Manuel Lemos wrote:
Hello,
On 02/13/2004 08:13 AM, B.A.T. Svensson wrote:
Why would you go watching TV in the neighbours house when you have your own TV working at home?
Because of the usual reasons: they might have a bigger or better TV, or they might have a broader selection on the cable TV network. Besides the tech points, it might also be be because the neighbor is a good old friend and one just happen to like the neighbors company, and (s)he even might have a nice supply of cold beers in the fridge to.
heheh, some people do that yes, but I don't. Not that my TV is better but I would not have the nerve to push myself to neighbour's house and disturb them just to abuse of their TV and not for a less material reason.
To bring this back to a more on-topic issue, I am perfectly aware that there is a lot of people that just download my stuff to learn how to do things and then adopt the code to their own versions and claim they did it. Those are the "knowledge s*ckers".
This is part of the reason why I, as an author, prefer to upload it to the PHPClasses.org site and only allow downloading to subscribers that need to authenticate.
It does not bother that people just go in there to steal some ideas or code to gain merits from my work. If it bothered me, I would not have make it available as Open Source with a BSD license in first place.
However, I am more interested in legitimate users that download and try the code. This helps me test my code more intensively and iron any bugs or limitations much faster. I do not even wish or expect people to thank me. As long as they test the code and report any problems, or do not report anything because it is all right for them, that is fine for me.
I agree fully. Testing and giving back is a major reason for putting my software out there. This is why I use PEAR. There is a large group of both developers and users who actively work together to make the packages better. I also like the standardization and use of high level programming concepts, such as seperation of functionality and re-use of code.
The documentation is also very important. Nearly every bit of code in PEAR packages is documented. If no "Documentation" is on the site, you can still check the code itself to find instructions and even usage and examples.
Obviously, the "knowledge s*ckers" will not provide any valuable feedback. Actually some of them even come in public just to b*tch that I require them to login to download my stuff. Some even threat to download similar packages from some other repository, as if I care. The world does not revolve around any individual alone, even less KS.
If that requirement of login detracts some KS from even accessing the site, that is just perfect for me. That is not the main reason to keep that requirement for my classes but it is one reason more.
I can justify spending time and effort to retribute the feedback that legitimate users provide. As for KS, sorry, they are not helping me at all, so I can't justify even to worry about the usual b*tching or threatning to use the TV of some other neighbour. ;-)
Instead of making harder for legitimate users to use your software, maybe you should think about why people are "knowledge sucking" instead of using your class.
-- paperCrane <Justin Patrin>
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