Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 21:51:36 08/08/01
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On August 07, 2001 at 14:21:42, Simon Waters wrote: >On August 03, 2001 at 21:10:12, Dann Corbit wrote: >> >>If I just wanted to play chess on FICS, I would rather use Winboard to do it. > >Or xboard *8-) > >>Similarly, I don't think that tools like GCC will ever hurt the compiler sales >>for the commercial vendors. I have GCC, but also buy every compiler in sight if >>I think it can help me to do my job better. > >Actually I bet GCC eats into compiler sales no end. Look at Solaris - do you >know anyone who buys Forte C ? > >The chess world, and Windows world is slightly different as MS VC offers >performance gains, and a GUI. > >In the Unix world where we expect compilers to conform to standard interfaces, >they are almost interchangable. Most non-chess programmers aren't bothers by the >few percentage points that the commercial compilers may give them in >performance. In fact GCC is faster on many platform for "real world" >applications, just the boring benchmark code, where knowing the CPU better can >gain points, and being clever on the big picture optimisations doesn't help most >benchmarks. > >>Free stuff like that really has no downside, that I can see. > >I think the reverse question is worth asking. > >Do free programmers resent having their ideas used by commercial programmers, >whilst the commercial advances are "closed" in many cases? > >Dr Hyatt care to comment? There are three types of programmers: 1. "free programmers" that distribute source code. Such as myself and a bunch of others. 2. amateur programmers that don't distribute source code, but they do exchange ideas. I was in this camp until Crafty was released. So was Slate, Thompson, Hsu, Campbell, Newborn, Schaeffer, etc. IE we didn't distribute our code, but we freely gave away the new ideas we had found, in return for new ideas that others had found. 3. commercial programmers that don't distribute anything. Most say zip, but listen with both ears to grab new ideas they had not thought of. Some do, on rare occasions, give a technical idea or two, but this is _very_ rare. The main point is that 1 and 2 represent really large groups of people. 3 is very small. Should we let a very small number of people discourage a large number from sharing ideas? I hope not. Do I find it annoying? Not really. I find it hard to explain, of course. IE how someone can take ideas but not offer something in return. Perhape they believe there is such a thing as a "free ride" in some way?
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