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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Open source vs Closed source... What makes Open Source tick.
From:       Alan Jones <skyphyr () gmail ! com>
Date:       2009-07-30 8:49:54
Message-ID: 5d43fb230907300149p4d778b55n8a4120ec9d8fd98e () mail ! gmail ! com
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Hi Viwe,

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 12:20 AM, viwe lolwane<ghostnet2000@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok Everybody is attacking me, now here is my response.

You seem to feel any response not confirming your preconceptions is an attack.
That's not the case. You're simply dealing with people who require
solid reasoning
and evidence to support claims and suggestions. This is how free
software thrives.
Somebody will recognize a problem, propose a solution and the various merits of
their solution will be discussed based on evidence and logic. The
strength is that
it doesn't stop here. People will consider this problem in the broader
scope, is it
possible to generalize this problem? Can we make a more general solution? How
does this problem affect other parts of the application? How will the proposed
solution impact other aspects of the application? Is the solution the
most elegant
possible? You'll notice a big one missing here. Is the ideal solution
within budget.
It seems to me that code quality is generally given higher importance
than budget
when compared with a proprietary system in which the most economically viable
option would be given preference. Perhaps you could look at conducting surveys
to see whether this opinion is widely held. Start thinking of ways you may be
able to measure quality in order to provide metrics to support your
stance on the
issue.

> Well in open source the disadvantage is , unless a project is viewed as a
> winner it will not attract and retain volunteers to work on that project.

Upon what do you base this? Is there a survey you've undertaken? What was the
sample group? Could the sampling have biased the result? How about the
wording of the question?

> further more the members of an open source team must at
> all time made to feel that they are making a contribution.

Again, please provide evidence to support this.

> this at sometime can leave some of the parts
> of the software being left to gather dust without being maintained either
> because they are being seen as unattractive or useless.

Again do you have any metrics on this? Have you considered that perhaps this
is actually a positive contributor to the quality of free software? Maybe free
software developers tend to more quickly identify deprecated code and features?
Perhaps free software developers are less concerned with backwards
compatibility between releases? If you did find this to be the case,
that raises
the question of why. Does source code availability mean keeping older versions
of software working on newer systems is simpler than trying to do so with only
binaries?

> This bring me to  my next point how many open
> source projects have been successful?

That's not a point. It's a question. It's also an impossible one to
answer without
providing a definition of successful, a definition of open source and scope for
finding projects. If 5 companies work together on a project all with source code
access and a shared interest, but do not make the code or binaries publicly
available is that an open source project? If they are the only users, but it is
flexible, easily maintained and fills all their needs, but has only 10
users is it
successful? And how did you find out about it? How do you find out about
every other such project?

> Individuals are unlikely to  devote a considerable portion of their spare
> time if the project is not viewed as winner,

Again, please provide evidence in support of this.

> from this I can asked a question did linus, believe that Linux will be
> widely utilized when he started the OS.
> I think he did not, maybe he did the point I m making here is how can you be
> sure that a project will be a winner.
> thats a hard question to answer.

If it was possible to be a certainty then that would apply to all
software. Perhaps
you should attempt to figure out how to guarantee a project will be successful
instead of focusing on how to guarantee a free software project will
be successful.

> Well most of the post have attacked me via Microsoft Win32 API,

Are you referring to viruses?

> I can not speak for microsoft and frankly I believe
> some of the things they did where stupid. but How every one knows that their
> API is crap, if they never seen the code, they never tested the code.

You can evaluate an API's design without evaluating the underlying code. When
somebody says an API is crap they will usually mean it's not intuitive to write
code with. Though again could you please provide sources for this. Who is
everyone? How do you know they've never seen or tested the code? With these
again repeat the questions regarding possible bias in your sources, question
wording etc.

> Microsoft must have thousands of testers to perform
> inspections and walkthrough and correctness
> proving. One might never be sure that the product is 100% without defects,
> but microsoft OS must be closer to that.

Why? Once more please provide evidence. I thought you were attempting to
research here, but all your email are littered with foregone conclusions. It's
time to step back and start coming up with questions that will assist in
answering yours and coming up with an unbiased scientific method to elicit
answers to those questions.

> How many testers does KDE have? the numbers speak for themselves,

Which numbers are these? I thought you were just asking for some?

> how can you be certain that your application/SDK is without defects or is better
> that Microsoft OS?

How are you going about being certain the reverse is true? Again you are neither
here following any form of scientific method to attempt to get accurate data nor
are you providing any to support your hypothesis. Is there anything you want
other than somebody to pat you on the back and say all your statements are
absolutely correct?

> thats a question.

Well at least your observational skills seem to have been improving throughout
this thread.

Seriously though, go do some studying on how to conduct research in a manner
which provides repeatable, unbiased results then come back and let's see if we
can answer some questions which will provide everyone with some solid
information.

Please don't take the replies on this list as being harsh. They're amazingly
gentle compared to what you'd received if you published a report with the
approach you've taken so far.

Cheers,

Alan.
 
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