Re: [ox-en] walking over the pre-alpha bridge
- From: "Per I. Mathisen" <per fix.no>
- Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 17:38:56 +0000 (GMT)
On Fri, 21 Apr 2006, Thomas Berker wrote:
Being inherently iterative and incremental F/LOSS development definitely
does not adhere to correctness on every 'step of software development'
The paper you refer to seems stuck in the ISO9000 mindset of development
which is focused laser-like on process and almost zero on content. It is
the idea that quality control first and foremost must exist in the
production stage. Correct process leads to correct result.
This kind of thinking is crucial for example in empirical science, where
how you conduct your studies is more important than your results, because
if your process is flawed (eg test results are contaminated), your results
are irrelevant, even if in the end the conclusion turns out to be true.
However, open source software and open design is more like theoretical
science, where process is irrelevant and ability to indepedently verify or
falsify the final result is everything. When a fault is discovered or
thought likely, one does not question the process that created the
program, but one reads its source code. This is even more the case when
functional approaches are used, which more resemble theoretical work than
iterative languages do.
Do we want to use a GPLed bridge which - no problem here - in a few
months or years will be wonderfully stable, but which was 'released
early'?
...
if we need to abandon some of the corner stones of F/LOSS development in
exactly those sectors, which 'just have to work', this would would
render it a rather weak 'germ' for a new society, wouldn't it?
Some things must have a rigid process and cannot "release early" or seek
help of "a thousand eyeballs". This usually goes for construction,
medicine, empirical studies, and so on. However, even these are based on
software, designs and theories that would only be improved by openness
and freedom.
- Per
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