mailing-list for TeXmacs Users

[Henri Lesourd <address@hidden>]

> > I highly suggest that you realize this is a volunteer project.
> That is what I thought of your business developing mode.
Hem... To cool down things, one could remind that
as soon as annoying problems are noticed, one important
part of the job is done, really, because thus, sooner
or later, somebody will come and solve the problem.

Then, yes, this project is a volunteer project,
and if you compare to a commercial project,
it will seem slow, unorganized, because things
are done when people are interested, when there
is time, etc.

But on the other hand, this way people do
things that would in fact *never* be done
in a more "business" developing mode, because
in such contexts, people are not here to play,
they --cannot afford-- to have fun. And here,
it could very well, very seriously be argued
that a higher level of quality in software
is in fact strongly related to the volunteer
nature of a project.

Because of this, the priorities are, it's
true, rather different, and one counts
on the natural ability of the users
to find tricks by themselves to solve
their problems (and it *really* works,
look : isn't it exactly what happened
in the case of the annoying installation
problem that triggered this thread in the
first place ? The perfect software fix is
perhaps not yet done, but *the fact remains
that* a solution has been found quite quickly).

To summarize, my feeling is that I'm not
even sure that a more "business" approach
would bring real improvements, because
with these kinds of approaches, you
just don't develop the same kind of
software.

This is just my personal opinion, of course.

Best, Henri