Re: request to ban 'no source' contributions
- Posted by Matt Lewis <matthewwalkerlewis at yahoo.com> Sep 23, 2004
- 456 views
spent memory wrote: > > the whole purpose of the release of VE was to benefit people who don't > want to type the same code over and over, not to start a open source > vs compiled code debate. i wonder if david cuny, and judith experienced > this sort of backlash when trying to release a beneficial tool into > the euphoria > community > And it's a good idea (what VE is trying to do). I've thought of doing something similar myself. I'm not sure what backlash you're referring to. What I saw here was that someone tried your program, but it didn't work on his machine. He let you know, and also wondered aloud about why there was no source. You got angry, attacked him, then reread (or finished reading?) his post, and apologized. I chimed in to let you know how the archives are generally viewed around here (I've been a part of the Euphoria community for about 6 years now). Some other people debated the merits of releasing source code and alternatives to releasing stuff at RDS' site. Thread wandering is just part of internet culture, not to mention general communication. Most things that get released are basically ignored. A few people might try them out, and then forget about them. The things that are really useful to many people tend to live on. The only closed source contribution that I can recall off the top of my head is EuWinGUI by Andrea Cini. Lots of people liked this (it was based on a shareware C++ lib that she had written), but she left the Euphorian fold, so it's no longer being developed (others have alluded to this phenomenon). I think it's also not being used as much as it was while she was around (I could be wrong). Another closed source contribution that I think had lots of potential was Pete's print preview library. I was interested in putting that into EDB, but the licensing wasn't compatible with what I wanted to do (and frankly, it was difficult figuring out how it all worked). I guess this sounds selfish, but had Pete released it under a more open license, I would have likely included it, and would have devoted significant micro economy dollars. There are several other libs that I used in EDB in that manner. One thing all long lived contributions have in common, is that the users find lots of things wrong with them, and ask for lots of bug fixes and new features (not always in the most polite fashion). Many users write the code themselves and submit them to the author, who is free to ignore the suggestions. Occaisionally, a fork of a project survives for some time, but the two usually converge after a while. Matt Lewis PS Please hit the Quote Original Text button (assuming you're using the web interface). In a non-threaded forum like this, it can be difficult to figure out who/what you're replying to.