Accountability

I guess my two largest complaints about Free Software is that because it is not a company there is no accountability.

Who do I complain to when ZSNES no longer works?

Who do I complain to because I can't get any 3D graphics?

Who do I complain to when Freedoom no longer works?

Who do I complain to when Supertux no longer works?

Who should I have complained to when sound went out? Considering I got little help, mercy, or understanding from the community (that name being generous.)

Who should I complain to when sound might go out again?

Who should I complain to when something I don't even expect goes out because of a, "Freedom Update," that does little in the Utilitarian Concept than render my system less and less useful while we wait for someone to write Free Code replacements while the rest of the world just moves forward with non-free while we spin in the mud?

I complain, wine, moan, and beg the community to fix these things. Things that work on non-free systems. These things, and many many more, work on non-free system.

A computer is a tool. It is made to do a job. If that job can't be done, then someone has failed me.

Who failed me, and who do I call or e-mail to for an instant fix, apalogy, or help?

I really don't care about this, "freedom," that causes so many headaches and problems.

I care about my computer, my tool, doing the job I want it to do.

The now cliché excuse that, "The freedom update makes the system better because it now has more freedom than it did before," has been used one too many times and has no broken the camels back.

I don't want a free system, I want a working system!

Free Software Systems don't fit my needs. There is no company to be held accountable because it's a charity not a business. And the community does little to nothing to fix these problems.

I'm tired of complaining here. I'm tired of trying to beg some esoteric community to give me a working system I can get out of the box with Microsoft.

I've ended my membership with the FSF. I'm also leaving here. The breaking of ZSNES was the last straw.

You can't emulate SNES games!

Windows 95 can do it! Computers more than ten years older, a decade older, can do things these systems STILL fail to do!

Windows 95 could achieve 3D too.

My computer is running at about 20% it's ability under a Free Software System as far as my needs go. A percentage that's increasingly shrinking with each new, "Freedom update."

I also don't think giving freedom to everyone is a good idea. I believe a free society tends toward corrosion and rotting from the inside out. As I've already expressed in many other topics on this board. I just don't think complete freedom for everyone is the way to make a stable system. It lends itself too well to collapse.

Goodbye.

you ought to be treated with the contempt du deserve; clearly you are an infantile troll. --shalom

This attitude suggests that you *deserve* to have a working computer. This is a moral/philosophical argument that is irrelevant to this community.

You haven't paid for anything so, as you have said, you have nobody to complain to. You are free to suggest things to the developers of free software programs, submit bug reports, or even learn some programming and start hacking it yourself. There are many reasons to avoid proprietary software like anti-features such as Digital Restrictions Management or other ways of restricting your use of programs/information without your consent. Other reasons such as the ones you mention of not being able to fix bugs are also a problem. The more free something is, the more easily it can be extended and worked on as a community, rather than in secret.

The secretiveness of a company is where I personally don't see any accountability since invariably companies want profit and end up doing immoral things for the sake of that profit. I see much more accountability in free software because nobody can give software secret behavior. It's all on display for anyone to criticize and fix.