On Tue, May 31, 2005 05:27:04 AM +0200, io ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
wrote:
> > I believe that this development model should be discouraged in
> > favour of the "small step" model. Similar to the FOSS mantra
> > "release early, and release often".
>
> Your thesis is interesting indeed and it would be a wonderful world if
> it were always applicable. But it doesn't scale, so to speak, outside
> certain research fields. You can follow the "FOSS mantra" with
> software, that is something immaterial that every kid can "rebuild" to
> test 10 times a day with extremely cheap equipment which fits under a
> desk and does the hard job (the actual compiling process) unattended.
Another example: google for "synthetic diamonds" which have a lot of
useful industrial applications, not just pretty rings and
necklaces. It costs a lot to test and develop the machinery. If the
private companies doing this "released early and often" without
patents they would go bankrupt only in favour of other for-profit
companies, because no private hacker could replicate, debug,
contribute in his kitchen.
One could argue that this wouldn't be an issue if all research or any
other activity were always funded and done by governments, but we'd
really digress then.
Ciao,
Marco F.
--
Marco Fioretti mfioretti, at the server mclink.it
Fedora Core 3 for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/
Those who will be able to conquer software will be able to conquer the
world. -- Tadahiro Sekimoto, president, NEC Corp.
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