[lbo-talk] Ubuntu stuff

// ravi ravi at platosbeard.org
Mon Aug 17 14:25:14 PDT 2009


On Aug 17, 2009, at 4:54 PM, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>
> every FOSS booster has *got* to read dreaming in code. what you
> learn is that the very things FOSS is supposed to address (buggy
> code, lengthy release cycles, etc.) it isn't any better at doing
> than the proprietary, closed source approach.

I am not sure these are the very things FOSS is supposed to address, and it certainly need not be (in fact, I think this point may define the split between Stallman and the _pragmatists_). BTW, its difficult to compare these things... we do not have access to the source code or raw bug report data of closed source software. This argument gets rehashed every time some report or the other comes out (see: Coverity's static code analysis of open source vs Boeing or whatever they compared it to).


> rosenberg follows the fate of an open source software project -
> chandler -- that seems like it ought to be an exemplar of open
> source development and its so-called advantages (with enough eyes,
> all bugs are shallow; etc.)

Chandler is/was an OSAF project with backing (and funding) from Mitch Kapor of Lotus 1-2-3 fame. That is not much of an exemplar of FOSS. But of course a lot of FOSS projects fail. FOSS does not guarantee success, nor does the lack of success of this or that FOSS project negate [claims about] the nature of FOSS development.

I will try to give this book a shot,

--ravi



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