Ok, so now I enter… 
The company you bought the software from has a vested interest in
solving whatever problem you may have. The whatever you downloaded
the code from does’t. You may be able to get support via other
mechanisms, but they usually say “if you don’t know how to make it work
you don’t belong here” and then ban you from the channel, newsgroup or
website.
Now depending on various reasons, the problem may not get solved by the
company or solved inadequately (to your expectations). This really cant
be helped without cloning 50 copies of the main engineer. There is just
not enough time in the day for him/her to fix all the issues. Also, its
not (usually) that the company doesn’t want to fix the bug, they just
have 30(0) other bugs that are at a higher priority (such as a security
hole, or a bsod that happens when you install xyz) than your bug
(whether you think so or not). What bugs get fixed is decided (usually)
by a committee (and some bugs are fixed (introduced) by the developers
on their own), thus it is not in the companies best interest to screw
“Joe User”. The committee usually involves someone in management,
engineering, QA and sometimes marketing.
The company has a vested interest in the amount of time and money
invested in the project. No company creates a product, releases it, and
then decides it is not going to support it on purpose. They want to
continue to make money (I know I do), and the best way to do that is to
sell more copies. You do not sell more copies if no one uses your
product!
Maintaining an engineering team, marketing, sales, QA, etc… requires
money. Money you pay for software goes to the SUPPORT of the product,
as the company has already invested in the (initial) development of the
product.
Companies for one reason or another just can not stand refunds! If 10%
of all calls (which by the way requires money to be able to man the
calls) is the result of a bug, you can bet that bug will be fixed (its
then cheaper to fix the bug than to keep having the calls).
With open source there is noone to go to get the bug fixed. Do you go
to the owner? No usually he says you are using the product wrong and
you should die (in not so nice language!). How about a company that
sells “support”? That doesn’t work either (skipping over details on
purpose). So YOU end up fixing the bug, and are the only one who
benefits from it. This of course is assuming you can spend say 20 man
hours to find the bug. I think this is optimistic as you must know
where to look, find the source, be able to compile the source (NOT
EASY), and then figure out how the source works. This is a lot of time
and energy that I do not have, nor am willing to give away for free.
Thanks,
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com [mailto:bounce-ntdev-
xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of George Blat
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 11:22 PM
To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
“how to execute a process…”)I have an analogy about allowing source code to be seen or keeping it
secret. Suppose
a small part breaks in your car transmission . Because of the
considerable
intellectual property
involved, the manufacturer seals the transmission so it cannot be
opened
without destroying it.
That helps them avoid helping copycats. But now you have to buy a
brand
new
transmission
because they did not allow you to change a small metal screen filter
worth
20 cents. Good for the
manufacturer, but you are screwed. Open source is like the current
state.
You take the transmission,
see how it works and change just what needs to be changed. Maybe you
don’t
work on transmissions,
but the shop that does it for you will be affected, and they will pass
their costs to you. You are always
screwed with close source.George
Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
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