[phpSecureSite-devel] How Fine a Gift?

[Woolhiser, E. <Eri...@bm...>]

To quote Raymond:

"13. How Fine a Gift?
There are consistent patterns in the way the hacker culture values
contributions and returns peer esteem for them. It's not hard to =
observe the
following rules:

1. If it doesn't work as well as I have been led to expect it will, =
it's no
good -- no matter how clever and original it is.

Note the `led to expect'. This rule is not a demand for perfection; =
beta and
experimental software is allowed to have bugs. It's a demand that the =
user
be able to accurately estimate risks from the stage of the project and =
the
developers' representations about it.

This rule underlies the fact that open-source software tends to stay in =
beta
for a long time, and not get even a 1.0 version number until the =
developers
are very sure it will not hand out a lot of nasty surprises. In the
closed-source world, Version 1.0 means ``Don't touch this if you're
prudent.''; in the open-source world it reads something more like ``The
developers are willing to bet their reputations on this.''"

http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/x284.html


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Erik Grinaker [mailto:er...@ch...]
> Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 21:39
> To: Woolhiser, Eric
> Cc: 'phpSS'
> Subject: Re: [phpSecureSite-devel] Don't mean to be a nag...
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> On Fri, 2002-01-04 at 20:59, Woolhiser, Eric wrote:
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> > When can we see some of the source code?=20
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> Well, I've completely rewritten the system for the first=20
> public release,
> and I don't plan on making any further changes for version 0.0.1. All
> that remains is writing up some documentation, but this will take a
> little while.
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> I guess a release sometime early next week should be pretty =
realistic.
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> Version 0.0.1 is still kind of immature, and the only reason for
> releasing it is to get some feedback from the community. I've=20
> still got
> a few issues I'd like to have someone else's opinions on, but=20
> it's much
> easier to suggest changes when you have something to look at.
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> Even though the system is fully usable, there still are some rather
> important features which needs to be added for it to be a full-blown
> session-handling system. And I cannot guarantee future=20
> versions will be
> backwards-compatible either, so I wouldn't use it for anything
> important.
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> --=20
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> Erik Grinaker
> UNIX/Linux systems consultant
> Elan IT Resource - www.elanit.no
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> "Perfection is acheived not when there is nothing more to add, but
> rather when there is nothing more to take away"
> - Antoine de Saint-Exup=E9ry
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