My Blog Links
Site Links
- d20 RolePlaying Tools
- Custom Controls Workspace
- MSDN
- SmartClient Dev Center
- C# Dev Center
- WinForms.NET
- Wonder of WinForms
- P/Invoke.NET
- Code Project Articles
Currently Reading
Blogroll
- C# FAQ
- Chris Sells
- Cyrus' Blather
- Dave Winer
- Dilbert Comic
- Don Box
- Duncan Mackenzie
- Eric Gunnerson
- James Avery
- Justin Rogers
- MSDN Blog list
- Neil Gaiman
- Robert Scoble
- The Wayward WebLog
- WIL WHEATON dot NET
Archives
- February 2004
- March 2004
- April 2004
- May 2004
- June 2004
- July 2004
- August 2004
- September 2004
- October 2004
- November 2004
- December 2004
- November 2005
Tools
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
MISC: Unexpected Results from Open Source Projects
People have been touting the benefits of open source development projects for quite some time now. However, they like to present a rosy picture that all in the open source projects is great. Although there are some very attractive aspects to open source (like the price is right and developing solutions faster by extending and using an existing codebase), there are other pieces that open source developers don't like to talk about. Here is a blog about some examples of things that aren't discussed some times:
Remember there's a cost for everything. The only question is how much and when you pay it.
- The myth that the community will fix the bugs in a project. The study found that there is a core group of developers who fix most of the bugs (about 70-80%) in an open source project. The vast majority of users just report bugs that are fixed by the core (which is very similar to the way closed source products work). This is because most people on the periphery don't have the necessary debugging skills and architectural knowledge to fix the bugs themselves.
- Open source projects are not more maintainable. The study tracks some code usage and patterns in several projects and finds that over time they could end up even less maintainable and more tightly-coupled than paid products.
Remember there's a cost for everything. The only question is how much and when you pay it.
Comments:
Post a Comment