Posted by: Rich Steiner
on November 07, 2006 07:05 AM
A program which is released to the public under an open source license and which is not snapped up by the FOSS community *still* has serious advantages over a program which is released without any source code:
(1) Someone can choose to legally view the code behind the program if they want to figure out how it ticks, and they know they won't be encumbered by various IP issues for doing so.
(2) Anyone is free to extend the program for their own use, and they are also free to release the new extended version to the public.
(3) Anyone is free to use the program as the basis for a new software project.
(4) If a bug is found, someone can legally make changes to the source and release a new version.
A program which is released as binary-only doesn't have any of those things in its favor.
In other words, FOSS doesn't *REQUIRE* popularity in order to be superior in some respects to non-FOSS software. A community is nice if you want a FOSS program to become a lever against other forms of software, but it isn't a hard requirement. IMO.
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I disagree.
Posted by: Rich Steiner on November 07, 2006 07:05 AM(1) Someone can choose to legally view the code behind the program if they want to figure out how it ticks, and they know they won't be encumbered by various IP issues for doing so.
(2) Anyone is free to extend the program for their own use, and they are also free to release the new extended version to the public.
(3) Anyone is free to use the program as the basis for a new software project.
(4) If a bug is found, someone can legally make changes to the source and release a new version.
A program which is released as binary-only doesn't have any of those things in its favor.
In other words, FOSS doesn't *REQUIRE* popularity in order to be superior in some respects to non-FOSS software. A community is nice if you want a FOSS program to become a lever against other forms of software, but it isn't a hard requirement. IMO.
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