From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Uday S Reddy Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: real world problems vs. abstract problems - distinctions? policy? Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:43:56 +0100 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1286361871 9776 80.91.229.12 (6 Oct 2010 10:44:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2010 10:44:31 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Oct 06 12:44:30 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P3RU6-0005Ui-Cb for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:44:30 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:58139 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1P3RU5-000195-RS for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 06:44:29 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=44157 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1P3RTx-00018t-Tk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 06:44:24 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P3RTw-0002gJ-Ny for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 06:44:21 -0400 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:43484) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1P3RTw-0002fb-Dd for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 06:44:20 -0400 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P3RTr-0005P9-DY for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:44:15 +0200 Original-Received: from cpc10-harb6-0-0-cust112.perr.cable.virginmedia.com ([92.232.137.113]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:44:15 +0200 Original-Received: from u.s.reddy by cpc10-harb6-0-0-cust112.perr.cable.virginmedia.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:44:15 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 24 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: cpc10-harb6-0-0-cust112.perr.cable.virginmedia.com User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.9) Gecko/20100915 Thunderbird/3.1.4 In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:131395 Archived-At: On 10/6/2010 12:47 AM, Stefan Monnier wrote: > Actually, the same is true of software you pay for (maybe even more so, > since the commercial constraints forces coders to concentrate on > bugfixes with a clear monetary value, whereas volunteers may opt to fix > a purely theoretical bug simply because they enjoy doing it). Agreed. However, commercial houses also have commercial pressures which might send them in directions that are not clearly aligned to monetary value. Sun Microsystems, for instance, developed a lot of software out of "theoretical" interest. Google might be doing the same but is perhaps better able to balance its theoretical and commercial interests. Commercial houses also get revenue from their products and they can use it to employ people and splurge on "theoretical" issues which might or might not have immediate monetary value. Microsoft apparently has 5th biggest citation counts in the world for computing-related research, which was kind of surprising to me when I discovered it. Commercial houses have hierarchical management. So, somebody higher up can be sold on a theoretical issue and get his/her people to work on it without concern for monetary benefit. The general incompetence of management structures means that such "wastage" of resources might go unnoticed for a long time. Come to think of it, commercial pressures or "market pressures", if you wish, are just as much at play in free software as in commercial software. We compete with other free software for our users and our developers. But we are less likely to waste resources in general because we don't have incompetent management structures and we don't have money to splurge. But, the real reason I brought up the issue of free software in my response was that a commercial developer might feel an obligation to explain to his/her users why some issue isn't important. A free software developer is under no such obligation. He/she just develops whatever he/she enjoys doing. That is the end of that! Cheers, Uday