>One, this is not a question of competing brands. That's a question of technology and not liberty, which is the point of the comment you replied to; if OP choose free software, it doesn't matter which "brand" he chose, there are a number of free application that do the same job.
I call BS. If OP choose free software we could AS WELL have had the same exact problem.
It's a software bug -- the client caching the remote method to use (data or standard SMS). A free program could just as well have the same issue.
What "more control" you'd have? You could issue a bug fix request, which could just as well be ignored (I've several on FOSS projets). Or you could even have it fixed, but then you'd need to convince all the users you talk to to update to the latest version until you see any improvement.
If it was an open protocol, he would have access to apps that implement it on his phone. And even if that weren't the case, he would have the ability to write an implementation.
The difference here is that a sufficiently competent person cannot reliably replicate the experience.
The problem at this point is with the other friends and family who make use of this software. Great, he writes a new implementation of this protocol that prevents _his_ client from improperly caching routing information. This still doesn't fix the problem of the software on other peoples' phones.
I call BS. If OP choose free software we could AS WELL have had the same exact problem.
It's a software bug -- the client caching the remote method to use (data or standard SMS). A free program could just as well have the same issue.
What "more control" you'd have? You could issue a bug fix request, which could just as well be ignored (I've several on FOSS projets). Or you could even have it fixed, but then you'd need to convince all the users you talk to to update to the latest version until you see any improvement.