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.
On May 8, 2015, at 10:24 AM, James B. Byrne byrnejb@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.
On May 8, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
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
When I think of FrameMaker, I think of the program that started out on Solaris, then moved to other big iron Unices and OS X. Wikipedia informs me that it’s been Windows-only for about a decade, which must be how it dropped off my radar.
Still, it’s good to know the old thing is still shambling along in some form. I was impressed with it when I used it way back when.
On 5/8/2015 12:47 PM, Warren Young wrote:
On May 8, 2015, at 12:02 PM, John R Pierce pierce@hogranch.com wrote:
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
When I think of FrameMaker, I think of the program that started out on Solaris, then moved to other big iron Unices and OS X. Wikipedia informs me that it’s been Windows-only for about a decade, which must be how it dropped off my radar.
Still, it’s good to know the old thing is still shambling along in some form. I was impressed with it when I used it way back when.
That does bring back memories of Solaris and Framemaker from the mid 90's. We had folks using Frame as a word processor, absolutely insane, especially since they had Applixware (originally Aster*x) installed on the same machines. Fun times! -- //steve
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James B. Byrne -
John R Pierce -
Steve Lindemann -
Warren Young