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How do you boycott an electronic poll? Build an electronic protest sign and inhibit peoples access to the poll with some kind of boycott virus. 
Gary Kirkham
A working Program is one that has only unobserved bugs
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. - Jim Elliot
Me blog, You read
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I'm guessing here - but I would assume that leppie's reasoning is as follows:
1. CodeProject contains open source code
2. People come here to look at and download open source code.
3. People do this because they have a need for it in their current project
4. Their current project is most likely commercial in nature
Therefore, more than likely, anyone seeing this poll will be here to get some open source code to use in a commercial project.
--
Russell Morris
"So, broccoli, mother says you're good for me... but I'm afraid I'm no good for you!" - Stewy
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Ah.
I interpreted the poll as referring to large open source projects, i.e. risking the success of a commercial app on assumptions about integrity and performance made by frameworks such as Xerces, Apache, etc.
There's less risk in using open source (or public domain) code fragments, because they're easier to debug/replace if a problem arises.
/ravi
My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536
Home | Articles | Freeware | Music
ravib@ravib.com
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leppie wrote:
I hereby boycott this poll. Really....
I completely agree, and gave you a 5. Why so many people have given you a one only leads me to the conclusion that there's been a few lobotomies.
The question asked by the poll:
...but would you include someone else's code in a product you have to guarantee and maintain?
is ridiculous. .NET is a "product". MFC is a "product". ODBC drivers are a "product". And there's a myriad of other commercial products that we use regularly in our application development. It's someone else's code, we have to guarantee our product so therefore we have to guarantee the third party stuff as well, and we have to maintain our product.
And frankly, having 10MB of source code from some place like DevExpress is pointless. I want it to work. I'm not going to bother fixing it. If it doesn't work, I'll use another option.
The only open source code I have ever bothered to look at and fix a few things is the .NET ADO interface for SQLite. And that's because it's so small and so easy to understand. I don't have time to get into the mindset of people who offer their 10MB source code behemoths.
The ONLY possible argument is that commercial products offer technical support. Woohoo. If the product didn't have bugs and was cleanly architected, they wouldn't need technical support, now would they? (Yeah, I know, that's a silly question, but think about it.)
Marc
Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
MyXaml
MyXaml Blog
Hunt The Wumpus
RealDevs.Net
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I'm confused already. Does boycotting this poll mean Yes or No? From about 90% of your post, it looked like you were slamming Open Source: you have to guarantee it, and it is pointless.
But then you say the only thing good for commercial products is tech support. So, if you deny both options, does that mean you only make your own code? But then you don't even get tech support....
Reedmon29
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Reedmon29 wrote:
it looked like you were slamming Open Source
Hmmm. I think you have misread my posts. I am quite the open source advocate, running a couple OS projects myself.
Marc
Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
MyXaml
MyXaml Blog
Hunt The Wumpus
RealDevs.Net
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When shopping for open source code, I try to find code that:
![Green Alien | [Alien]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/alien.gif) Is actively maintained. An active discussion/newsgroup is also a plus in this regard. Some open-source projects have better (albeit informal) support than commercial products.
Has a license that works for the particular situation. You have to be very careful with GPL stuff in particular. Although if it's a separate entity, and you release code for any changes/modifications you make, then you're generally OK.
And, of course, meets our requirements. If a particular OSS project lacks several key features that I need, then I shop for a commercial product, or just bite the bullet and code it myself.
An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
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Navin wrote:
Some open-source projects have better (albeit informal) support than commercial products.
I agree. A lot of open source code has signifigantly better support than the closed source alternitive. This support usually comes from an online forum where the users (and sometimes the developers) help each other to solve problems they have with the code. Open soruce has several advantages here. One is they generally have a lot more users since the product is free and the second it is generally easier to solve a problem with a library when you have access to its source...
John
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John M. Drescher wrote:
A lot of open source code has signifigantly better support than the closed source alternitive
Let me disagree with that. It really depends on the company policy and behavior.
I'm using db4o (http://www.db4o.com) they have a newsgroup and generally bugs are fixed in 1 days.
Moreover I use Microsoft product, twice I reported a bug in VS.NET and the bug was solved in 1 day too.
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Super Lloyd wrote:
Moreover I use Microsoft product, twice I reported a bug in VS.NET and the bug was solved in 1 day too.
You're Melissa Gates' second cousin, twice-removed, right? 
Software Zen: delete this;
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Super Lloyd wrote:
Moreover I use Microsoft product, twice I reported a bug in VS.NET and the bug was solved in 1 day too.
There is no way they fixed a bug in one day. They have left the same bugs in their class browser for years I have just had to live with the browser not being able to find half my member functions. I'm told they havent fixed the menu editor bug in which IDs are replaced with numbers, nor have the fixed the bug in which automatically added member functions are declared in a header in one project, and implemented in a .cpp file of another. HOW HARD COULD IT HAVE BEEN TO FIX? We'd almost be better off with a completely unsupported open source IDE.
Nathan Holt
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Nathan Holt at CCEI wrote:
They have left the same bugs in their class browser for years
I agree. I have lost all hope that they even care about ide bugs in vc6.
John
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It also depends on how much $$$$ you have. You can guarantee that Microsoft's big partners get their bugs fixed a lot quicker than ordinary developers.
At least with Open Source, if something really is bugging you, you can always fix it yourself.
An expert is somebody who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.
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Navin wrote:
You have to be very careful with GPL stuff in particular.
Not really. Just make sure you don't link any GPL stuff with your own application.
--
Denn du bist, was du isst!
Und ihr wisst, was es ist!
Es ist mein Teil...?
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Oh how widely it has been used (and tested) by others in the past. For instance I use Sam Leffler's litiff library in an app and have no qualms about doing so since I know how popular it is and how few complaints there have been about it.
"One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that a
certain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the moment how
many--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my
memory."
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Also on the licensing used in the open source code. Open source is not always open source. For example, if using the code requires the opening of "our" code, then that is not acceptable, and therefore no use, however much time may be saved. Also the quality plays a mojor role. Having said that, the ideas and implementation used in the open source code may give a little bit of inspiration when writing ones own code, how this is "legaly" interpreted is another matter, that I think is going beyond the scope of this survey.
bum... and I thought I´d got rid of all the bugs 
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Phil.Benson wrote:
Open source is not always open source
Am I missing something here? Or did that just make no sense?
Law of non-contradiction - "One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time."
Aaron Eldreth
TheCollective4.com
My Articles
I hereby boycott this poll. Really....
- Leppie
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Fair one, gobbledy-gook. What I meant to say is that not all open source is the same, i.e GPL, LGPL, BSD etc.
As for the rest, I think it´s fairly valid
bum... and I thought I´d got rid of all the bugs 
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Phil.Benson wrote:
What I meant to say is that not all open source is the same, i.e GPL, LGPL, BSD etc.
Yeah, I figured that's what you meant. Just checking.
Phil.Benson wrote:
As for the rest, I think it´s fairly valid
Yes it is. The rest of your comment was well thought out and on-target.
Phil.Benson wrote:
bum... and I thought I´d got rid of all the bugs
Hhmmmm.... Maybe you should open the source. 
Aaron Eldreth
TheCollective4.com
My Articles
I hereby boycott this poll. Really....
- Leppie
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We're at CodeProject, we don't come here for the wit and repartee. 
Open source is a broad concept, are we talking GPL here or is it the full range from public domain through BSD all the way towards the Generally Poor Licence.
Michael
CP Blog [^]
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Have you used Open Source sourcecode in a commercial product?
that is pretty much illegal if the code is licensed under gnu gpl or opensource license.
[edit]
unless you either BUY a commercial license from the copyright owner , OR get a written permission to use it.
dont know about code published here at cp ,that dont contain any license info...
[/edit]
//Roger
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Roger J wrote:
that is pretty much illegal if the code is licensed under gnu gpl
There's a lot of open-source software that isn't GPL. Libraries (if I understand things correctly now) licensed under LGPL can, for example, be used legally.
Roger J wrote:
opensource license.
Just because something has an open source license doesn't mean you can't use it in a commercial product. It just means that it has a license, which all software SHOULD have. The license has to specify the terms of use, which can be whatever the author chooses.
Marc
Microsoft MVP, Visual C#
MyXaml
MyXaml Blog
Hunt The Wumpus
RealDevs.Net
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Marc Clifton wrote:
ust because something has an open source license doesn't mean you can't use it in a commercial product
ofcourse not .. but most opensource licenses DO restrict this.
and most developers are for some reason unaware of this..
//Roger
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Roger J wrote:
but most opensource licenses DO restrict this.
AFAIK only GPL has such restrictions. The vast majority of OSS licenses enable users to include the code into any commercial priduct. Take a look at the list of OSI approved licenses here[^]
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
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