Frustrating Pro's and Con's to open source

**perrin21** · December 5th, 2008, 10:25 AM

Pro's

Drives innovation
Free of charge to the end user
Creates collaboration between developers
A fun hobby for the developers and the users

Cons

Often never finished
End users have no idea whats coming half the time
Usually full of bugs that are never corrected (forgotten about)
New features usually come before boring bug fixes as they are more exciting to make i immagine.
Seems to take forever to develop
Someone always wants to take things in another direction

for once id just like to see a project completed, rather than endless alphas because someone thought it would be a good idea to add some more features and cause even more bugs. Why cant the community get the basics right first? Video, Music, Photos , then the rest.

just my opinion.

**mypridewar** · December 5th, 2008, 10:45 AM

why did you post this in the mac section?

this should have been posted in the "general" forum - please - on behalf of us all, don't flood the boards with thoughts on opensource ethics and productivity.

**perrin21** · December 5th, 2008, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by mypridewar

why did you post this in the mac section?

this should have been posted in the "general" forum - please - on behalf of us all, don't flood the boards with thoughts on opensource ethics and productivity.

not being funny but 5 out of your 11 total posts/contributions to this forum have been criticizing other users/topics. You dont have the right to talk on behalf of us all who have been here longer.

I posted in this section because i use the Mac version myself.

**agentlame** · December 5th, 2008, 11:12 AM

Often never finished
End users have no idea whats coming half the time
Usually full of bugs that are never corrected (forgotten about)
Seems to take forever to develop
Someone always wants to take things in another direction

all of these claims could be applied to all software, or are simply baseless.
(though, i do agree that 'features > bugs' seems to be a real issue in oss.)

also, really, this should go in off-topic... it doesn't have anything to do with macs, OR boxee.

**perrin21** · December 5th, 2008, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by agentlame

all of these claims could be applied to all software, or are simple baseless.

true about being relevant to most software, but especially open source. Look at linux as an example, there isnt one feature complete distro. There are so many different ones because people keep pulling it in a million different directions. Same with XBMC, hence boxee and plex etc

**agentlame** · December 5th, 2008, 11:23 AM

every release of a distro is 'feature complete' for that version.

you seem to be confusing oss' shot development cycle with completeness.

Ubuntu 8.10 is feature complete, for that version. just as Vista was feature complete when it shipped.
the difference between the two is 5 1/2 years... not 'completeness'.

**perrin21** · December 5th, 2008, 11:56 AM

Bringing it on topic for Boxee
ok so latest version of Boxee is feature complete. It just doesn't work? I daren't even update since i use my second display. is there an official acknowledgement of this bug and a timeframe for a fix? Yes i know its Alpha but it was supposed to be Beta from memory, why the backward step?

**jdarnold** · December 5th, 2008, 12:14 PM

What do you mean "use your second display"? If you have dual monitors, need to edit the run-boxee-desktop script and add:

export SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_HEAD=1

to it near the top to put Boxee on one screen. But this isn't new with this release.

And no, it is still alpha, which means it isn't guaranteed anything, besides that it will crash

**mypridewar** · December 5th, 2008, 12:19 PM

Originally Posted by perrin21

not being funny but 5 out of your 11 total posts/contributions to this forum have been criticizing other users/topics. You dont have the right to talk on behalf of us all who have been here longer.

I posted in this section because i use the Mac version myself.

OH MAN! Go all big and bad you forum nazi you. My point was not to say that you didn't have a point. My point was - GREAT! Post it in the GENERAL section. Because what you're talking about doesn't apply just to Mac users. I'm a mac user.

you're a loser. quit bullying people on a forum.

**agentlame** · December 5th, 2008, 01:01 PM

Originally Posted by perrin21

ok so latest version of Boxee is feature complete.

that's not what i said. the latest version of boxee is an alpha.
this release was not a new version of boxee... it was the continuation of, the development of, an initial version.

again, ubuntu 8.10 had both an alpha and a beta... but, because there were previous stable versions, it wasn't notable. boxee doesn't have the benefit of a stable version, yet.

for instance: when boxee 2.0 is being worked on, no one will complain that the alpha 'is buggy' or 'unfinished'... because, that is the baseline expectation of an alpha.

alpha: feature INcomplete
beta: feature complete; still bugs
final: feature complete; all 'reasonable' bug are resolved.

it's a long road, and this is just the start.

short: patience is a virtue.