[OT] Fundamental Issues with Open Source Software Development

[Zoki]

Le 15/04/2004 22:36, ??Net Llama!?? <netllama at linux-sxs.org> a ?crit?:

> On Thu, 15 Apr 2004, Klaus-Peter Schrage wrote:
>> http://www.citizenlab.org/opensource/
>> Canadian researcher Michelle Levesque has thoroughly examined an Open
>> Source Project (which she kept anonymous) and found "the five most
>> important flaws with Open Source software development to be as follows:
>> 1) User interface design


*** This is true, but is it necesseraly a flaw? Depends from whose point of
view you take. While having a GUI might help to get started, it can become
annoying in the long run. That would be the admin's look at things. An
average user, however, would prefer a GUI as he doesn't have the ability to
use a software on the command line. It would be a good idea to fork a dev
project and have people develop code while another group develops the
interface. It's possible and it can work. The Apple community showed this.
In a very short while a lot of GUI's appeared for the major OSS: wget,
postfix, sendmail, proftpd, pureftpd...


>> 2) Documentation


*** Nothing to say here. She's right. See also the article Eric wrote about
CUPS.


>> 3) Feature-centric development


*** I don't understand this. Feature-centric? Does that mean OSS developpers
add features without making sure the base code is clean? I would say this is
a major flaw of the Windows dev. model.


>> 4) Programming for the self


*** Net Llama said it all.


>> 5) Religious blindness"


*** Religious blindness for the OSS or commercial blindness for CSS, what's
worse? The religious blindness gave us a lot of good software, I'm still
waiting to find the same quality with CSS. I think I made my choice.


>> Has someone an idea what "Project X" could be? At first sight, I thought

(snip)


*** Well, Project-X was a major X-rated film in France a couple of years
ago... However, I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing here...
;-))) 


> No clue here.  However, my thoughts are that the items that she lists as
> flaws are fairly accurate for most OSS projects.  That doesn't
> neccesearily make them inferior.  And i'd say that item 4 is what spawned
> the OSS movement in the first place.

-- 
Cheers,
Zoran.