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From: manes@dasys1.UUCP (Steve Manes)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,news.admin
Subject: Re: binaries on the net
Message-ID: <4491@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 18 May 88 10:53:04 GMT
References: <1574@looking.UUCP> <22099@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <392@pan.UUCP> <508@splut.UUCP> <4577@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: manes@dasys1.UUCP (Steve Manes)
Organization: Datamerica Systems, NYC
Lines: 51

In article <4577@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
>What good is the last 30 years of progress in software engineering if
>we never get the sources?

It's always seemed a bit curious to me that folks who balk the loudest at
PD or Shareware distribution of binaries just nod in resignation when
they're required to pay upwards of $50,000 to peek at the source code for a
program or operating system they paid >money< for.  As a Shareware author
(who doesn't release code to my most substantial offering) I find something
in this attitude to resent.  If a developer creates a program that others
find useful enough to download, who's being harmed?  If you paid $350 for
dBASE-2 in 1982 and you've got a '386 today, you've still got an 8088
translation of a CP/M program and there's nothing you can do to change
that.

At the moment, Shareware authors represent about the only progress in
certain software areas, notably communications and file archiving tools, so
I think it's counterproductive to restrict access to these programs, and
hamstring the competition it promotes, to the Outside World.

>Binaries don't
>evolve; when they stop working, they go extinct.  Many of the people on

What do you mean by "stop working"?  Do you mean "stop evolving"?  Again,
you'll find Shareware authors far more responsive to bug fixes
and timely enhancements than the commercial developers.

This all depends on what subculture of binary download you're referring to.
If it's just some quick 'n nasty toss-off, I agree: publish the source.  If,
on the other hand, it's a program that the author has spent a great deal of
time writing, chances are that he wants to protect his source... for a
number of good reasons.  Magpie (my Shareware BBS offering) took three
years to write.  I won't release the source because (a) I want to
provide support and I don't need munged source code to make the job
difficult, (b) I don't want to encounter what other source-published BBS
programs have encountered, namely its getting dicked with by some junior
terrorist and re-uploaded as the genuine article, complete with a backdoor
and media incinerator, and (c) I have long-term plans already in the works
for Magpie and don't want to get myself painted into a corner with a lot of
third-party enhancements that may well be incompatible with standard files
that have been hacked to provide Feecher X or "fix" Feecher Y.

I agree with you: source code is a great study and a way to improve your
own coding chops.  But there are a LOT of people out there who don't know
how to program, don't own a compiler and don't care to do any more than USE
the product.  For them, binaries are the only way to go.

-- 
+-----
+ Steve Manes
+ decvax!philabs!cmcl2!hombre!magpie!manes       Magpie BBS: 212-420-0527
+ SmartMail:  manes@magpie.MASA.COM