Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 22:49:22 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: IDS Message-ID: <15232.35010.655197.502835@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <004801c12923$94edef60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> References: <15232.26162.667917.436954@guru.mired.org> <004801c12923$94edef60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> types: > >You seem to be arguing that, because ports are abandoned, people > >shouldn't bother submitting them. > No - just that if your going to submit a port, then please stick around and > keep it active. Or at least plan on it. > Look at all the people that got screwed when umich decided to drop work on > LDAP and the huge trouble it took for the OpenLDAP people to pick it up. > It would have been better if there had been no LDAP ever from umich and > instead OpenLDAP had been the reference implementation. I'm not familiar with that case, but unless the umich software completely vanished, I don't see how people would have been better off if it had never existed. They had the umich software to run when nothing else was available. The OpenLDAP developers had an implementation to test against. Sure, having to switch later was probably more painfull than just using OpenLDAP to begin with, but was it more painfull than having nothing at all? > If your installing a total of 5 ports on your new FreeBSD server and 1 of the > five is marked FORBIDDEN, then do you think it matters if that is only 1/3rd > of a percent? Nope. But, as you point out, probably only 10% are used by lots of people. Those are the ones least likely to be marked FORBIDDEN. > Besides that - FreeBSD 4.4 is getting close to release now, why are there ANY > that are still marked forbidden? Because the developers haven't fixed them yet. Leaving the port in place means a user can easily install it if they want to, but will do so knowing that it's got problems. It also means you get to use the port/package tools to manage it. > >Anyone using free software in a production environment runs the risk > >of the developer - and port maintainer for ports - deciding they have > >something better to do with their time than provide pro bono > >support. If they aren't willing to take that risk, they should be > >paying someone for support. > Anyway your argument simply is NOT just applicable to FreeBSD it's applicable > to ALL software, including commercial software. That's most certainly true, and I didn't mean to imply that things were any different. One of the reasons I prefer open source is that I've *always* got the option of fixing bugs myself - or hiring someone to do it - even if the developer refuses to. > >BTW, this ties back to the documentation thread. The reason that it's > >better to submit work to the FreeBSD project than set up your own web > >site is because it is much more likely to be picked up and maintained > >if the original author develops it. For the doc project, that's almost > >a certainty. > [cheap shot] > I see no evidence that this happened with the Chapter on printing from > my book that AW donated. ;-) Once you provide the technology so that purchased copies of your book can be updated, that'll change :-). > >If a port or documentation isn't submitted to the > >project, it's almost a certainty it won't be picked up by someone > >else. > Seriously, I think your off base when you mix documentation and ports here. The basic principle - that if you put it where people can access it and have a mechanism for updating it, it's more likely for others to update it - applies to both. They both benefit from being updated. > But for documentation, this is a bit more fuzzy for several reasons. First of > all, > you can view documentation as a kind of "advertising". For example, the very > existence of books like Greg's, mine and now Annelise can and does give > credibility to the FreeBSD that it would otherwise not have if the project was > entirely virtual. I think you just made an apples to oranges comparison. My comments are aimed at people who'd rather set up their own web site than contribute to the FreeBSD web site. Books belong in a different category, the community needs them, and that needs isn't liable to be met via the project. > A well-designed, and well-promoted website can serve the same purpose too. > For example you could easily have a website that serves mostly Windows users > that has a FreeBSD section - for many of those users that may be the only > exposure to FreeBSD that they will get. They are certainly not going to be > going to freebsd.org by themselves. That's true. On the other hand, that's also the kind of thing that really doesn't belong on the FreeBSD web site. I keep my reviews of FreeBSD softare on my web site - even though some have been published elsewhere - and not on the FreeBSD site, because they don't really belong there. On the other hand, I submit man pages and handbook sections as PRs, and don't bother keeping them locally. If they aren't accepted, my keeping them does no good. If they are, then my copy will be out of date as soon as someone adds to it. > The last thing about documentation, websites and whatnot, it that > documentation is NOT critical to the RUNNING of the software, just to it's > USE. Documentation is still the most important part of an application. If you can't USE the application, it's useless. To quote a Sybase T-shirt, without documentation it's just code. > Just because someone's FreeBSD-related website gets stale, or someone's > book goes out of > print, well they aren't running documentation on their servers, they are > running the software! After all, the software package that the developer > submitted to the FreeBSD project already contains the most authoratative and > best documentation that there it - the source code! Most authorative, yes. Best? If that were true, we wouldn't need anything else - including the books. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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