Jerzy Karczmarczuk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote,
> Ian Jackson continues the discussion on Haskell/Clean issue, and
> says about the possibility to modify the sources:
>
> > We're programmers here, aren't we ? Modifying source code is
> > what we do. If I encounter a bug in software I'm using I don't
> > want to be prevented from finding and fixing it !
> >
> > In fact, despite been very much a newbie to the Haskell world I
> > have already built the Glasgow compiler from source in order to
> > make a few small modifications to it that I needed, and I've had
> > a level of support from the GHC team which is not usually
> > available for proprietary software at any price I could afford
> > (and I'm not poor!).
>
[...]
> But I have other things to do!!!
>
> Modifying source codes of your development tools is clearly a
> pathology if not a perversion. It diverts you from your principal
> task which should *exploit* those tools. So, when somebody sells
> a piece of software and promises the full maintenance and guarantees,
> which come with the product, I believe that this is a justifiable
> approach. As moral, as any liberal initiative may be.
You are completely and utterly missing the point. Or should
I say, you are confusing it. Ian is not talking about moral
here (moral arguments can be made, but he obviously didn't
in the text you quoted) - he is talking about the practical
benefit of having access to the source code and the right to
change it.
In any case, there is no problem with a company selling
maintenance and guarantees and you buying them if you don't
want to fiddle with the source yourself. But why an all or
nothing approach? Take Linux, you can download it yourself
and fiddle, or you can buy one of the ready made
distributions and buy expensive support contracts. And mind
you, there are people making millions just selling this kind
of support. Obviously, free software and money-making
companies can co-exist, as can hackers who want the source
and users who want to concentrate on other things.
Face it! Software is a service industry and not a
manufacturing industry:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/magic-cauldron/magic-cauldron.html
Of course, it is the right of the Clean team to do with
their code whatever they want. All Ian is saying is that
they could leverage their technology more effectively with a
different development and distribution model, and that he
doesn't want to be looked into a model where he doesn't have
the freedoms that he perceives as important for himself.
What problem do you have with this?
Manuel
