The majority of open source software is written by people who expect to use the software. Therefore, you have more occurances of developers actually using their software, and performing their own bug testing. This, unfortunately, doesn't happen in many large software shops. For example, I doubt the developers of Microsoft Encarta end up using the software for their own use, and QA is done by other employees. The "release early, release often" methodology also contributes to a smaller number of bugs in a given release of software. Large software packages, as a marketing rule, bundle bug fixes together for the next major release, rather than releasing many point releases when bugs are found and fixed. In a lot of cases, you don't get fixes until enough "features" have been added to justify a version upgrade.
I think, for these reasons, as well as the "more eyeballs" reason, that open source software by nature is more error-proof. -Tim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dustin Puryear" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 8:16 PM Subject: Re: [brluglist] windows sucks > At 05:39 PM 4/10/2002 -0700, you wrote: > >Yes. > > How does writing open source software reduce the number of errors that you > introduce into code? In my view open source software only increases the > number of eyeballs that can spot those errors. > > Regards, Dustin > > > > >John Hebert > > > >--- Dustin Puryear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > At 03:25 PM 4/10/2002 -0700, you wrote: > > > >Sounds like a combination of problems. But, when it > > > >comes to tracking down problems, I _always_ suspect > > > >software, not hardware, first. Software is just > > > easier > > > >to screw up, especially on a closed source > > > operating > > > >system. Now, it may be that the hardware in the > > > > > > Do you think closed software is easier to "screw up" > > > or simply more > > > difficult to fix? Does writing open source software > > > reduce the number of > > > errors you introduce into code, or increase the > > > number of people able to > > > spot the errors? > > > > > > Regards, Dustin > > > > > > > > > --- > > > Dustin Puryear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > UNIX and Network Consultant > > > http://members.telocity.com/~dpuryear > > > PGP Key available at http://www.us.pgp.net > > > In the beginning the Universe was created. > > > This has been widely regarded as a bad move. - > > > Douglas Adams > > > > > > ================================================ > > > BRLUG - The Baton Rouge Linux User Group > > > Visit http://www.brlug.net for more information. > > > Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to change > > > your subscription information. > > > ================================================ > > > > > >__________________________________________________ > >Do You Yahoo!? > >Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax > >http://taxes.yahoo.com/ > >================================================ > >BRLUG - The Baton Rouge Linux User Group > >Visit http://www.brlug.net for more information. > >Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to change > >your subscription information. > >================================================ > > > --- > Dustin Puryear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > UNIX and Network Consultant > http://members.telocity.com/~dpuryear > PGP Key available at http://www.us.pgp.net > In the beginning the Universe was created. > This has been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams > > ================================================ > BRLUG - The Baton Rouge Linux User Group > Visit http://www.brlug.net for more information. > Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to change > your subscription information. > ================================================ > ================================================ BRLUG - The Baton Rouge Linux User Group Visit http://www.brlug.net for more information. Send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to change your subscription information. ================================================
