April 05, 2003

The cost of software

Right now I am looking around for a good bug-tracking system for my new job, and I am a little bit suprised at the results. I am not suprised by the quality or quantity of bug-tracking systems out there because I know for a fact that they are easy to implement and close to every developer's heart.

Stick with me a second as I diverge.

Last weekend I was in an Apple store for the first time because I am thinking about eventually getting an iBook to play around with. The idea of a Unix core below all the pleasantries seems good to me, and many web developers use this platform. I was suprised to find that a full version of Office for that machine was $500 bucks, and BBEdit was $179.

Last weekend also had me indoors doing my taxes for a few hours. Yes, I do them by hand normally despite recommendations from friends that I use TurboTax. I just don't want to part with that $50 and then $30 a year just for software to do my taxes for me.

Now, the common trend in all of this is that I am contantly suprised by how expensive software is. Why should this suprise me? As a developer shouldn't I know just how complex it is to write software that does something useful in an intuitive and reliable way? I spend a good part of my life working on software but I just can't bring myself to buy very much of it.

I think that to me software is free - at work, when I was in school, playing with Linux - I am surrounded by tons of free (really free and just free to me sometimes) software. I am just not used to paying for it after I purchase a machine. I see this as a strange little quirk that I need to get over simply because you can learn a lot about user experience by using a lot of software and seeing what you like, and I am missing out on this.

April 5, 2003 02:55 AM