Community note: Free software is in many cases more convenient than their proprietary alternatives. Proprietary software quickly becomes very inconvenient if you dislike how it works, if you don't want to be a product, or if it has ads (like in your operating system? That's pretty inconvenient, Microsoft).

[–] WilloftheWest 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I agree on a personal level. FOSS software is much more convenient for my usecase of writing papers/typsetting notes, some automation, writing a program that works for me, and browsing/videos.

On the level of someone working in academia, it can be incredibly inconvenient if not outright impossible to implement. I can manage if I come across a bug in some FOSS software in my personal usage. An enterprise encountering an error with some utility whose support forum is a discord server: completely unacceptable. The entire printing service being offline because CUPS is temperamental: completely unacceptable.

Enterprises are the core customers of these inconvenient pieces of software with subscription based models.

load more comments (23 replies)