Re: Why All Software Should Be Open Source

On Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:46:44 -0000 (UTC), Joe Beanfish wrote:

 
In many cases you need a full archaic system, not just one package, due
to 29 cross dependencies on specific versions of libraries, compilers,
and other tools.
>

It's much less for a command-line program which may only have
a need for libz.

For GUI programs, forget it.

>
Documenting the file formats is more important and I
guess the original software could serve as that.
>

The original creators of the sfArk format was Melody
Machine.  They were a commercial company that produced
a definitely superior (although some might not agree --
see my other post) compression algorithm for SF2 soundfonts.
Many, many soundfonts were/are distributed as sfArk
files.

But Melody Machine went out of business and as a result
their code sank with them, never to be recovered.

Some have reversed engineered the original code (see my
previous post), but all that is beside the point.

The point is that all proprietary code has the same risk
of going down if the company that produced it fails.
Therefore, companies should make their code open-source
lest it leave countless users in the lurch.

>
But eventually your
8-track tape collection just won't have anything to play it and it's
time to migrate and move on.
>

I have decompressed all of my sfARC/sfPack to SF2 files a while ago
when I realized that sfArk/sfPack were dead.

But, again, that is not the point.

This situation will occur over and over unless companies open-source
their code for the sake of longevity.


--
Systemd: solving all the problems that you never knew you had.