You get what you pay for (not true in software)

[leisner.henr801c@XEROX.COM]

Jim Showalter said:
You get what you pay for.

My professional experience in software extends backwards a decade.  I've used
CP/M, MS/DOS and Unix machines.

Basically, software with source code is generally of higher quality to use than
random software.  The moderated software I've seen on USENET and the gnu
software is of extrodinarily high quality.

One reasons many vendors don't provide source code with programmers tools is
they're probably ashamed of it.

I find the GNU stuff to be of much higher quality then anything else I've seen
(I use gcc extensively) and its free and comes with source code.  Which gives
me a logical process if it does something wrong, where I can elect to fix it or
report the problem.

I've seen a decrease of the quality of software in the industry over the last 5
years (on CP/M and early Ms/Dos everything I tried worked pretty good).  Now a
lot of products on MacIntoshes and PCs do "magic" without documenting what
they're doing or providing feedback to the user. While the quality free
software is being distributed, used, improved upon.

The DoD probably made a mistake for providing a framework for a vendor system
rather than taking responsibility for a standard ADA compiler itself amd
distributing it cheaply.

What I've found is software vendors are in business to sell a product and will
only fix problems if enough of their customer base complain.  Free software
writers fix problems all the time and release new versions much more quickly
than vendors.

So in this strange business, "you get what you pay for" doesn't hold true with
software tools.

marty
(Knowledge is useful in the Information Age)
(Software is mindstuff.  It is the hardest activity created by man)

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