<html><body name="Mail Message Editor"><br>On Aug 21, 2008, at 7:24:27 PM, "Frank Warmerdam" <warmerdam@pobox.com> wrote:<br><blockquote style="padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: blue; color: blue; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-monospace; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">Bruce Raup wrote:<br>> I agree with this general philosophy. I can't imagine a bug being<br>> squashed within 24 hours in a typical proprietary package.<br><br>...</span></blockquote><blockquote style="padding-left: 5px; margin-left: 5px; border-left-width: 2px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: blue; color: blue; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: -webkit-monospace; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; ">For whatever reason, the concept of providing fixed<br>binaries does not seem very common with larger proprietary software<br>packages these days (or perhaps I just don't see it). Nevertheless,<br>I think speed of bug fixing is a strength of open source, especially<br>for a savvy user willing to rebuild from "trunk".</span></blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>It is a problem of responsibility. Many bug fixes introduce new bugs, occasionally far, far from the location of the fix. A propriety vendor feels responsible for the consequences of a bug fix and often ends up exhaustively testing the entire binary for any bug fix(es) that go into a build. Hence it is most common for a propriety vendor to roll up several bug fixes into one release so that the exhaustive testing can be amortized over many bugs. Of course, it takes time to accumulate many bug fixes. Hence it takes time for new releases.</div><div><br></div><div>Regards,</div><div>-- daan Strebe</div><div><br></div><div class="aol_ad_footer" id="u55A0B21B388A430290080EBCC27E62A2"><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px"><A title="http://mapquest.com/toolbar?ncid=mpqmap00050000000010" href="http://mapquest.com/toolbar?ncid=mpqmap00050000000010" target="_blank">Get the MapQuest Toolbar</A>. Directions, Traffic, Gas Prices & More!</FONT></div></body></html>