So many people today are still harping on the security aspect (Not ~free~ software, you don't own the servers).
How does that matter at all when selling to a large consumer base? How many customers of dropbox know what those words mean?
Like so many commercial offerings you could built it from source and get some hacky scripts going on your own but 99% of the world isn't going to do that.
Regarding specifically the "free software" statement, It's a holy war. One where I'm on the side of the religious zealots, for once. The special extra fanatical wingeing about big software like DropBox not being free comes from seeing the founders as smart people who have a base ripe for promoting your (my) view (that free software is just plain better for the world), and if they just saw it our way, maybe things would start to change. So we complain. Well, I try not to outright complain, because I know that's a shitty way to get what you want and that my views are ultimately tangential to their cause, but you get the idea...
Thats fine and I understand the advantages to open source.
But if you're in the business of selling software (especially to end users and not b2b) like many people here claim to be, that isn't a valid concern or argument against a business model.
How does that matter at all when selling to a large consumer base? How many customers of dropbox know what those words mean?
Like so many commercial offerings you could built it from source and get some hacky scripts going on your own but 99% of the world isn't going to do that.