MacHeist: AWESOME!

Blogged on January 22, 2008 at 12:20

So I haven’t posted about this, but after reading Rui Moura’s post on this (I got the bundle on a “Pay 2, Get 3″ sale along with Rui and José Carlos) and looking online for some info about it, I had too say something! This was BY FAR the best deal I’ve ever had on software. This is one of the few bundles released once in a while of independent OSX apps, and it only comes to show the true power os OSX: even these small, independent apps look amazing, integrate well with the rest of the OS, etc… This is only possible because of the amazing platform OSX is and the tools Apple provides developers with!

Following a post I read on Prt.Sc about open source and its “freedom” and a discussion on the mailing list, I want to reaffirm my opinion on Open-Source Software (OSS) vs Commercial Software. I look at OSS as both “free speech” and “free beer”. Most of the times I recommend OSS (OpenOffice comes to mind quite often here) is to people using Windows or OSX and in need of a FREE (as in “beer”) alternative. I don’t even need/want to mention that “You can actually get to the source code and make it do*exactly* what you want it to do!”… Why?? Because it makes no difference for 99% of the people out there. Have you heard the business motto of “If somebody else has developed a solution, go ahead and buy it… Don’t waste time reinventing the wheel!”??? Well, I tend to agree… but not completely. I like following the developmental process of a solution that is supposed to fit my needs, but in some cases, it’s a LOT easier to adapt my needs to a commercial solution. The best reason why is CONFORMITY! (the word that scares all open source puritans) Conformity is a nice thing in a networked world. But it doesn’t mean I’ll opt for a worst/bad solution just for the sake of conformity. No, instead I’ll search for the best solution available, even if it’s not the most widespread. Of course, this is not always possible/desirable and thus exceptions are normal) (proving the rule).

These were just random thoughts… Probably not a very good line of thought there, but I felt I had to say this after talking about a great value bundle of COMMERCIAL software. I actually feel good about supporting these developers and helping some non-profit organizations on the way!

Just as a side note, I have spent more money on software since I’ve moved to OSX than ever before. And this does not include any major apps… just small, simple utilities than integrate with my daily work and enhance my user experience on the computer (isn’t this the objective of ANY app?).

I have spoken.