Midas wrote:There's a situation where the good of the many trumps the (un-reasserted) rights of one, if you ask me...
Certainly: my issue is with site policy rather than telling you what programs to run or not run on your computer. The truth is I might use the closed version if I was really stuck needed a program to function portably.
SYSTEM wrote:the fact that he updates Universal Extractor and distributes his updated version for free is a good thing.
Universal Extractor is a very important program and the site definitely relies on it to make a variety of programs portable. However, in the long run, I don't think entries shouldn't use the better, closed version (except in forums).
Let's say we go ahead and switch over to this new version and update the Universal Extractor entry. Next, we use it to extract new programs as well as updated programs and gradually (let's say 1-2 years) get quite a few entries get edited to use the new Extractor. Finally, the developer does one of the following:
- Decides he wants to make money from his work and adds adware/spyware
- Is a giving person but runs into financial dire straights and is forced to add adware/spyware
- Gets bored, moves on to other projects [edit: this is what evidently happened]
All three of these happen here on the site from time to time and it's unfortunate, but this time it would be a real problem: in the first two cases, we'd have to add a disclaimer to each entry stating that if you want to extract it, you have to use a crapware program or, at best, describe some
additional process to get around the included crapware. In the third, we're back where we started but with no recourse; some programs just won't extract anymore.
As it stands, we're unable to add entries that use new install packagers but I think eventually someone will take over the project if there's enough need or encouragement. It's not great in the short term but I think it's better overall.
