Re: "Full Disclosure"

On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 08:34:36 -0000, jl8e@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Julian Lighton)
wrote:

>In article <l655i1d560epmia8h6siccgkmnhoj5jjog@xxxxxxx>,
>Jürgen R. <jurgenr@xxxxxx> wrote:
>>On Fri, 09 Sep 2005 21:02:04 -0000, jl8e@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Julian Lighton)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>In article <63g2i1h02qvi35llarctm4n9q0qhkto1c0@xxxxxxx>,
>>>Jürgen R. <jurgenr@xxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>Can you give a couple of examples of non-trivial programs that are
>>>>portable in this sense?
>>>
>>>Angband.
>>>
>>>It's a game. It compiles out of the box for Windows, DOS, Mac, and a
>>>wide variety of Unixes both with and without X Windows. Supposedly, a
>>>port to a completely new system can require only a few hundred lines
>>>of code.
>>
>>Just out of curiosity I downloaded the this game. It has a text
>>interface running in a DOS box, it doesn't have a GUI. This can be
>>done rather easily, for example by sticking to standard C libraries.
>>The problem is the GUI.
>
>Sounds like you downloaded a version built for DOS.

No, I downloaded what was advertized as the 'Windows' version. Of
course, nearly all 'Windows' versions that come from the Unix world
are programs with text interfaces.

Moreover, when you look at the download page for this game the
original point - that portability is not a triviality - should become
obvious. There is a profusion of versions, each from a different
developer. Nowhere is there a source package that is compilable for
various environments; rather there are many different source versions
for different environments; and then: "more source code pieces can be
found at...".

And even in this long list of versions I don't find one that I can
rely on for my Suse Linux installation. Though if I were interested in
this game, and willing to invest considerable time, I could probably
make it run in some form.

My impression is that the non-academic "open source community"
consists largely of people with too much time on their hands for whom
software is a hobby.

Jürgen

.

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