Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 9:47 am Post subject: Has anyone replaced MacUpdate and Version Tracker?
Although we only have enough time to provide support to our most generous donors, every so often I do spend a little time to look at various Mac software review sites to see if a large number of users are experiencing a bug or problem that we don't already know about.
It used to be that MacUpdate and Version Tracker were low traffic sites where there were relevant comments were made. However, it seems that MacUpdate's review site is now filled by only rants about the GPL by people who appear to have never done a simple Google search to find what the Free Software Foundation - the people who wrote the GPL - have to say about the GPL so the above two sites are now pretty much useless IMHO.
So, my question is does anyone know of any sites where there still actual users commenting on what our product does or doesn't do instead of just ill-informed rants about the GPL?
I was hoping that if we ignored the trolls, they would go away, but, sadly, that does not appear to be the case
Since they've not gone away, I've been trying to find the time to draft a general response to the lies and falsehoods expounded in the trollish whining, so that at least for a while they might not have the most recent comment, but so far I haven't been able to scrounge up the time
OTOH, the listing on I Use This hasn't been overrun by trolls, but it hasn't had much activity in the past couple of years, either. I wouldn't yet call the site a "failed experiment to replace MU and VT", but I Use This certainly hasn't acquired anywhere near the sort of userbase that many of us early members hoped it would.
Smokey _________________ "[...] whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." -- ovvldc and sardisson in the NeoWiki
I was hoping that if we ignored the trolls, they would go away, but, sadly, that does not appear to be the case
Since they've not gone away, I've been trying to find the time to draft a general response to the lies and falsehoods expounded in the trollish whining, so that at least for a while they might not have the most recent comment, but so far I haven't been able to scrounge up the time
Personally, I wouldn't waste your time with these ill-informed people. Their ignorance of the GPL is in some cases astounding and the fact that they unaware of GPL software requiring some payment (like Red Hat Enterprise Linux) tells me that no amount of facts will convince such people that the GPL isn't the savior of all zero cost software.
My favorite comments are those that say "it is against the law". Last time I checked the LGPL and the GPL are copyright licenses and both us and LibreOffice trust that Oracle is the copyright owner and, by extension, their use the LGPL by them is valid. But what makes me dismiss anything in these types of posts is the lack of awareness that GPL is not a law as every country in the world has different laws. But then, maybe I missed the establishment of a "one world government".
Seriously though, my sympathy goes out to the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation as I would bet that their volunteers deal with a contant deluge of these "so and so is charging for GPL" software complaints and, despite both organizations efforts to dispel this blatantly wrong interpretation of the GPL, the hope that the GPL will force software engineers to work for free just will not die.
Joined: Jun 11, 2006 Posts: 481 Location: Great Britain
Posted: Sun May 01, 2011 11:56 am Post subject:
It's sad that so many people think of the word "free" as a dollar value. I think Patrick is right, it's not worth wasting the energy to explain to people things they could find the answers to in moments if they really cared to know. The only thing worse than a Wikipedia-quoting troll is a troll who cannot even be bothered to read Wikipedia.
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