Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Many Hands Light Work
Whatever the area of work the principle is the same. More hands, more eyes, more minds equates to problems being solved. Looking more closely at open source programming, there are pros and cons. Pros outweighing the cons. Open source programming is a community coming together to solve a particular problem. The community is unlimited. Anyone in the world can contribute if they so desire. The con would be poor programming elements being mixed in from who know where. Solution is some level of organization that can mediate all the the code coming in. You can't check everything, but it wouldn't hurt.
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Scary thing about it is, a witty contributor could contribute a backdoor to the program. However unlikely, still scary.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, one of the most powerful aspects of open source development is that, since the work is not paid, it tends to attract the people who truly have an interest in the product itself, rather than a salary. To be certain, employees usually have an interest in the product and a desire to make something great, but not always. If an open source contributor loses motivation, they will almost certainly just withdraw from the project.
ReplyDeleteall so, bugs/hacks in open source open source are easy to fix. Besides, a lot of open source projects have people who monitor submersion for stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteWhile this solution may seem like the best solution to a CS major, what about the majority of the populace? How frequently to you see GIMP in a regular house versus Photoshop (and it's derivatives) or iPhoto (and it's relatives)?
ReplyDeleteOpen source can be powerful, but it can't work for everything. Some projects need to be closed. I've been throwing around ideas of how video games could be more open source, but for the most part, because they are creative works, they need to be closed.
ReplyDeleteMany contributors does not necessarily equate to a better product, nor does it mean that the product will be completed quicker. There is only much that can be done by putting more people into the pot. There is always a limit to how many people can make concrete contributions to any one product. It takes 9 months to make a baby, no matter how many women you recruit.
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