Archiving Software

[M H Stein]

--------------Original Message----------------
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2005 21:11:58 -0600
From: Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Archiving Software

(Dave wrote)
>>I used to release source code to nearly all of my stuff, but not any more.
>>I just don't need the hassles.

(Tony Duell wrote)
> You have just lost any respect I may have had for you.
> 
> -tony

The logic of this, coming from an adult, is astounding.  Dave can and is 
defending himself, but as a happy "customer" of his free tools, I can't let this 
slide by.

I often use an analogy with my six year olds: imagine we are going to the ice 
cream store (which in our case is not often), and you really want strawberry ice 
cream.  We get there only to find out they are all out of strawberry, but how 
about chocolate instead?  Are you going to cry and whine that you want 
strawberry, or are you going to be happy that you are still getting a nifty 
chocolate one?  That makes a lot more sense to them than the adage, "Don't look 
a gift horse in the mouth."

Dave has worked selflessly to produce a professionally done, well documented 
program for the benefit of us all.  It is peerless; there have been similar 
programs in the past, e.g. teledisk, but they are not actively developed and the 
resulting disk image format is not documented.  Imagedisk works, it is free and 
is unencumbered by questions of the right to use.

OK, we are not in utopia.  Dave isn't comfortable releasing the source code ... yet.

And yet you complain about it.  You say judgementally that if *you* had written 
the program, the you'd certainly release the source code.  That is great except 
you *haven't* spent the time to write the program.  So until you go and do it, 
you are just posturing.

----------------Reply--------------

Amen/ditto that!

Although I (still :) have a great deal of respect for Tony, I think an off-list
note to Dave asking if he could look at the source code would have been
more appropriate than his complaint. 

Then again, that seems to be a requirement for posting on this list, making
sure there is always more complaining/kvetching etc. than kudos and
appreciation... (except for model M IBM keyboards :)

And that is Tony's oft-stated opinion after all, that if he doesn't have (or can't 
get/create) the inner details of whatever, he won't use it no matter how useful it 
might be, and this _is_ mostly a place for airing opinions...

C'mon Tony, not even a tiny bit of respect for the great job Dave's done and
continues to do, mostly for the benefit of the rest of us (some of whom just want
to _use_ his excellent tools)?

m