In article <38da7085@tequila.cs.yale.edu>, Stefan Monnier <foo@acm.com> wrote:
>>>>>> "Nat" == Nat <noe2@pantheon.yale.edu> writes:
>> Ah. Point taken. Like I said, poor engineering- I wonder though, do open
>> source projects generally have more efficient (in the sense of "short")
>> code?
>
>I'd doubt it
I'd agree. The key point here is that while Linux's status as an
open-source project be a big part of why it's great, it's compelling
*directly* and primarily because of its features and capabilities.
Ultimately, that's how it has to be judged.
There's not enough evidence to support the claim that open-source design
always, or even generally, yields better products -- but even if it did,
it would be better precisely *because* of the products' superiority, not
because of any "social justice" apparently met.
Trying to construct support of this sort of thing artificially is
difficult and probably unhelpful in the long run; the time rallying would
be better spent actually *producing* superior software. If it's actually
better, it will stand on its own. Trying to predict trends before they're
clear, based on biased, political motives, isn't either fair or honest,
and it diverts attention from criteria that are *actually* important when
evaluating technology.
In other words, evaluating software is best done by evaluating software.
Looking at its design history is always an *indirect* way of trying to
predict its usefulness, and it's (therefore) less accurate.
Shawn
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