Free as in Beer

Here’s a data point supporting my hypothesis that users will jump through any hoops to get things for free as in beer. It’s the SourceForge top downloads list:

sourceforge top downloads

Seven of the ten top downloads are pure p2p file sharing clients. The other three directly relate to media ripping. Somehow I doubt freedom of speech is high on most users’ priority lists.

Even running as a non-Administrator account is unlikely to protect users from the fifty percent of shared executables that contain malicious code.

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Stay Gold, America

We are at an unprecedented point in American history, and I'm concerned we may lose sight of the American Dream.

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

The Great Filter Comes For Us All

With a 13 billion year head start on evolution, why haven't any other forms of life in the universe contacted us by now? (Arrival is a fantastic movie. Watch it, but don't stop there - read the Story of Your Life novella it was based on

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

I Fight For The Users

If you haven't been able to keep up with my blistering pace of one blog post per year, I don't blame you. There's a lot going on right now. It's a busy time. But let's pause and take a moment

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

The 2030 Self-Driving Car Bet

It's my honor to announce that John Carmack and I have initiated a friendly bet of $10,000* to the 501(c)(3) charity of the winner’s choice: By January 1st, 2030, completely autonomous self-driving cars meeting SAE J3016 level 5 will be commercially available for passenger

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments