pgd@bbt.se (P.Garbha) (07/20/90)
In article <1990Jul19.035413.2791@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: cut, cut, cut... >There's nothing wrong with the "packaged system" universe, as long as it >all works well enough that you don't have to poke under the hood. Nor is >there anything wrong with the "do it yourself" universe, where everybody >gets source and supports himself. But they're very different, and trying >to mix them is uncomfortable. >-- Yes, but my experience is that very few software packages do work when you press them to their limits. (as some users do) There seems to be two different kind of users, those who are helped by source code, and those who are not. But we have a living example, the GNU products. They are all distributed with source, code, but do we have millions of different versions? As far as i know, we have one version of emacs, one version of gcc, etc. etc. The same with X-windows, (and all usenet software) So it is possible, but i think that the desire is missing. Everyone want the source code, but noone want to give it away. Now instead we get a privileged group of people who have access to the source code, some kind of caste system. Everyone have to turn to them to get answer to their questions. DEC used to distribute source code for some of their operating systems, but still there were only one version around. (they might have stopped that practice) I think that the software industry is fearing skeletons in the closet... Just think how many man-hours of programmer time are lost on re-programming. Maybe even half of all added programmer energy is lost on programming an already programmed program. But times are changing. Already due to FSF, many computers can have a first-class c-compiler, and they are all compatible!