OT: Open Source (was Don't you just wish Rev would do this?)

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Wed Jun 6 11:12:23 EDT 2007


Shari wrote:
> I wouldn't want an Open Source Revolution.  Where nobody is 
> ultimately responsible for the bugs they create.

It is hard to beat the incentive of having your daily bread provided by 
product revenue.  It keeps the food chain simple and direct, and 
provides perhaps the ultimate accountability:  you don't produce, you 
don't eat. :)

I think there are a lot of merits to the traditional proprietary model 
which are often overlooked as we explore new philosophies.  While 
revolutions often provide excitement, evolutions tend to produce more 
sustainable results in the long term.  Market dynamics have evolved the 
proprietary model in ways that may not be so bad for a great many 
products, not bad at all.

> Doesn't Open Source mean that one person can randomly make that 
> decision, and implement it at his will?  One person with a particular 
> set of beliefs, that all people should have the newest computers out 
> there with the latest and greatest OS's, goes into the source code 
> and "breaks" it for anything older.
> 
> Then a week later, somebody else goes in and makes it backwards 
> compatible again?

I imagine some FOSS projects are managed with the sort of anarchy, but 
the good ones have strong project managers who determine which 
contributions go in, and how.   It's been said that the art of FOSS 
project management is ultimately the art of saying "No".

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
  _______________________________________________________
  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com



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