[TriLUG] Android Phone vs iPhone vs other smartphones

[Kevin Hunter]

At 10:28pm -0400 Tue, 16 Mar 2010, Matt Pusateri wrote:
> Also being able to download the source and write your own apps 
> only really matters *if* your actually going to do that.

I'm about to show my ignorance in that I don't have either of these
phones, so correct me where necessary, but ...

I think this misses the point of open source entirely.  It's not the
fact that I can download an app's source and make it myself that makes
it a good thing.  What makes open source software a Good Thing is that
someone could /at all/.  I'll be honest: even as one knowledgeable in
the "black art" of "./configure; make; make install", I'm not likely to
do that for most software I use.  Especially in the age of package
managers, or, in the case phones, app stores.  But it's possible to do;
someone *could* do it.

This particular argument between open source and proprietary
software is as old as open source software itself, and one that I
think is largely won by open source, if not evangelized enough: I
don't have to know how it works to hire someone to fix it for me if
it's broke.  I do, however, need access to the source code.

Kevin