The CVS Cop-Out

NewsForge (also owned by VA) has a short piece attempting to call into focus one of the major complaints of end users, the "CVS cop-out". From the article: "One of my biggest pet peeves with open source software is what I call the CVS cop-out. It works like this: I criticize (accurately) some shortcoming of an open source application either in an article or in conversation, and someone responds with, 'That's not true! That feature was fixed in CVS four weeks ago!' [...] I bring up the CVS cop-out not because I have an answer for it, but to air it out. Sometimes, giving a problem a name helps to foster discussion that leads to resolution."

Comments

Re:Not unique to open source

[tonsofpcs]

Read: Nightly Builds
Not everyone releases them, but those projects that do, "hey, that was fixed yesterday, visit the nightlies page (e.g. http://nightlies.videolan.org/) and grab the latest"

Re:The diplomatic response

[El Cubano]

We're still working to make sure that this feature fits in with the rest of the system without any trouble, but if all goes will, you should see XX improved in our next point release.

Which is how it should be. One thing the article says which struck me, What justification is there for ignoring the long-standing tradition of "release early, release often?"

Basically, he is complaining that they are not releasing early enough/often enough. I hate to break it to him, but not every project is a mozilla with daily snapshots or a Debian with a huge network of dedicate autobuild machines. Some projects are small and have only few core developers. Many of those people may have "real" jobs which leaves them only spare to work on their pet OSS project. He also seems to think that they bug should be fixed right away becuase it affects him. But then, isn't that how it always is?

"The bug that affects me is the most important and should be fixed immediately. I mean, I reported it yesterday. Why is the new point release fixing this grevious bug not out today?"

I guess if you have a bug that nukes your entire filesystem or something like that, you have a legitimate gripe. However, the vast majority of bugs are not serious at all.

This guy just has unrealistic expecations.

I seem to be saying this a lot lately...

[biglig2]

But... Linux is not Windows. Seriously.

With Windows, you get fixes/upgrades when the binaries are released. With Linux, you can wait for the binaries, or, if you are comfortable with compiling, you can get fixes/upgrades slightly sooner. It's a feature, not a bug.

If you are prepared to spend some time and have some time practicing compiling from CVS (and it's not all that hard to do) then bonus! You get fixes a little early. If not, wait for the binaries, and the really cool thing? Double bonus! You still get the fixes earlier, because open source delivers fixes faster than closed source!