--=-iJG50o67qqyg9qY5IGIu Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I agree with tickticker that proprietary vendors have worked hard to develop user communities and do have bug fix staffs. I also agree with Alan that proprietary vendors have good reasons to maintain their bug fix staffs. As in comedy, however, timing is everything. Bugs do get fixed with proprietary software and with free software. But how long does a company need to wait for those fixes? Hours, days, weeks, months, years, or, if you are running NT, an eternity? Two messages stand out - messages that we should be getting out a lot more strongly. The first is that free software does indeed have bug fix teams and that their reputation for finding, fixing, and distributing the fixes is orders of magnitude faster than their proprietary counterparts. The second message is the one the proprietary vendors hide - they decide what gets fixed and when it gets fixed and if it gets fixed - and that they are doing this for purely business and not legal reasons. --=20 Jim Freedom is all we really want --=-iJG50o67qqyg9qY5IGIu Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQA+nbzychsi2tkkdN4RAmAzAKCR2wb52V9pnpFIfy8KccdNOYOLjACgprZ2 tpuz22C9nxKa9QP/3ZmgPzk= =n6dW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --=-iJG50o67qqyg9qY5IGIu--