“Most senior engineers understand the technical details about what it will take to move Linux or FreeBSD or NetBSD or OpenBSD to support enterprise computing environments. What we don’t often understand is what the actual competitive advantages of open source systems are, and what the open source communities need to do to help maintain these advantages.” The author explains how the two major open source development models work in different ways: the Linux and the *BSD. Read the editorial at BSDToday.
Issues with Open Source Development Models
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
It explains the issues fairly well. What it doesn’t discuss, and is usually missing from any Open Source discussions is the financial profit/loss of choosing an Open Source model.
The mechanics of source control and software management are well understood and the editorial points them out well. I don’t have direct personal experience with open source but the comments would be consistent with projects in the commercial world.
I do wonder how long the Linux model is likely to survive if Linus does not learn to delegate somewhat, and the assertion as to the lack of source management at the kernel level also sounds troubling. I can testify that the lack of version control on a large project can lead to problems of working out what change caused what bug. Having a fine grained source control system would allow you to independently test various kernel changes and enhancements more easily and alos retorgrade things simply. I am at the moment moving towards CVS for our kernel development. The migration is not easy because I don’t know of any “CVS for dummies” resources around. The docs assume some implicit knowledge and conventions of what you are trying to do with CVS which aren’t clearly spelt out. Anyone who knows where one can find tutorials on CVS, let me know – I’d be eternally grateful.
P
Everything is the CVS documentation. That’s where I learn!
As for choosing Open Source as a model, I think it depends on your purpose: save money or make money. But remember that by saving money, you’re already making some.
And the linx model will survive even when Linus won’t manage it anymore. If you read carefully Eric’s Raymond Cathedral and the Bazaar, you’ll understand a lot of things about the Open model and you will learn that people who are in charge are not promote or choosed. It’s done by natural selection and recognition by their peers. It’s doing the Right Thing: Hands On Imperative!
There are good tutorials on CVS in the SourceForge docs page.
You may want to try WinCVS if using Windows, but you will also need a SSH client. I prefer OpenSSH.
http://sourceforge.net/
http://www.wincvs.org/
http://www.openssh.com/