the pushers of proprietary software, and where possible are rejecting that way of doing things.
In the early days of any new industry you usually find giants and monopolies, but as time goes on I think we'll see these fade away to be replaced by a more competitive situation, which free/open source software facilitates.
geosync.orbit
4 years 6 weeks 2 days 1 hour ago
It's an easier form of advocacy
When stories like this are submitted and/or promoted on FSDaily, several things happen:
1) Importance is given to the story in the form of page rank. So we are effectively lending our support to this opinion.
2) New members of the FOSS community become exposed to information they may not have been previously aware of.
3) Those who were already aware of the facts are provided with new ways of explaining them which helps them when they then try to explain them to others.
4) You can use the "email" links to pass this information on to friends and colleagues who might not take the truth from you or other "biased" parties like the FSF but may take it from independent writers and publications.
5) It is encouraging for existing members of the FOSS community to see our messages being spread by more and more people especially when it is coming from sources that are well respected outside the FOSS community.
6) We are given a chance to discuss the finer points of the issue. We get the opportunity to pick out anything that wasn't quite right with the article and iron out any wrinkles so to speak.
There are probably more than just these reasons to see the same messages repeated again and again. So I, personally, am quite happy to see these stories again and again on FSDaily.