On Fri, May 8, 2015 07:59, Timothy Murphy wrote:> Sorin Srbu wrote: >> Yeah, well, but it's free. >> I'm not sure you can complain too much in that case. 8-) > > I find this comment, often made, completely unacceptable. > The implication is that inferior code is OK > if the developer is not being paid. > > (Actually, the premise is probably nonsense, > as most Linux developers _are_ paid, even if formally > their pay is not specifically for Linux development. > But presumably the company that pays them believes that > it is of value to the company to have a Linux developer on board.) > > But is Linux code in fact inferior to code produced by Microsoft, say? > I don't think so. > And I don't think Linux developers are less keen to improve their > code. > Just the opposite. > >The difference is that a large portion of the FOSS corpus, if not a preponderant majority, is ultimately dependent upon the interest of the people responsible for its existance and not the people using it. Once a project's core team either loses enthusiasm for something, or have otherwise moved on in life, their project oft-times is left without any meaningful support. If a project is backed/picked up by a corporation, say Redhat or Oracle, or a foundation, say Apache or LibreOffice, then it may have a future more or less independent of any single individual or group. Otherwise it does not. -- *** e-Mail is NOT a SECURE channel *** Do NOT transmit sensitive data via e-Mail James B. Byrne mailto:ByrneJB at Harte-Lyne.ca Harte & Lyne Limited http://www.harte-lyne.ca 9 Brockley Drive vox: +1 905 561 1241 Hamilton, Ontario fax: +1 905 561 0757 Canada L8E 3C3
On May 8, 2015, at 10:24 AM, James B. Byrne <byrnejb at harte-lyne.ca> wrote:> > If a project is backed/picked up by a corporation, say Redhat or > Oracle, or a foundation, say Apache or LibreOffice, then it may have a > future more or less independent of any single individual or group.Commercial software and company-backed F/OSS software gets abandoned all the time. - OpenOffice may well die due to brain drain from LibreOffice. They?ve both got big corporate backers. - The MySQL mailing list is getting a tiny fraction of the traffic it once enjoyed before the Oracle takeover; MySQL won?t go away any time soon for reasons of inertia, but MariaDB and NoSQL are surely taking large bites out of its user base. - Remember ESD and aRTS? They?ve all but been killed off by PulseAudio. They were the ?standard? of their time, backed by major Linux distributors. - How many ?standard? window managers has GNOME had over the years? - How many desktop managers and GUI toolkits preceded GNOME/Gtk? NeWS, NeXTSTEP, CDE/Motif, Tk, all with big-name support in their day. - Adobe?s killed off dozens of products over the years. FrameMaker, Director, Flash Builder, PageMaker, Contribute, Fireworks? - Got a smartphone? How many apps have you bought that never went anywhere after they got your money? There?s more than one in my case, at least. At least with F/OSS, you have the option of taking over maintainership of an abandoned code base. My company has done that a few times now, as it was easier to do that than switch to the abandoned package?s replacement.
On 5/8/2015 10:40 AM, Warren Young wrote:> - Adobe?s killed off dozens of products over the years. FrameMaker ...Frame isn't dead, my wife is a technical writer in the EDA (electronic design automation) business, and thats about all they use. -- john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz