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Re:Elsevier Has Bought Mendeley by xaa on Tuesday April 09, 2013 @12:19AM (#5516423)
It isn't quite so simple -- usually you pay for the flexibility and freedom of FOSS with a significantly less polished UX.

In an ideal world, everyone would pool their resources toward free software and all would benefit. In reality, it is like a multiplayer Prisoners' Dilemma: people who "defect" by using proprietary software are rewarded (in the short term) with a nicer UX, at the expense of those who "cooperate", and at their own long-term expense.

There are other problems: FOSS (especially Linux) suffers from severe fragmentation, and I also question to what extent people are willing to develop software that is not fun for free.

Anyway, I never "forgot" the excesses of, say, Y2K-era Microsoft. I have just been skeptical of the workability of FOSS. But I do think it is the ethical way to go.

Re:Elsevier Has Bought Mendeley by jasonlotito on Wednesday April 10, 2013 @12:37PM (#5526242)
> I also question to what extent people are willing to develop software that is not fun for free.

Pay them to develop the features you want rather than pay the cost of using proprietary software or closed systems.

Everyone wins.