RE: Open Source menu system

Hey, Jay!!

| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:midrange-nontech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Jay Maynard
| Sent: Saturday, April 10, 2004 10:10 AM

<snip content of interest, to me anyhoo...;->

| "With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" is the way Eric Raymond puts
| it, and I completely agree. My experience managing an Open Source project
| bears this out. Hercules would be nowhere near the program it is - fast,
| powerful, stable, featureful - if it were not Open Source.
|
| No other production metaphor has this ability. If the source code is not
| open, then you cannot enlist the aid of others freely to find and
| fix bugs.

I cannot agree more, with the exception of security code.  I remain
unconvinced that, with enough eyeballs, it's not a case of "all bugs can be
exploited".  That would be in the case of non-simple code (which I assume
security code is, unfortunately).  I'd also say that JDE and the other
commercial software houses Can, in essence, be said to be practicing "'Open'
Source", Jay.  This is what I mean by "'Open' Source" is basically identical
to "best practices" of 2 or 3 decades ago, but with a broad brush of hype
layered upon layered over it.

Granted, afaik, the JDE et al User Groups probably don't do As Good A Job of
cross-communicating bug-notes and fixes to JDE and other customers.  (I'm
assuming it's more a matter of culture than size of customer-base, because I
*assume* Hercules is about as widespread as the 400 ERP products, as far as
Total System End-Users, perhaps if not in install counts.  It's a zProduct,
iirc?)

| > And your response sort-a shows my point.  People devoted to
| "Open" Source
| > are rather "closed minded", in this respect.  Not ALL respects,
| mind you,
| > but this one.  Everybody has blind spots, of course.
|
| Don't tar us all with the same brush. We're not all rabid
| Stallmanite "Free
| Software uber alles!" radicals.

Ah...  Good point.  But difficult to put anything into words, without
"over-generalizing" to some extent.  By virtue of the fact that "they's
ALLUS an exception to thuh rule", right?  (Because of that, a LOTta "dudes"
and "chicks" these days like-ta pretend the ONLY RULE is "Break the
Rules!!!".  This meme is marketed in advertisements, even.

Granted, oftimes there's so Many exceptions to a given rule, that it's
difficult to tell which is the rule and which are the exceptions, but the
meme-notion that there aren't Any rules...?!?  Nonetheless, the rule (as I
understand it) still applies, which is if you over-generalize, you will
speak falsely of those who don't fit the generalization.  (And since nobody
fits any given generalization precisely or exactly, "a li'l" difficult to
put anything into words that applies to most (let alone all) people!
Surprised I tried to put this into writing!!)

Thx fer some (to me) cogent fodder fer tought, (some-a which I snipped as I
said,) Jay...;-D