• Adda
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    3 years ago

    Those are all valid points and I think you are right, but it still does not give me a better understanding of what is the difference for the group of maintainers behind such web services. Proprietary web services have to be hosted somewhere too, and the provider of the hosting server will want to be paid as well. Therefore, the same problem stands for both open-source and closed-source web services.

    The only difference I see here is that proprietary services might be getting the money to maintain such websites and its content from selling their user’s data and/or by providing (personalized) adds, and maybe they do not want their users to know that, so they keep their code hidden from the public eyes. Of course, there are donations from users and any form of subscription model, but that can be arranged for both FOSS and proprietary web services. The argument closed-source web services might be more secure and resilient to cracker attacks might be valid in some cases (I guess), but that is another topic entirely and mostly specific to certain services, not a general problem (I would say). Getting money by “exploiting your users” is a bit more complicated with FOSS web services, because anyone can see what it is done with their data once the data leave your hardware.

    So what am I missing? Why is it better to maintain a proprietary web service supporting FOSS instead of a FOSS one? Where do the money for hosting (and for more – employee’s wages etc.) come from in proprietary web services that support FOSS, that it is more convenient to keep the service closed-source?

    cannot be FLOSS if it is not self-hosted

    Or do you mean this as in you cannot know what the server provider will do with the web service data if you do not self-host? That would be true unless all the stored data are encrypted, but yeah, in general, there has to be a certain amount of trust put in the provider, but I believe that would still hold for proprietary web services as well.

    Also, I am getting Access denied error from your link. Not currently sure why.

    • @Zerush@lemmy.ml
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      3 years ago

      Seems that the host denied the access from some countries as I see before, maybe you can ask them why. supportservices@ssuiteoffice.com and ssuitesupportservices@protonmail.com

      Yes, the reason for a webservice to be closed source to be more difícult to attack, important in the case of Office suites and Tools, like in this SSuite can be a valid argument. SSuite don’t use any of the tracking methodes, no ads, no suscription model, donation only. It’s open it and use it (Html5), or download it and use it (in this case Windows only). Online, apart te office apps, has some system tools, graphic editors, online TV,radio, newspaper, include some games. All of them also works on mobile too. https://alternativeto.net/software/ssuite-office/about/

      • Adda
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        13 years ago

        That might be the reason. Very well, thank you for the information and further explanation. It surly gives me something to think about.