[OT] [Gllug] Migrating Samba servers between domains - the hard way.

[John Hearns]

On Fri, 2006-02-10 at 08:02 +0000, Matthew Thompson wrote:
> On 10 Feb 2006, at 07:33, Nix wrote:

> > When I did it the lack of freedom to look at and fiddle the source
> > felt like being in jail.
> 
> Not all of us are master C, Perl etc developers and the source code  
> makes little difference.
I disagree. It is immensely useful for technically clueful people to be able to look at the source code.
You don't even need to be aiming at changing (for instance) the kernel
source code. If you have (for instance) some obscure error messages in
your system logs it is invaluable to be able to look through the kernel
code to be able to figure out exactly where and why they are appearing.
I have on many occasions delved deep into the kernel to do some
diagnosis of a problem.

> There's also the argument that at a certain size of company unless  
> the skills to support and document the "fiddling" are spread across  
> enough people it can be dangerous.
Yes, you make a valid point. But you don't need to lock yourself in a
straitjacket.

Also think of long term maintenance - the Linux kernel source code will
be out there forever, as will the code for Apache (many other
applications). IF at some future date something goes wrong, your company
can hire someone with the skills to fix it, even if the system is years
out of date.








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