The Simple Economics of Open Source

[Moshe Zadka]

On 21 Apr 2000, Andrew M. Kuchling wrote:

> Also, ever had to debug a problem in a binary-only library through
> trial-and-error?  You can burn lots of time that way.  <core dump>
> "Hmm... maybe that parameter can't be NULL."  <core dump> "Maybe that
> struct field should be 1." <core dump>.  I like the fact that, if I
> start seeing mysterious errors, I can dive down into the language
> interpreter, farther down into the C library, and even into the kernel
> if needed.  Though I've only followed a problem all the way into the
> Linux kernel once (to discover it was my error), it was reassuring to
> be able to do so.

Reminds me of the time I had to delve into Xt source to look for a way
to get out of the main loop without exiting the program. After 15 minutes
of looking at the docs to no use, it took 5 minutes of grepping through
the source, only to return to the docs and find out it was there -- 
only well hidden with an unlikely name and a surprising section.

x-sources-are-strange-and-wonderful-ly y'rs, Z.
--
Moshe Zadka <mzadka at geocities.com>. 
http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
http://www.linux.org.il -- we put the penguin in .com