Re: Impressions of EGL - Part Duex

Guillermo Andrades, CPI Software skrev den 26-05-2008 20:29:

Thorbjørn ,

<<vendor lock-in. Can you guarantee that your product will be updated and
supported for the next X years? Including if you happen to be bought by a
competitor?>>

A lot of customers and BP was thinking in it when using Ofivision or OS2 or
VisualAgeRPG or AD/Cicle and +others+ from IBM directly, or MS with VB and
FoxPro.
The Future is very hard to predice even in big names companies.

As you might have noticed - I've mentioned it once or twice - I am currently advocating that I believe that the only way to be CERTAIN that it will be available is to have the source available to the general public under a suitable license of the WHOLE software stack you are using - this is hard when using AS/400 but it is important to know what choices you have. I know that this is not the usual place to do advocating, but I believe that most of the people in here have been bitten at least once.

For those interested in the economic view of this, I would suggest that you read the writings of Eric Raymond at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/magic-cauldron/ (he has a lot of writings of the kind at http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/)

Regarding the examples you mention, I am certain that it is not technological reasons but political reasons that they are not here today in the form they were at their heyday.