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Re:Ask HN: To fight or not to fight piracy? by rick_2047 on Sunday December 19, 2010 @12:46PM (#2022083)
They will not fail, but the Open source alternatives will get more consideration.
Re:Ask HN: To fight or not to fight piracy? by rick888 on Sunday December 19, 2010 @06:42PM (#2022835)
"They will not fail, but the Open source alternatives will get more consideration."

If you are willing to use an app that doesn't work as well, has less support, and you aren't willing to pay $1 or less (which is what I imagine the OP's app costs), then go for it.

Aside from a few things (apache, php, mysql, linux), I generally use open source in the beginning when I'm trying to cut costs..but almost always end up going with a proprietary solution when I need to get serious about it.

Open source has it's place, but it's not the software utopia that the community claims it to be.

Security is the #1 misconception. The claim is that it's more secure because there are "more eyes looking at the code".

If you look at any major open source project, there is usually a core set of developers that actually make any set of changes to the main core. Combined this with the fact that 90% of the project users don't know enough/anything about coding to make any changes and the odds of getting security changes fixed are probably around the same as a proprietary application.

Most users also don't update (proprietary or open source)..contributing to insecure software. I can't tell you how many Wordpress installations I've seen out there that are using sub 3.X/insecure versions.