Does Software Need a Siskel and Ebert? 169
theodp writes "Over at Scripting News, Dave Winer laments the lack of serious software reviews in the NY Times. That wasn't always the case, recalls Dave. 'When they started doing software reviews in the early '80s it was with the usual Times flair,' says Winer. 'But somewhere along the line they stopped taking tech seriously. It's as if they would only review Saturday morning television shows. How could television like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad take root in the culture if there was no criticism that discussed it? Yet that's where we are today with software.' So, does software need a Siskel and Ebert (or A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis for you highfalutin NYT readers!)?"
Ebert already rated software (Score:5, Informative)
He declared games to be even more creatively bankrupt than movies, [rogerebert.com] and came up with the Boulder Pledge. [patriot.net] ("Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chainletters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.")
The really funny thing to me is that computer games are pretty much the only sector of software with something even approaching a regular review/rating system, and they have long acknowledged that their "Roger Ebert" is either not writing reviews or hasn't been born yet. For other software you have to rely on advertisements disguised as reviews in PCMag et al.
Byte (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Software is too plentiful (Score:4, Informative)
I lament the lack of serious software.
It's all useless, poorly written crap. More and more I find myself being forced to stay with older software because all the newest stuff is a big steaming pile of shit.
Re:We need reliable reviews (Score:4, Informative)
This is what happened with the games review sites GameStop and IGN. Nobody trusts their reviews after the long-rumored suspicions about getting paid for good reviews turned out to be true in some cases.
Today most VG reviews are video reviews like Angry Joe or Zero Punctuation. And then we see things like TotalBiscuit's unfavorable review of Gary's Incident got taken down for DMCA violations [youtu.be] even after he was sent a key code for the game to produce a review. Its a shame that an industry that has more revenue in a single title than any Hollywood release (GTA V) has such a problem.
And yet the VG review community is vastly larger than the software review community!
Re:Won't work with FOSS. (Score:4, Informative)
It's more like a vendor telling their client FUD myths so the FOSS option is never considered. Then the vendor only has to compete against their closed-source competitors (if any), and this FUD usually comes from the closed-source leader.
As a personal example, I did some IT work for a small radio station. Our studio computers (to be used by hosts while recording shows) had simple requirements, boiling down to "a web browser and a text editor". A vendor representative told me outright that my plan for Linux desktops was unsuitable, because supposedly Linux can't run web browsers, only servers. He then offered to sell me Windows 7 Ultimate. That's the sort of manipulation that occurs daily, keeping the "FOSS isn't a serious option" perception in the purchasing public's mind.