begin quoting Tracy R Reed as of Tue, Mar 22, 2005 at 12:02:54PM +0700: > Stewart Stremler wrote: > > Possibly. But I'm not really comparing along that axis; I'm comparing > > "modern" open-source projects with "old" open-source projects. I don't > > recall this sort of huge dependency graph when I first started using > > Linux. > > Linux and associated software has gotten a great deal more sophisticated > since the old days. I have been using Linux since '93 and you are right,
You and I started playing with Linux around the same time. :) > it was easier to compile stuff then. But we didn't have huge libraries > of graphical toolkits and stuff encrypt this and network with that. I dunno. Huge graphical toolkits I'll grant, but darn few programs need 'em -- generally, just the UI layer. One of the reasons I enjoyed Linux so much was that my networking code I wrote at home could be uploaded to SDSU, and it would compile and run there without changes. This was a good thing. > Linux is vastly more capable now and with more capabilities comes more > code and more complexity. We need to beware of feeping creaturism. > I completely agree that things need to > continue to improve. We probably need some more standards and best > practices for everyone adhere to so it all meshes better. But there are I think that will be a problem... we _had_ best practices and standards, but when inconvenient, they're ignored. :-/ > just as many religious wars in that area as there are in others which > are going to make it a long and difficult process. Indeed. And I'm not sure it'll happen... but if people don't make a fuss, it _won't_ happen. >> If I appear to criticize open-source more than proprietary software, that's >> because I'm more dismayed by the failure of open-source to live up to its >> promise (and promises). The quality of OSS should be an order of magnitude >> _higher_, with a concomitant reduction in feature addition. > > It has given you the freedom to fix all of these things yourself IFF you > so desire. That is the only real promise ever made. It never promised to > be perfect or perfectly portable. Desire doesn't come into it. The sorts of changes I'd start off making would be immediately rejected (to start, fix the god-awful GNU style, remove tabs, limit lines to 80 characters, document all functions with at least an expansion of cryptic names, and handle dependencies explicitly in the Makefiles...), so I'd have to start off with a fork. And then I'd have to maintain it. I don't have that sort of time. -Stewart "Even if I win the lottery, it's doubtful I'd have the time" Stremler -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
