Lack of open source shown as negative part of D on Dr. Dobbs

[H. S. Teoh]

On Wed, May 09, 2012 at 10:15:23PM -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 5/9/12 3:51 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> >Yeah. The lack of open sourceness for the backend is pretty much
> >complete FUD.
> 
> The problem is, the damage is there and is real. It's like in those
> crazy situations - an allegation of harassment still affects a
> teacher's career, even if there's a simple explanation. The only
> answer to "is it open source?" can be an unqualified "yes".

Yeah, it may be FUD, but it still causes damage. Simply declaring it FUD
does not magically repair the damage.


> I wish we could get rid of this crappy backend situation.
[...]

How, though? Clearly, given what is said about Walter's situation, it
appears that he can't look at (much less work on) another backend
without legal implications and other issues. And asking someone to throw
away 20 years of work (rewrite the backend) is asking a bit too much.


T

-- 
English has the lovely word "defenestrate", meaning "to execute by
throwing someone out a window", or more recently "to remove Windows from
a computer and replace it with something useful". :-) -- John Cowan