On Thu, 5 Aug 2010 05:04:05 pm Florian Klaempfl wrote:
I wrote:
I think you miss one important point here: to contribute to an OSS project one must be rather idealistic or even religious about it (yes, this includes me ;))
I didn't say "only" but pointed out that it's a major motiviation for individuell persons
You didn't say "major", you said "must". Not "usually are", or "can be", or "often are", or "sometimes are", or any other nuanced qualification. You made a sweeping generalisation that doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
I don't know if you are a native English speaker, it's possible that I have been fooled by your otherwise excellent English, and you actually are unaware that "must" implies certitude. To be a square, a geometric figure must have four equal sides and four equal angles. If that's the case, then we've both learned something.
("one") and this is what I experienced in >15 years of free software and OSS development. It explains also perfectly why FPC is a living project (yes, we also look always for contributors but which OSS projects doesn't do so?) while GPC is currently in some zombie state.
How does that explain this? Both GPC and FPC are FOSS software, aren't they? People who are idealistic about Pascal can be equally idealistic when using GPC as when using FPC, can they not?
If FPC is thriving while GPC is not, that probably reflects the fact that the overall Pascal community has shrunk to the point that there are not enough users to support two FOSS compilers (plus however many non-FOSS). The fact that Free Pascal has "won" (if it actually is a fact) is probably more to do with the fact that typing "free pascal" into Google is a more obvious search strategy than typing "gpc".