Quote:
Originally Posted by
hedkandi
but free usually means no support
Yes - and gravity is a myth because the earth is flat, otherwise we would fall off it.
Welcome to the stories providers of non-free software tell to make open-source look bad. "free" means usually as much support as a vendor provides but carried out in a different way.
If a software you buy doesn't do exactly what you want it to do chances are that the vendor is willing to provide you with a modification if it suits him to do so. Chances are, on the other hand, that he doesn't because it doesn't suit his goals and it would be too much effort to create a special version of his product only for you. So maybe you get what you want, maybe not. If not you will simply have to change your environment so that the product in question fits in somehow.
The same is true for copylefted software: you might get the developer community to change the product in a future version like you want it to be changed or you might not get the developers to do so. In this case you have to do the same as with the bought product OR you can modifiy it yourself to build the missing functionality.
Linux is open-source. Is it used? Has anybody suffered because of lacking support?
Apache is open-source. Is it used? Has anybody suffered because of lacking support?
Mozilla Firefox is open-source. Is it used? Has anybody suffered because of lack of support?
ClamAV is open-source. You tell me if it being open-source is a problem or not.
I hope this helps.
bakunin