It is _the_ primary strength of free software solutions (in the strict GPL/LGPL sense) that one is not at a dead end if a project has only one primary developer and that person no longer continues development. One has access to the source code and can continue development. If the source of a product is not available then it is not open source. If one doesn't have the skills to continue development oneself, that is another matter.
I have recently started looking at an open source project that had no development for three years. The guy who worked on it intensively for the preceding 5 years no longer has the time. However, his work is not wasted, and the project may yet live again. I can certainly make use of it as it is, and have already identified and fixed some bugs myself. If it meets my needs and I feel confident of my ability to push it forward as a project, then I can either be granted write access to the code repository, or I can fork it. I already have all the source code from subversion. This morning I downloaded another LGPL project, and it too came with all the source code without me even going looking for it. In fact, I use several free software projects where there are few developers and/or limited development, but it doesn't give me any cause for concern. When I decide a project is one that I may well be depending on, I make sure I download a copy of the source code. It's my dependency on proprietary tools that gives me cause for concern. I doubt many of use who use Rev would have the skills to continue the development of the engine in the event that RunRev ceased development. But that is immaterial since the code is not open anyway. Our dependency on RunRev is far greater than the dependency of those who are using CentOS. This is not a criticism of RunRev. They have to adopt whichever policies suit their business plan. But it's one reason why I have kept up with software assurance for Revolution, even in the years when I haven't used Revolution. I'm not saying that I would be able to fork CentOS :-) And I strongly believe that anyone who depends on complex server configurations should be using something like cfengine or puppet. Configuration management tools such as those would certainly make the migration between different server providers easier. Bernard. On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 11:38 PM, Judy Perry<[email protected]> wrote: > Our department has been using CentOS (which is what I'm logged into at the > moment) for our departmental server for at least a year now with no problems > that I've heard of. > > The news about the head going Away WithOut Leave is disconcerting, as my > neighbor's employer, a pretty good sized monthly membership services > company, is probably going to be switching over to Cent OS... better warn > her I guess. > > Judy _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
