On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 14:51:14 +0100
"Christer O. Andersson" <christer at a-son.net> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 20, 2005 at 07:10:36AM -0600, Doc Shipley
wrote:
Where's your code, Mr. Mouse? And the rest of whoever's
having an
issue with this? What are YOU doing for the community?
They could help with ImageDisk if the source was available.
Dave Dunfield is producing working tools, *free of charge*.
He's
taking suggestions for features and fixes, he's made his image
format freely available. But it's his, to do with and to
distribute as he pleases.
And that is a problem. If you rely on his tools, and find it
malfunctions in some way, you cannot fix the problem without the
source. If Dave is not supporting his tool anymore for some
reason, your stuck. Your saved disk might be lost. If the source
is available you can either fix it yourself or arrange with
somebody to fix it for you.
The file format for the saved images WAS OPENLY AVAILABLE. What I
am hearing from some parties is a bunch of political posturing
about 'closed source being bad' and the need to ostracize anybody
who wants to distribute binary-only software. There was as much,
or more, information to build on as has been available for MANY
very successful Open Source projects. Why did everybody have to
attack THIS program? Why didn't they take the file format and
carry forward with it using THEIR programming skills?
There's a lot of mud getting thrown around here and I for one am
really disappointed in how this 'community' can turn like jackals
on someone who had quite good intentions, no identifiable ulterior
motives, but slightly different values than some members. I was
very happy with what Mr. Dunfield was giving us; the more he
reads this thread, the more I can see him firming up on refusing
to have anything to do with the project anymore.
It has turned into a slashdot rant and 'open source' preaching
session. It's almost time to put this subject line in the
killfile.
--
Christer O. Andersson
Odensbacken