Re: Octave and cargo cult programmingHello

[Dan Muresan]

> GCC was forked to become EGCS. This fork eventually became the regular GCC
> and the original GCC was abandoned. So, yes it's possible. It all depends on
> the people doing the fork.

That's exactly what I had in mind, long-term-wise. The
merger-vs-aquistition (i.e. which branch won) debate is futile. There
is a single niche, with a single winner.

> Personally, I don't feel any obligation. I'm working on octave and trying to
> deliver quality software, because I want to. Not because I have to. In my
> paid job as a software developer, I deliver quality code, because I have to
> (and also because I want to).

The "want to" part shows that pride in one's own workmanship plays an
important role in open source.

> can also see that it's actually completely ignored by the main octave
> developers.

And it's a good thing not to waste developer time on such an OT
thread. My only reaction was against your argument that "OS can be as
crappy as it wants, and does not need to respond to user demands,
because it is not paid for".


-- Dan