jc@cdx39.UUCP (10/17/86)
> The theory is that products developed in the R&D community (read > universities) are not supported adequately for industry to rely on. > Hence the commercial market is for an equally functional product that > is maintained, evolved, supported, etc. > > It appears from your note that you don't buy that argument. I would be > interested in your reaction. I don't either. My experience has generally been that "commercial" and "industrial" software is generally no better (or worse) than what comes out of universities. E.g., after using both SYS/V and 4.2BSD, I strongly prefer BSD (with all its faults). [According to some folks at Motorola, they can't correct some known bugs in their ATT-certified SYS/V because it would violate the license and lose the certification! :-] As for support, the same remarks apply. Anyhow, I don't really want software that needs support; I want software that works right the first time. You get it from good programmers wherever they may be found. If you believe that blindly chosing 'industry' software over 'university' software will give you better quality, you are a good prospect for a used bridge. When things don't work right, I've generally found that people in academia are more cooperative than those in industry. The latter usually spend a lot of time talking about licenses and trade secrets and confidentiality (and how busy they are), none of which gets the problem corrected; they usually refuse to send source code so I can correct it myself. Academics may be similarly harried, but they more often want their code to reflect well on their reputation, and they usually distribute things in source form. Of course, you find plenty of arrogance and incompetence in both camps. You also find cooperativeness and competence in both. Take it where you find it.