[Liverpool] Discussions at the last LivLUG regarding Symbian

[Stephen Watkin]

I agree with you to a point, but I don't see how you're remotely obliged 
to support whatever you release.

The last time I had that kind of itch to scratch was when I needed 
Thunderbird to automatically print anything that hits the inbox. There 
was an open-source plug-in out there that was exactly none of the things 
that you describe as being well-practised software engineering - in fact 
it didn't even work with the current version of Thunderbird - but I was 
glad someone had taken the time to throw it on the web because it at 
least pointed me in the right direction and saved me a load of time.

If it's emails you're worried about, I'd just set up a throw-away G-Mail 
account and have everything to do with the project go through that, 
which you're free to browse through when you've got the inclination. If 
you go get people whinging at you to fix something for whatever reason, 
reply back to them detailing your standard hourly rates and quote to fix 
their problem. If they get all indignant at that, feel free to post 
their emails here so we can all hate them through the Internet with you.

I find myself in the same situation with the stuff I write - I don't 
distribute it only because I've not gotten around to it yet. Most of my 
stuff isn't organised or documented worth a shit but it does what it 
says on the tin, and if that's worth anything then I'd be happy to take 
suggestions from people who are looking to tidy the project up for their 
owns ends, or show me ways of doing stuff better (like organising the 
svn repo!).

Ste

On 08/04/11 10:53, Simon Johnson wrote:
> I write a lot of software and it's all very much closed source. In 
> fact, it's closed distribution because I don't even distribute it. I 
> write software, I use it privately, and never give it to anyone.
>
> The reason is not so much a dislike of free software (quite the 
> opposite, I use free software daily) but rather the problem that being 
> a free software developer/distributor is a /lot /of work.
>
> I once wrote an application that auto-updates a block list of ActiveX 
> controls on a local computer. It did this by downloading a publicly 
> available block list and adding to the registry on the computer in 
> question. At its peak, I had around 20,000 downloads. A moderate 
> success, you'll agree.
>
> The problem comes from the users.
>
>     * They'll write to you and complain it doesn't work,
>     * They'll write to you asking for feature x, feature y,
>     * Then you'll get people who say they installed it on their
>       network and a core app no longer works and they're being blamed
>       and it's somehow your fault.
>
> Meanwhile, you're bored of your application that you wrote to scratch 
> your own itch and want to move on to something else.
>
> Worse, writing free software is /harder/ than closed source stuff. You 
> have to write higher quality code. You have to organise it sensibly, 
> you have to come up with coding guidelines for submitting patches, you 
> have document it so that people can alter it. All this is good 
> software engineering practice, but it takes a lot more effort than 
> some app you design for yourself.
>
> Therefore, I have concluded that to release the same application as a 
> free software application, I will have to spend twice the effort to 
> release it as I would if I just kept it to myself. If I do release it, 
> I have an obligation to maintain it, patch it and fix security issues. 
> This adds a post delivery on going cost which could run for the rest 
> of my life.
>
>  In free software the primary currency is /time/. If I'm lucky, I'll 
> spend approximately three billion seconds on earth. That time is 
> precious. In the time I can dedicate to programming outside work, I'd 
> like to spend almost all of that time on interesting programming 
> problems - not on the overhead of delivering free software.
>
> When I do the return on investment calculation, it turns out that the 
> closed source is the best idea.
>
> I do wonder how many businesses make the same calculation, not out of 
> a philosophical objection to free software, but on the basis that it 
> simply costs more to be involved in the free software community?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Simon
>
>
> On 8 April 2011 05:20, Andrew Bates <oscillik at gmail.com 
> <mailto:oscillik at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     The other night we were discussing Nokia and their seemingly
>     contradictory statements that Symbian is now "no longer open
>     source", to the disbelief of many luggers!
>
>     well, here is the link to their official statement
>     http://symbian.nokia.com/blog/2011/04/04/not-open-source-just-open-for-business/
>
>     yeah, as I'm sure we can all agree - Nokia seem to have a somewhat
>     strange way of dealing with things!
>
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