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I don't know how anyone uses proprietary commercial software in 2023.

Like, I have enough trouble using free and open source stuff, and there I can just google an error message and hopefully find 200 people fixing it.

but I just tried some development tool we've got and it threw an error that doesn't make much sense and I google it and there's zero point zero results .

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

it turns out it broke because I downloaded my executable in June and I'm running it in November and the two programs now speak completely incompatible protocols.

jesus.

in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

lemme just download the new version
OH WAIT THIS IS PROPRIETARY COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE so I can't just google "foobar version 27.8.3.2" because that's hidden behind some login screen deep in the bowels of some website I can't remember and I need to figure out what manager I need to talk to to get the updated username/password
in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

lemme just google how I do X with FOOBAR
answer? go fuck yourself. all the talking about FOOBAR are behind logins, so google can't index them.
in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

oh you just need to `apt update && apt upgrade` OH WAIT YOU CAN'T
in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

"I'm sorry, but your license doesn't support this version. Give us more money because screw you teehee."
We don't even support our support staff supporting you
in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

there are probably results in their customer forum that is behind a login and robots.txt blocks and also search is broken
in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

It's all so awful. And increasingly full of craptastic license managers, obnoxious subscription payment models, upgrades that make everything worse every single time.

When I was working on an FPGA project at Google I ran into a nasty synthesis bug and thought "well this time at least I have a dedicated support contact!"... they acknowledged my bug report and said that maybe there might be a fix in next quarter's update. Thank you, $MAJOR_FPGA_VENDOR, so helpful.

in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

Hence my new motto "FOSS or fuck off." Of course this is easy for me to say because I'm a self-employed curmudgeon with a software budget of precisely zero. There is nobody to hold me accountable for being stubborn about this, rationally or otherwise.

Pippin reshared this.

in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

When using proprietary stuff at work without much information online, and it's too opaque (or I'm too obtuse) to figure it out, I usually have to ask one of my coworkers for information.
in reply to Neil E. Hodges

@tk a good idea! I'll have to ask them who is the This Proprietary Thing expert here.

oh wait, it's me.

in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

Not only that, but I can dig through the code and figure out why it's being weird for me and not anyone else. :⁠-⁠D
in reply to Foone🏳️‍⚧️

and if they do have online support materials they probably sound like a MLM pitch