wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Which stitching software to choose ? ????
yuval_levy 2009-Nov-05 06:29:00
Hi John,
--- In #removed#, John Riley <johnriley@...> wrote:
> You do seem to worry that folks are looking for a "free ride"
not at all. If they find a free ride, good for them. It's when they ask me to find it for them that I get annoyed.
Open Source = not having to reinventing the wheel. If somebody already invented it, use it as you please. That's not a free ride. A free ride is when the wheel does not exist; I don't need it; and somebody tries to direct me to invent it for him.
> Hugin will be marginalized if Joe or Josephine
> Blow have to go through what can be a maddening process
my cat Josephine sits nicely near me when I work on the code :-)
you seem to be applying commercial logic to a non-commercial endeavor. This is not a popularity context for me.
> Making it more accessible would
> increase its visibility, which could get more people interested in
> contributing - a self-reinforcing cycle.
What's the point of making cars more accessible to folks without a driving license? In the past three years much of my work was about making Hugin more accessible *to contributors*. If I had unlimited resources, I'd make it also more accessible to users. But resources are limited; and when it comes to make things better for users, I rather contribute to a better user interface (that benefits *all* users) than to a Windows binary installer (that benefits a *subset* of users).
> It doesn't seem unusual for
> open-source projects to have binaries available.
I use Ubuntu. All open source software available for Ubuntu through the official repositories are built by the Ubuntu maintainers, the users' community. All I have to do is type 'sudo apt-get install <YOU_NAME_IT>' and I get the YOU_NAME_IT binary delivered via the internet and installed on my machine.
> In any case, the purpose of my post was to praise Hugin.
sorry, it is difficult for me to see praise. To me it looks more like flattery.
> I suggested making a concerted effort to create binaries
what I read is a sugar coated request to make the "concerted effort". Over the past three months I had such "concerted efforts", supporting users in building binaries for distribution.
> because I think it
> deserves a much wider audience than those who are willing and/or
> able to build it from source.
If this is what you think, then you should act on your thoughts. My thoughts are at
http://panospace.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/too-much-love-will-kill-you/
Yuv