As much as I hate to draw further attention to it, I love the soap-opera progressing between Bjorn Freeman-Benson and Alex Blewitt with these two posts: (Eclipse is Not Free and Oh no, it’s Bjorn Again).

What’s a shame is, as he does on many occasions, Alex has gone a little overboard with his pontification. If you read the comments trailing his post, you will see that several readers are apparently disgusted with his overly aggressive approach. I’ve interacted with Alex on several occasions, and I doubt I’m the only one that thinks he can be a little overbearing.

I say that it’s a shame simply because I think for the most part he is right. I was a little confused by Bjorn’s post, simply because he went to a concerted effort to declare that Eclipse is not free (this coming from an open-source advocate for Eclipse, itself). If you were to strip the author from the blog post, and not recognize his position in the foundation, you could easily mistake his writings for those from someone working in a proprietary software shop like Microsoft. Frankly, It sounds like the ever-popular ‘FUD’.

For example, he writes this in his blog entry:

For example, I use Linux on one of my home servers. It’s “free” in that I didn’t pay any cash for it, but it’s not “free” because I have to keep it maintained, patched, and configured. My Windows XP machine cost me money up front, but in return Microsoft keeps it patched. As with all decisions in life, it’s a trade-off and the pros and cons will vary for each person.

As you may or may not know, I’m a big fan of Ubuntu. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t log in to my Ubuntu laptop and find some new update ready and waiting for me with bug fixes, new features, and security updates. Frankly, I get more updates on that machine than I do on my Vista machine, and the updates on the Ubuntu box are much more innocuous than the terrifying security holes I’m plugging every day on my gaming rig. For me, this is in no way a valid argument.

A commenter has a similar position as I do:

In fact, what Ubuntu provides does more. It provides updates for all of the software I have installed using the repositories, not just the base operating system.

A very valid argument. For example, I’m personally responsible for updating my copy of Filezilla on Windows - simply because Microsoft could give a flying nun about helping me with a product other than their own.

Later in the comment chain, he made this comment:

Gabi, thank you for strengthening my argument by agreeing that “every software has additional costs even proprietary software” — and even open source software. That was, in fact, my point. Microsoft software is not free; Eclipse is not free.

Open source software (such as Eclipse) gives the users and adopters the choice of how to pay those additional costs. Closed source software typically does not provide that choice.

Giving you choice is what open source software is about. But it’s not free.

So the point is that Eclipse is not free, but it’s a lot more free than proprietary software like Windows? I guess where I struggle with this is at what point are we just quibbling over the definition of free? He’s muddling the argument between how magic and transparent the software maintenance process is with how much it costs. ALL software costs me time. Just because I spent $10,000 on an FTP client, doesn’t mean that FTP client isn’t costing me time - I still will need to install it, and likely press a button periodically to approve update downloads.

If we can all agree that all software incurs some overhead on its user in the realm of maintenance and software support, then we might as well cancel it out of the proof - and by my count that leaves no other cost on the open-source side.

If he’s arguing that open-source software is harder to maintain, update, and patch, he clearly has been living in the dark age.

If he’s arguing that all users of open-source software have a responsibility to ensure that they contribute to reporting bugs, offering suggestions, and helping chart the future of the software, then he is not using his money well in the proprietary world. I am VERY keen on doing the same thing when I buy a product from a company like Microsoft, because I expect them to make my money count. I’m not simply going to write a check and assume that they will take good care of me.

Quality at entrance is a choice that you make with open-source and proprietary software (either with your download or with your money). Quality after selection (which is what we’re talking about here) is not guaranteed in either model.

Another commenter summarized this nicely:

I think that’s splitting hairs! Especially in software-devlopment everybody knows how “unfree” free software can be.

After this definition free beer is also not free (I have to drink it), right?

I’ll admit that the idea of intravenous beer could at times be appealing.

Bonus Quiz: What do you want to bet this was targeted to AlBlue?