Python 2.5 ; Effbot console ; thank ; pb release.

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Ben Finney schrieb:
>>  "Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
>>> some days, I ask myself why I shouldn't just use GPL for
>>> everything I do, and ship it as source code only.
>> because then you would deny your work to thousands of ungrateful,
>> unmotivated lazy buggers like me...
> 
> Not necessarily. All it needs is one person (with the same platform
> you want to use) to take the source, build it for that platform, and
> make it available.

In my experience, this single person *never* exists. I.e. it's either
the original author who provides binaries, or none are provided.
People certainly build it themselves, but then never share. I don't
know why that is - probably, it takes a different mindset to be on
the giving end than on the receiving end of free software.

There are exceptions, of course: when communities are built. There
is no question that binaries are available with the Linux distributions,
and the various Sun, HP, IBM, Darwinports, etc. free software sites also
have an established contributorship. For Windows, such communities
apparently don't form, for some reason.

Regards,
Martin