I have seen this debate here and elsewhere over and over again.

Closed source applications are one thing, and closed source drivers and
toolchains are another. In the small company context one's livelihood depends on
the functionality of the toolchains one uses. Closed source drivers and
compilers from small companies or one man shops are often bad news for users,
who are also small companies. One does not have the resources to sue, insure or
otherwise protect against the toolchain or driver maker going out of business,
selling out, or simply dropping dead. How many of the developers and engineers
on this list own thousands of dollars worth of development tools, programmer
boxes and libraries that no-one can use anymore because they are closed source
and the original small businesses that created them no longer exist or no longer
support them? To me, the need to be able to 'put a screwdriver and a soldering
iron' to my uninsured tools it vital, in case (and that happens rather often),
they don't do something or they need to do something new. That means that I have
a strong need for open source drivers and toolchains. This is not about
politics, it's real life.

Politics is where one needs to choose which kind of open source model to adopt,
not whether one needs it. BSD (free as in free beer and you keep the glass), GPL
(free forever), LGPL or 'freeware', I only care about that when the time comes
to 'release' a patch or an application. Not before. Because, even the GPL
permits anything to be done to it as long as it is not distributed. And I am not
into that. I need my patches for myself ... although I share them freely if they
are needed.

So one can talk politics *after* the usability angle is covered properly. I am
not saying that closed source drivers and toolchains from small developers are
bad, I am saying that the open source version of the same is better, and that it
has saved my day many times.

Peter


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