Mike Davis wrote in message <7377@palm-dev-forum>...
>Doesn't "open source" mean anyone can take it over and continue to
>develop whatever they like in terms of the development of a program?
>And further, doesn't trying to "keep control over the source" stray
>from the idea of "open source"?
Not entirely. The open source concept generally means that
anybody can -work- on it, but there is still one person or group
coordinating the efforts and in charge of the "official" releases.
This ideal can fall apart when that coordinator abdicates and
does not appoint an official successor, or when somebody
just takes it into their heads to go a different direction and
product their own offering.
A prime example of open source development effort is
the Netscape "gecko" project which just bore it's first
fruit. Many people worked on it, but it was still centrally
controlled.
Another well known open source effort is Linux. Now here
there -are- different "flavors", among the well known ones
being the original Linux (www.linux.org) and the "Red Hat"
Linux (www.redhat.com). Other editions include SuSE and
Debian. Now I am -not- a Linux person, and do not know
to what extent these different offerings represent true variants
or merely different consumer packaging of the same basic
product.
The main thing is that when variants appear, they have
their own names to distinguish them. We are now in the
situation where two developers have advanced over
prc-tools 0.5.0. Both are now using the name "prc-tools"
for their efforts. One has produced prc-tools 0.6.0 and
the other has prc-tools 2.0. I maintain that this is confusing,
and it can only get worse from here.
If Sokolov doesn't have the inclination to give his a
unique identifier (which could be as simple as just
calling it "Sokolov prc-tools") then perhaps John Marshall
will consent to differentiating the name of his set. Considering
the official sanction it seems to have, perhaps "Palm prc-tools"
would be a good candidate for a name.
The thing I -don't- want to see is people just getting into
this trying desparately to figure out how "prc-tools 0.6.0" can
be more recent than "prc-tools 2.0". If the names are qualified
uniquely then the potential for confusion goes away (... well, is
lessened at the very least),
--
-Richard M. Hartman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
186,000 mi/sec: not just a good idea, it's the LAW!
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