Cool

3 and a half years passed from my last scribbing here, and I still do not have anything other to say than rantings...

Anyways... for a reasonable amount of time ago, I started to doubt in FS/OSS ability to empower little guys, independent programmers and developing countries. You can go and code, of course, and scratch your itches, but as soon as it comes to making living (read money) out of it, the one with marketing and managing skills and resources will be the one, who benefits. And unlike in proprietary software world, where often the easiest solution to get hands on your little IP, is to buy it, there is no obligation other than moral in the free software world. Moral obligation in contemporary business... well...

Actually things did become real, and my little cute sodipodi got forked in nasty way. And not by any secretive closed source company (well, they have resources to write better things themselves after all), but by people from OSS, who happened to have instant need for praise, and much more advertizing resources than me. Without even hearing any thanks, the original project is shadowed by new, flashy and hyped spinoff, which, for some weird reason, is still targetting 99% the same audience and design philosophy. Needless to say, that I am pissed off...

From the other camp, Creature House got bought by Microsoft. We can only admire the original creators of this excellent toolset, and envy them for their decision to keep their IP to themeselves.

Uh, and do not try to talk about how, in FSS, you can live by giving services and custom solutions. You can feed yourself and your family in various ways, and contract programming definitely is not very rewarding, neither intellectually nor financially. You can manage without either one, and usually people sacrifice instant material benefit for hypotetical FSS glory. But if the latter is gone, writing proprietary stuff is often easier and more rewarding (both intellectually and financially) occupation.