rebelutionary / 2.0

Andy's Proprietary Software Rant / 2003 May 15

Andy has posted one of the most amusing rants I've read in a while over on his blog. It contains such gem quotes as:

OS X is awesome.. However, some things are more annoying than a wicked monkey bitch.

What on earth does that mean? Who knows - it's funny.

And I want it to freaking "just" work. My server, I want to configure and tune. My laptop is a toaster. If I have to tweak everything to get toast, I need a new toaster.

Now my laptop isn't a toaster (physically or metaphorically I don't think) but it is a slick piece of machinery. The 12" powerbooks rock, easily the best laptop I've ever used. For the record, I've never had any problems with DiskCopy or burning Windows CDs and I do it regularly - perhaps I'm just lucky?

As for the meat of his post - that proprietary software sucks because you can't get things fixed - I think he's sadly missed the boat. (Disclaimer: I work for a company that, however liberal our licensing, produces proprietary software)

Proprietary software isn't the enemy. Large companies, crappy support and customer service is the enemy. Andy has a problem with the UI of DiskCopy, but it won't be fixed for a while (if ever) because Apple releases software every 6 months. Not all companies are like this.

There are responsive, proprietary software companies out there - and why are they so responsive? Often it's because they compete with Open Source software - where responsiveness and customer service are your two best weapons. I can think of a number of good examples of companies in the Java space that are amazingly responsive to change.

Are they proprietary and responsive to change? Yes - all of them.

Do they produce excellent software? Yes - all of them.

Do they compete with Open Source software? Yes - all of them.

Do they all have reasonable, listed and upfront prices? Yes - all of them.

It's not proprietary software that's the enemy here, it's crappy companies. You can find them anywhere :)

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