| |||||||||||||
I think martinfick offered great metaphor...I think martinfick offered great metaphor...Posted Jan 20, 2012 15:09 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435)In reply to: I think martinfick offered great metaphor... by michaeljt Parent article: LCA: Addressing the failure of open source
> That means that you are either foregoing all future fixes to the software
Lots of people are perfectly content (even happier) running out-of-date software... Look at RHEL/CentOS... As long as you've got the important fixes, especially those that actually matter to you, many are happy to live without whatever new features (and most likely new bugs) newer versions bring... Yes, there may be some fixes in there, as well; if they're important enough, they can be ported into the local version, and you can surely find someone to do it...
> how much do your local plumbers charge?
A lot... But, the point is: much like plumbing problems, hopefully the need to do future software fixes will be a fairly rare thing... Yes, if you're using a bleeding-edge version of actively developed software, it's obviously going to continue having new bugs to deal with... But, an old stable product? Hopefully, you won't run into many very often, just as your pipes hopefully won't spring new leaks every week...
> Almost everyone considers their particular bug to be very serious
Don't I know it... But, far fewer truly care enough about it to put up (much) money to fix it... You're probably right that most of them wouldn't pay enough to even make it tempting... But, that in no way implies that someone couldn't pay to get it fixed if they truly wanted to and were willing to spend the money on it... It may not be cheap, but then neither will that plumber's visit or that auto mechanic's bill... And, unlike those, there's a really good chance you might just possibly find someone willing to fix it for you absolutely free, simply for the joy of coding...
(Log in to post comments)
I think martinfick offered great metaphor... Posted Jan 20, 2012 15:43 UTC (Fri) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]
> But, that in no way implies that someone couldn't pay to get it fixed if they truly wanted to and were willing to spend the money on it...
People really willing to spend the money are often well-served by support contracts. But due to the way that they let/make private users pool their money together (game theory anyone?) I think that proprietary projects have the edge on affordable fixes for those people - and an incentive to actively look for and make those fixes. See also [1] though for my other ideas on the subject.
I think martinfick offered great metaphor... Posted Jan 20, 2012 16:08 UTC (Fri) by RobSeace (subscriber, #4435) [Link]
> I think that proprietary projects have the edge on affordable fixes for those people
Possibly, in some cases... But, there's also the possibility that the proprietary software company just doesn't want to fix your particular issue for whatever reason (they don't see it as a bug, or are worried fixing it might break compatability, or whatever)... In that case, you're completely out of luck, unless you can find someone good with a disassembler and hacking assembly code these days (and willing to break the law to do so, since that's probably illegal)... With open source, at least you have the option to go elsewhere for your fix, if you should deem it important enough to do so...
As for your other comment about the bug bounty, I think that's a great idea... It'd be cool to see a little "Donate towards getting this bug fixed!" button on every open bug tracking entry... I don't know how many would do it, but I suspect the popular ones would get quite a few people throwing a few bucks at it... Of course, it might also encourage less scrupulous programmers from adding in bugs deliberately only to claim the bounties on them later... But, hopefully that'd be seen through fairly quickly, especially in an open source project... More likely, I suspect it would encourage new contributors to join in trying to fix the popular bugs, which can only really be a good thing...
|
|||||||||||||