[Info-vax] Python and various libraries updated

[Scott Dorsey]

=?UTF-8?Q?Jan-Erik_S=c3=b6derholm?=  <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
>Den 2020-08-08 kl. 18:30, skrev Scott Dorsey:
>> =?UTF-8?Q?Jan-Erik_S=c3=b6derholm?=  <jan-erik.soderholm at telia.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Maybe it is simply that the goal for VSI is not to contribute to the
>>> open soure world as such, just to provide their customers access to
>>> some open source tools that might be of value (to the customers).
>> 
>> The thing is that many open source licenses -require- that any changes
>> or additions to their code be made available in source form...
>
>Sure! But "made available" is not the same thing as "contributing to
>the open source world".
>
>VSI can do additions and share them with the (few) VMS users that are
>interested. But they do not need to, what ever it is called, send it
>upstreams to the main source code repository.

This is true.  However, if you don't get your changes included in the 
main distribution, you can give up any chance of being able to incorporate
updates from the main distribution in the future.  It is a -lot- more work
to maintain software this way.  You can do it, if you have to.

And really, it's not very difficult to get your updates incorporated in the
main distribution, if they don't affect non-VMS systems.

>I think there is a difference there...

There is.  It's the difference between creating your own software distribution
and using someone else's.  There are some arguments in favor of both, but when
your labour is limited and you expect the software to have any longevity, it's
easier to get someone else to do the maintenance.
--scott
-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."