Steve, You make some good points. There is at least one open source geospatial library that I refuse to use because the learning curve is so steep.
As the administrator of an open source project I often struggle with the challenge of good documentation. Often developers just want to throw code in the CVS. A project administrator can spend more time writing documentation and weeding out bug reports than that do writing code. I'm currently trying to figure out ways to tackle this problem on my own open source project. I'd love to hear some ideas and suggestions on that topic. I'll start another thread so that I don't hijack this discussion. Landon -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of stephen white Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 9:39 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Geowanking] Bad news for those who wanted to seelocation-basedapps on the iPhone... On 27/01/2007, at 3:21 AM, Landon Blake wrote: > I'd argue that there are a lot of people that use open source software > everyday. Some of it doesn't look half bad either. I know for a fact I expressed a strong opinion, so I'm not going to flood the mailing list with responses to the reactions. I just wanted to add that I've come out the rough end of 15 years of nothing but open source software, so my face has scars from being ground up against the flaws. I'm not having a slam against open source (though I would slam the term "open source" as a compromise of the original ideals of free software) in the way of FUD and bad-mouthing. I presume most of you are already converted, so my comments are from one insider to another. Documentation sucks. Change control sucks. Configuration management sucks. You really want to be getting paid money to go through that drudgery. That's the problem in the first place. Being paid fixes that problem. Those open source projects being cited as counter- examples... I bet they have commercial support from companies that have paid for documentation, change control and configuration management. I repeat... I've had 15 years of using nothing BUT open source. I built my own Linux system from scratch before distributions existed. I've never programmed on Windows. I'm a card carrying member of the beardie-weirdie club. But computers are tools, and they will do what I want them to do. On that basis, everything sucks... including Macs. And Linux. And Windows. And BeOS. And AmigaOS. And CP/M. All of them. But when everything sucks, including Cingular, things can only exist in carefully balanced zones between mulltiple suckage factors. If this wasn't a problem, if that wasn't an issue, if these idiots running phone companies had more than 2 neurons on a time share arrangement... I'm sure things would be very different and more of us would get what we want. But it isn't, and it doesn't, and it hasn't, and it won't. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking Warning: Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately. _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
