Re: [MacPerl] Distributables?

[Matthew Langford <langfml [at] eng [dot] auburn [dot] edu>]

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Richard Gordon wrote:

> Again, I'm not knocking open source as such. It is economically viable
> so long as you are not dealing with distributables and, from what I've
> seen, the product is much superior. 

I'd add in a few more qualifications.  Other users of the product have to
be interested in and capable of changing the source.  For example, open
source for software distributed to elementary schools does not seem
viable, because the target audience could care less about computers, much
less source code.  The only people interested in your source are
competitors.  Similar arguments apply to most software targeted at
non-computer-savvy audiences.  

But maybe I'm being too quick to dismiss open source.  Maybe school
districts should hire an open source programmer or two who are
contributing to a large pool of free and open educational software.  But
what school district superintendent would be so enlightened?  A lot of
education would be needed for this to happen.  (sorry :)

In general, I'm an open source skeptic in areas which it doesn't seem to
have penetrated:  client-side, non-power-user, non technically glamorous
coding. 

Perhaps it hasn't penetrated these areas because open source has been
mostly a Unix phenomenon, which doesn't in general acknowledge
non-power-users anyway.


And if you aren't getting paid to write code, then you better be getting
paid for the code you wrote.  Back to distributables, source code hidden.

Sure, people can get in a locked car, or a locked building, but that
doesn't stop me from locking both house and car.  Nor do I consider the
automakers foolish and paranoid for including locks on cars and trying to
upgrade the security of the locking systems. 

I think there's a place for both.  And I think MacPerl would be more
complete by supporting both.  (More complete in comparison to a MacPerl
without a standalone-generating capability.) 


--
MattLangford 


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