Re: GIMP 3.0.0-RC1

On 1/2/25 4:50 PM, -hh wrote:

On 1/2/25 4:29 PM, Farley Flud wrote:

On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 16:11:11 -0500, -hh wrote:
>

>
For example, good luck finding a 1/2" power drill for sale new today for
just $100 which will last for even 10 years of use, let alone his
"25-50" claim:  the days of bulletproof all metal body Craftsman or
Black & Decker power tools are long since gone.
>

>
I don't need "luck".  I purchased a Milwaukee 1/2" for about $100
(maybe more maybe less).  Milwaukee power tools are renowned throughout
the industrial trades as being perhaps the ultimate in quality.

 Yeah, Milwaukee's good, but they're not $100.

   I've had probs with battery-pack life, same
   with DeWalt ....
   Mostly have Makita stuff now.
   However Dad's mid-60s metal-body SKIL drill
   still works perfectly ...
   He DID have one with like a 7/8th chuck and
   a big accessory handle. Low speed, ultra-
   torque. Mostly used to drill big holes in
   concrete. Damned thing could literally break
   yer arm if it hung up. Lost in fire I think ...

Grainger's price is $187+:
 <https://www.grainger.com/product/3DU39>

   For fun, check Grainger wholesale -vs- retail
   prices. It'll SHOCK you sometimes  :-)

Of course, you're free to go buy from someplace else, where you're taking a risk on codeshares or counterfeits ...
 ... as well as to post the receipt to substantiate your price claim.
 

Furthermore, all metal body construction was abandoned long ago due
to the shock hazards.  The durable polymers that are now used are more
than an adequate substitute.

 Oh, I'm quite aware of that, because the hand-me-down that I got had to get tossed at <40 years age because it was shorting out to the body.  I used it for awhile wearing workgloves before getting fed up and a 1/2" Craftsman- it lasted only around 15 years before it died.  These days, I look to Dewalt, Bosch or Makita as first string.

   Metal body is GREAT - and will take a lot more abuse
   than today's plastic wonders. But you DO need to use
   a polarized plug - some get retrofitted with a 3-wire
   cord to add a real fer-sure ground.
   Oh, battery paks, DO look up the 'jump start' trick
   where you use some kind of power supply, or even another
   good lithium pack, to momentarily charge the 'dead'
   battery. Most commercial chargers assume ZERO volts
   means a dead pak ... but often the pak is perfectly
   good, just needs a tiny one-volt charge or so to
   fool the charger.
   There's a similar trick with NiCad paks - involves
   higher voltage, wires, and a FILE. You drag one
   wire along the file to pulse energy into the pak
   and disrupt 'bridging'.

But this is all totally superfluous.  The main point of the OP is that
commercial software companies can easily produce software that can
last decades, if not forever, but such software would literally destroy
them as a business entity.  Therefore they are forced into extortionate
practices just to keep alive.

 Depends on the use case, as well as the business model.  For example, there's code that's been use for ~50 years but its not been static the entire time:  there's invariably places for improvement & patches.
 

FOSS, OTOH, has no such ridiculous concerns.

 If that were truly a characteristic unique to FOSS, then Linux (including Android) would never have had any security patch updates.

   Most ALL code of any size and scope can be "improved".
   If not 'security' then streamlining. And yes, some of
   the basic algos go all the way back to young Bill Gates.
   They used to have contests - who could do what in the
   least number of bytes/cycles. Bill often won.
   (and then the blood-signed contract ...  :-)