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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Open source vs Closed source... What makes Open Source tick.
From:       "Aaron J. Seigo" <aseigo () kde ! org>
Date:       2009-07-30 18:52:56
Message-ID: 200907301252.57053.aseigo () kde ! org
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On Thursday 30 July 2009, viwe lolwane wrote:
> can leave some of the parts
> of the software being left to gather dust without being maintained either

one other note: this also happens _all the time_ with proprietary software, 
and for the same root reason: if the software isn't popular enough (measured 
in terms of $ revenue) then efforts decrease on it.

often, if a certain piece of software or component of it is not perceived by 
management to be "worth" spending time on (due to relative importance, 
severity of problems with it, whether it can be used as a sales check-list 
item, what competitors are doing in the same area, etc) then resources get 
pulled, often regardless of the # of defects existent in that body of code.

this is why some problems never get fixed or take years and many releases to 
get fixed in proprietary apps.

in the end, it's an effort/benefit or "value-based" judgment call in both the 
open source and proprietary models.

what varies is the definition of "benefit" in the effort/benefit equation. for 
some it's money, for others it's persona pleasure, for others it's popularity, 
for others it's "because i need this tool", for others .... 

so this is not a disadvantage of open source at all. it's just a different 
"benefit" metric, one that is apparently new/surprising to you and so seems 
like something new and different. but it isn't.

most of what you've been describing is, if you make it just slightly more 
generic, true of nearly any complicated team-based creative process.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software

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