The problem is not the storage format, but the editors that present the format. The editors make the error of presenting the file as plain text, instead of taking advantage of the structure of the code.
So instead of getting the indention level and coding style you prefer (dynamicly at load), you get what ever the author who wrote the code liked and you have to enter your text in that way.
The problem is that:
main() { puts("123"); }
and
main() {
puts("123"); }
are two completly different things for a text-editor, while being equal for the compiler. And editor which took advantage of the programm structure could display both programms equally and completly hide the underlying structure as text files.
"for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution"
If one has already gotten the binaries of a GPLed programm, then, and only then, he must be able to get the sources for the cost of distribution only.
Nothing stops me from selling the binaries for 100000$ in the first place, as long as the source is then for (nearly) free.
The truth is that there currently isn't a marked for GNU/Linux games and there won't be any with a handfull native ports. What GNU/Linux needs are games, many games and thats what Wine can give GNU/Linux. Once we have games, there will be more users which can drop there Windows installation. Once thats done the GNU/Linux marked will increase and companies might be able to get money out of an GNU/Linux port, so they will do it. If they just port it do the Wine API, fine. If the rumor is right, Wine shouldn't be any slower then Windows once it is fully optimized.
Of course this might fail, but it could also work. But just having a handfull GNU/Linux games won't really make people drop there windows partitions, since there favorit game will always be Windows-only and Wine can fill this gap.
Did they ever publish there user numbers? As far as I know they didn't, so we don't know if they reached the goal or not, not even how close they got. If I am wrong, please correct me.
As it seems to happen more and more often that ftp servers get cracked and md5sum's don't seem to help (since users are to lazy to check them and the gpg signatures), could peer2peer services provide a solution? With things like GnuNET you don't download an URL, but instead a checksum. So there wouldn't be an easy way to replace a file in a single location, but one would need to spread a fake md5sum and make people belive that the fake one is the real one. With peer2peer systems there wouldn't be a single point of failure, where the file could get trojaned, once the correct md5sum is spread in the public it would be nearly unchangable. It would also be impossible to hijack mirrors or that trojaned files would be mirrored, since mirroring would be handled by the network itself, not by people. Well, its just an idea, but GnuNET and Co. seem to have a much more straight forward way of handling checksums, than you can ever get with http or ftp at the moment.
I think there are a lot myths and legends about Open Source which aren't really that true after all, at least not for each and every project.
Once you release a project, there won't be hundreds of contributions, there won't be hundreds of suggestions, there might not even be hundreds of users. In the majority of Open Source projects I have worked for, the real work is done only by a few. The project doesn't grow because of tons of contributions from outside people, but because of the work of the core team (and if that disappears, the development does simply halt). So in general I would say that nobody will fork, contribute or even suggest much until the project has really grown very large.
When I compare downloads vs. mail and suggestions I get, I would say that that you need a 1'000 user for a simple comment mail about your programm, 10'000 for a useable suggestion or a tiny patch and >100'000 for a real contributions. To find a new maintainer for your project you need probally 500'000 or more users.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is not the storage format, but the editors that present the format. The editors make the error of presenting the file as plain text, instead of taking advantage of the structure of the code.
So instead of getting the indention level and coding style you prefer (dynamicly at load), you get what ever the author who wrote the code liked and you have to enter your text in that way.
The problem is that:
main() { puts("123"); }
and
main()
{
puts("123");
}
are two completly different things for a text-editor, while being equal for the compiler.
And editor which took advantage of the programm structure could display both programms equally and completly hide the underlying structure as text files.
The truth is that there currently isn't a marked for GNU/Linux games and there won't be any with a handfull native ports. What GNU/Linux needs are games, many games and thats what Wine can give GNU/Linux. Once we have games, there will be more users which can drop there Windows installation. Once thats done the GNU/Linux marked will increase and companies might be able to get money out of an GNU/Linux port, so they will do it. If they just port it do the Wine API, fine. If the rumor is right, Wine shouldn't be any slower then Windows once it is fully optimized. Of course this might fail, but it could also work. But just having a handfull GNU/Linux games won't really make people drop there windows partitions, since there favorit game will always be Windows-only and Wine can fill this gap.
As it seems to happen more and more often that ftp servers get cracked and md5sum's don't seem to help (since users are to lazy to check them and the gpg signatures), could peer2peer services provide a solution? With things like GnuNET you don't download an URL, but instead a checksum. So there wouldn't be an easy way to replace a file in a single location, but one would need to spread a fake md5sum and make people belive that the fake one is the real one. With peer2peer systems there wouldn't be a single point of failure, where the file could get trojaned, once the correct md5sum is spread in the public it would be nearly unchangable. It would also be impossible to hijack mirrors or that trojaned files would be mirrored, since mirroring would be handled by the network itself, not by people. Well, its just an idea, but GnuNET and Co. seem to have a much more straight forward way of handling checksums, than you can ever get with http or ftp at the moment.
I think there are a lot myths and legends about Open Source which aren't really that true after all, at least not for each and every project.
Once you release a project, there won't be hundreds of contributions, there won't be hundreds of suggestions, there might not even be hundreds of users. In the majority of Open Source projects I have worked for, the real work is done only by a few. The project doesn't grow because of tons of contributions from outside people, but because of the work of the core team (and if that disappears, the development does simply halt). So in general I would say that nobody will fork, contribute or even suggest much until the project has really grown
very large.
When I compare downloads vs. mail and suggestions I get, I would say that that you need a 1'000 user for a simple comment mail about your programm, 10'000 for a useable suggestion or a tiny patch and >100'000 for a real contributions. To find a new maintainer for your project you need probally 500'000 or more users.