Re: new releases [was Re: Official public code repository]

[Tim Kelly <gtkelly@...>]

> 
Apparently my explaining how things work in North America is misunderstood.  I am not arguing in favor of it (although I happen to like capitalism).  I am stating what the business environment is like here.  It seems to have worked well for Microsoft, IBM, Red Hat, and many others.  Given that this model is so entrenched here, if a bidder were to say they products do not need ongoing maintainence, they will be eliminated from consideration as being a liar.  Everyone here knows that Windows and Linux (and even BSDs) need patching regularly and so do the scripting languages, as they are all full of security holes.  If you argue that you have products that do not have such issues, the company's IT department will laugh at you.  If you are IT and do not need to constantly patch users' computers, you will be fired as incompetent.  
But this is getting absurd.  I never asked for commercial support for free.  I do think it bizarre that people writing Lua scripts are expected to be able to maintain their own version of Lua.  All I asked for was something more positive than "Work on Lua 5.2 has begun but there is no roadmap yet and no release date has been fixed; there aren't even any work versions yet."  I tried to explain why the absence of a structure roadmap can be seen as a negative to companies considering bids.  I even volunteered to write one, but no one seconded me.  Instead, I feel rather attacked for asking for assurances of long term stability.

I asked for assurances because I am tired of choosing technologies that suddenly decide to go in completely different directions.  I did not wish to invest time and energy in Lua knowing that it was not a mainstream choice for scripting unless I could feel really confident in Lua.  I spent time writing a binary<->decimal<->hexidecimal string converter in Lua (which I previously posted, and which gets downloaded once or twice a day, in spite of being one of nine such converters, gee there's a really good hint for a feature in 5.2 but there's no roadmap for 5.2).  I even spent several days writing a PowerPC disassembler in Lua, which is actually an important component to a JIT, according to the documentation at www.luajit.org.  Here's a link to the output:

http://www.dialectronics.com/Lua/ldis_out.txt

I was in the process of moving it to an anonymous CVS server and considering fixing the problems with MachO and PEF file formats, and even considering offering my help with getting a PowerPC backend to a Lua JIT, but you know, I've lost interest in doing so.

tim
 
> Tim Kelly kirjoitti 27.12.2007 kello 3:16:
> 
> > Maybe there is a different model on the east side of the Atlantic,
> > but here in North America the emphasis is on "recurring revenue,"
> > which is based on forcing clients into constant upgrade cycles.
> 
> 

--

"Anything war can do, peace can do better."  --  Desmond Tutu