> just a question about how open-source projects are managed at
> apache's : how do you know you run out of bugs to fix ? what's the way
the
> projects are tested ? thanks, since my boss wonders about open-source and
> fears it a bit...
One of fundamental advantages of Open Source is that finding bugs generally
occurs much faster. Plus, as a user you have direct access to the bug
tracking system (bugzilla, in this case at
http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/ ).
There are currently 90 open bugs for Struts. How do I know this? I just
looked - it's on-line for everyone to see. If you find a bug, you can add
one yourself and someone with appropriate rights in bugzilla will have to
address it before it dissapears - it's an extremely 'open book' approach
that no vendor would dream of giving you. I've worked for software
companies and we would NEVER have opened our bug lists - our competitors
would have printed them out and used them against us in sales calls.
Eric Raymond, in his essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" says that ``Given
enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.'' And, "at least, that they turn
shallow pretty quickly when exposed to a thousand eager co-developers
pounding on every single new release".
This is why Linux is more stable than NT and Apache dominates the web
server market - it's not because it's free, it's because it's BETTER and
FREER of BUGS. If I were your boss, I'd worry more about the quality of
commercial software than I would about open source.
If your manager is concerned about using Open Source becuase of software
quality, then get them a copy of Eric's book: The Cathedral and the Bazaar
- it's a very short and easy read.
The Cathedral and the Bazaar is available at either:
on-line free: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
- or -
from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596001088/qid=1026397260/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-4271210-7048648
The discussion about Open Source projects and debugging is at:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/x147.html
Best of luck,
Kevin
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