OSDev.org

I love open source. It's so great... If I need some software, the first place I look is SourceForge. So far, I haven't been unhappy with stuff I've gotten. The newest program I've gotten is PokerTH, a single-player poker (texas holdem) game that actually works well and looks nice! Best part is, they are putting network support into it now

Then, I find out that to build it myself I have to get Qt, which is NOT free unless it's for open source purposes

Now, can anyone out there tell me any other good open source software packages (for Windows) that can save me heaps of money? Who knows, I might find something I never knew I needed (a virtual flowerpot?)

You are confusing OpenSource with freeware.

Answer these two question for yourself, and be honest:

- have you ever made a code review, or read some other's code review, before employing OpenSource software?

- would it really matter to you, from a technical (not ethical / moral) standpoint, if you would get a ready-to-run binary instead of source?

Back in Amiga times, the AmiNet was a premium resource for games, tools, applications, sampler music and more. No-one cared much that you didn't always get the source.

The problem today is that there is no "freeware" community to speak of anymore, which allowed the "OpenSource activists" to polarize between OpenSource ("good") and the rest of the world ("bad")...

Well, no for the first, and no for the second.

Ok, so that makes me a freeware activist...

I must admit that I try to get the stuff I want for free whenever I can. Even so, I can understand why somebody quite keen on having food in their stomach might want you to pay it.

I do like getting source if I like the binary.

But being a Windows user, it's often more convenient to get a binary...

And I don't mind some advertising if the developer is getting paid (I'd do the same).

I once had to hand-hack the source of a wireless-card driver to make it work with the knockoff POS my ISP gave me. I was glad for open source.

I for one will claim that having the source actually matters to me from a technical standpoint: when I hit a bug (and more often than not I do) having the source allows me to at least go and see if there's a trivial fix. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. Sometimes it's too painful to fix, but having the source allows tracing the cause and working around it.

So there you got it: I actually do read other peoples source. Not necessarily before starting to use something, but rather after, when it doesn't quite do what I wanted.