[Info-vax] C99 stuff (Re: The Road to V9.0)

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 6/9/2019 8:44 AM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> =?UTF-8?Q?Arne_Vajh=c3=b8j?=  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> closed source works like:
>>
>> vendor produce product X
>>    customer A use X as is
> 
> Customer A adds feature to X, gives it to vendor, vendor incorporates it.
> Or customer asks vendor for feature and vendor incorporates it.
> 
>> open source works like:
>>
>> vendor produce product X
>>    customer A use X as is
>>    customer B hack X to become Y
>>
>> A does not care about what B does.
> 
> Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way, because if customer B's hack
> gets accepted by a majority of the community it becomes canon.  And now if
> you want support from other users, you have to be running the version Y
> with that hack because that's what everyone else is running.

That could happen.

But that does not meet the criteria that I commented on:

"you'll be the sole tester of the code, instead of code that is checked 
and tested by many."

Going from closed source to this particular open source case mean that
that instead of getting updates tested by vendor then you get updates
tested by B, vendor and all the other customers that tested it before
the vendor took it.

That sounds like a a factor 2-100 increase in testing of the stuff you
receive. Pretty good IMHO.

> This can be a good thing because it promotes rapid advancement but it can
> also promote rapid change for no reason.  It's a good thing in a field that
> is rapidly evolving, it is a terrible thing for a commercial OS.

I don't see that.

>> Besides that then very few open source customers actually hack the
>> code.
>>
>> My guess is that it is less than 1 per 10000 Redhat customers that do so.
> 
> It only takes one.

If you don't take their change then it does not impact you.

If the change get back to vendor then it is tested by author customer +
vendor + N other vendors instead of just vendor.

Arne