I know another package which went through something like this. The original author produced several versions. It was heavily used. However, updates occurred less and less frequently. A mailing list set up for the package carried numerous bug fixes and enhancements. The original author seldom posted acknowledgements, etc. He did occasionally promise a future release, but several years went by without it appearing. Eventually some of the mailing list members attempted to gather all the patches and enhancements up and create a new release, with a new name. The author then appeared, pronouncing how by making this release, they just adding months if not years to his work at creating a new formal release. Of course, any attempt to discuss, justify, or even report bugs and enhancements resulting in "more delays". As far as I am aware, 8 years later that promised release never occurred. The mailing list members were 'scared off' by all the huffing and puffing (unfortunately, I don't have any of the old mail archives for specific words used, but I seem to recall semi-threats related to copyright language in the original distribution). And so the package continues to languish.
Another 'freely available source' program had even a bigger nightmare. Though the source was made available, the copyright/license explicitly made it 'illegal' to distribute the source with any modifications. Later, the author commercialized the package, then sold the package and company which I think may have sold it again... anyways the original program, which currently bears no resemblance to the final, now likely unsupported applicaiton, still can't be distributed with updates. So people have to distribute sets of patches to be applied against the years old source release.
The first thing that catchs my attention in the article immediately turns me off to it:
[Games]... do not have support costs. Interoperability and reliability are irrelevant.
This two sentences have at least 3 inaccuracies as far as I am concerned...
1. Games do have support costs. Support costs include phone calls/email about how to play the game. They include revisions to the documentation. They include writing articles, press releases, etc.
2. Interoperability is crucial! What good is a game designed to run on Linux if it doesn't work with the user's hard drive, or mouse, or joystick, or whatever? What good is it if the version of language runtime it uses interferes with the proper operation of the operating system? What good is it if it requires kernel changes that make the system unstable?
3. Reliablity is important. If the game crashes every time the user goes to save the game, or any time the user doesn't have a particular video card, then it doesn't get played.
A few years ago while visiting my in-laws I noticed my father-in-law had gotten a new program for kids to learn to read. The software company which created it is one which people have heard of - you might even have gone to see their new jungle based movie recently . Anyways, the packaging advertises that it ran on the machine my father-in-law had. It's memory and disk requirements were met by his machine. So we plugged it in and started thru the install steps. The software asked that a particular version of a graphics support library be installed. Neat, I thought, and clicked on the button to say "go ahead and install that version". The install script did. Then we start thru the install script again. Again we are prompted to install the particular version... and so on. For multiple months we attempted to install that version of the graphics runtime software, and even newer versions. In all cases, the install script never went farther in the process. When the company's support line was called, they said "oh, we don't see that problem here" and hung up!
Clearly, if we had access to the source, we could have fixed the problem and continued. Instead, he was out the cost of the software (because of course, once you've opened the software package, it can't be taken back...)
My first thought while reading the article is that the author had not ran across any Javascript/Java/Shockwave/etc. web sites. People using browsers with Java/Javascript turned off, or without support for 'the latest' version, etc. find a number of sites are unusable. Certainly if one is browsing non-scripted HTML one gets the text as expected.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey - anyone know if Sir Arthur C. Clarke owns "2001", "2010", etc.? Perhaps people will be forced to skip Office 2001 ...
It would be nice if things could work this way.
I know another package which went through something like this. The original author produced several versions. It was heavily used. However, updates occurred less and less frequently. A mailing list set up for the package carried numerous bug fixes and enhancements. The original author seldom posted acknowledgements, etc.
He did occasionally promise a future release, but
several years went by without it appearing.
Eventually some of the mailing list members attempted to gather all the patches and enhancements up and create a new release, with a new name. The author then appeared, pronouncing how by making this release, they just adding months if not years to his work at creating a new formal release. Of course, any attempt to discuss, justify, or even report bugs and enhancements resulting in "more delays".
As far as I am aware, 8 years later that promised release never occurred. The mailing list members were 'scared off' by all the huffing and puffing (unfortunately, I don't have any of the old mail archives for specific words used, but I seem to recall semi-threats related to copyright language in the original distribution). And so the package continues to languish.
Another 'freely available source' program had even a bigger nightmare. Though the source was made available, the copyright/license explicitly made it 'illegal' to distribute the source with any modifications. Later, the author commercialized the package, then sold the package and company which I think may have sold it again... anyways
the original program, which currently bears no resemblance to the final, now likely unsupported applicaiton, still can't be distributed with updates. So people have to distribute sets of patches to be applied against the years old source release.
The first thing that catchs my attention in the article immediately turns me off to it:
... do not have support costs. Interoperability and reliability are irrelevant.
... and so on. For multiple months we attempted to install that version of the graphics runtime software, and even newer versions. In all cases, the install script never went farther in the process. When the company's support line was called, they said "oh, we don't see that problem here" and hung up!
[Games]
This two sentences have at least 3 inaccuracies as far as I am concerned...
1. Games do have support costs. Support costs include phone calls/email about how to play the game. They include revisions to the documentation. They include writing articles,
press releases, etc.
2. Interoperability is crucial! What good is a game designed to run on Linux if it doesn't work with the user's hard drive, or mouse, or joystick, or whatever? What good is it if the version of language runtime it uses interferes with the proper operation of the operating system? What good is it if it requires kernel changes that make the system unstable?
3. Reliablity is important. If the game crashes every time the user goes to save the game, or any time the user doesn't have a particular video card, then it doesn't get played.
A few years ago while visiting my in-laws I noticed my father-in-law had gotten a new program for kids to learn to read. The software company which created it is one which people have heard of - you might even have gone to see their new jungle based movie recently . Anyways, the packaging advertises that it ran on the machine my father-in-law had. It's memory and disk requirements were met by his machine. So we plugged it in and started thru the install steps. The software asked that a particular version of a graphics support library be installed. Neat, I thought, and clicked on the button to say "go ahead and install that version". The install script did. Then we start thru the install script again. Again we are prompted to install the particular version
Clearly, if we had access to the source, we could have fixed the problem and continued. Instead, he was out the cost of the software (because of course, once you've opened the software package, it can't be taken back...)
My first thought while reading the article is that
the author had not ran across any Javascript/Java/Shockwave/etc. web sites. People using browsers with Java/Javascript turned off, or without support for 'the latest' version, etc. find a number of sites are unusable. Certainly if one is browsing non-scripted HTML one gets the
text as expected.