On Tue Apr 28 14:13:35 2009, Daniel E. Renfer wrote:
This was the reason I chose OpenFire when I was trying to make my
choice of servers. I didn't know Erlang, but I did know Java. I
figured
if something *did* break, or I wanted to change something, I would
be
better off with the language I knew, versus one, at the time, I had
never heard of.
In as neutral way as I can be, given my employment, I would readily
agree with the implication that the choice of server has to be
strongly influenced by a strategy for when it breaks. The servers in
existence essentially work fine within the basic limitations they
have, whatever those may be, so beyond the basic questions of whether
it's fit for your specific purpose, the question becomes what happens
when things go wrong - when bugs are exposed, or when the software's
stretched beyond its capabilities.
That implies taking into consideration your own skills, the
"fixability" of the source code (if applicable), the responsivity of
the support (if any). Lack of source-code may be an ethical issue for
some, but on a practical level, if the source-code is in a language
you do not understand, you're purely reliant on support - and to be
fair, it's unlikely that even if you're reasonably proficient in,
say, Java, you're unlikely to be able to dive into Openfire or Tigase
and fix some bug you've just run into.
Dave.
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