|
"What I find strange is all this talk of having to maintain the vendor's code. Don't these people retain control of their own source? If our customers find bugs or want enhancements they come to us (generally -- there are exceptions)." At the risk of becoming this group's answer to ESR, this is the whole point of open source. Opening the source is not synonymous --- by a long shot --- with `losing control.' On the contrary, it is one of the single biggest ways of ensuring the quality of the code. You say that your customers come to you when they find bugs --- without the source, all they can really do is find anomalous behaviour. Your company then taxes itself with finding the actual code that is in error, and fixing it. The single most common net effect of this is that the vendor does not fix the bug, or at least not in a timely fashion. On the other hand, if I have access to the source code, I can use my expertise to find the bug and kill it. I can then share the results of my efforts with the software vendor, who can QA my fix, and distribute it if appropriate. This leads to quicker results for me, cheaper and higher quality software for the vendor, and much more potential for high-quality code for all the vendor's other customers. Software development is not a zero-sum game --- with open source, everyone wins. Check out http://www.opensource.org - I strongly recommend reading ESR's essays, starting with The Cathedral and the Bazaar. ____________ Paul Cunnane Mattel Interactive +--- | This is the RPG/400 Mailing List! | To submit a new message, send your mail to RPG400-L@midrange.com. | To subscribe to this list send email to RPG400-L-SUB@midrange.com. | To unsubscribe from this list send email to RPG400-L-UNSUB@midrange.com. | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com +---
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
This mailing list archive is Copyright 1997-2024 by midrange.com and David Gibbs as a compilation work. Use of the archive is restricted to research of a business or technical nature. Any other uses are prohibited. Full details are available on our policy page. If you have questions about this, please contact copyright@midrange.com.
Operating expenses for this site are earned using the Amazon Associate program and Google Adsense.