On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Michael Watterson wrote= : > On 08/03/2011 13:42, Manu Abraham wrote: >> If you are dealing with a piece of open source software, even if the >> project goes dead, being open source, you can maintain the software by >> yourself, or even hire somebody to do it. The whole point is to choose >> the right software project for managing your application needs. That's >> the idea behind the Open Source philosophy. > Actually the whole idea really was because AT&T claimed the UNIX > copyright, and a lot was done in Universities. So the the folk there got > very upset. > Origin of GNU and BSD. The Altruism / Communism / Evangelism was added > gradually. Incorrect. The GNU movement started with RMS being fed up with jammed printers where he wanted to modify the driver/firmware for it. > Later FOSS movements an attempt to rationalise and organise. Much > nonsense written by some leading lights in it. > > I've looked at some OS projects and concluded easier to start from > scratch than figure what they did. depends how much you understand a project. Sounds like you think the rest of the world is full of fools. Nevertheless, such a thought comes up because of some silly optimization that you have in your shortsight, but that said not all open source projects are really worth mentioning. This is where you need to align with the right project. > Any non-trivial FOSS project is close to dead if the active developers > abandon it. > > In 20 years time if the project was abandoned how do you know there will > be an online copy you can find? 20 years down the lane, projects that were useful to me, became much better not the other way round. So, I am seeing things the other way round, in context to what you stated. > If I think I need something for future, I make my own copies and backups. > > Probably I have stuff on 3", 3.5" 5.25" and 8" I should put on archival > quality CDs (the goldy ones). You know CDRs can fade =A0and be unreadable > if left on windowsill. > > How do we know some niche but important FOSS or closed project or > information wasn't lost when Geocities closed? Again, important projects aren't just that dangling. If it is closed somebody would have just mirrored it. The point is that thing that was closed wasn't too important in the view of a larger number of people, but in your single point f view it might have been. As I said, making the right choice is rather a difficult task, but at least down the road a bit further, you can really understand whether you are on the right track. If you don't better not to be travelling on those roads, those aren't for you; you need something too soft.. > Google's not a Charity either. Anything there or on Source Forge should > be backed up. > But in 20 years where are the backups? It depends how immersed you were in it. If you were, you would have had bac= kups. --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .