Handling articles about commercial products
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Lots of flames always ignite when someone posts something to CodeProject involving a commercial closed-source tool or library. Personally, I like the fact that companies will post articles plugging their tools together with links to evaluation versions. This provides a place for CP people to comment about a tool and discuss how useful it may be. It provides a very useful way for the tool's authors to receive feedback and target their work more precisely to our needs. The problems arise mostly because people are dissapointed in their expectations---they click on a link expecting to see a free open source tool and instead find that it's some closed-source commercial dingus, so they get upset and turn on the butane. It seems to me that it would benefit everyone if all articles were clearly categorized in the CodeProject database under two criteria:
- Open/Closed categories>
- Open Source: The article includes all necessary source or has links to open source projects that supply all missing code.
- Uses Closed Source Libraries: The code in the article requires linking with closed-source libraries
- Free Closed Source Tool: The article describes the use of a closed-source tool which is available free to CodeProject users.
- Free/Paid
- Free: The article describes tools that are freely (as in beer) available and redistributable (perhaps with restrictions such as GPL, BSD License, etc.)
- Paid: The article describes tools that are available free to CodeProject users, but which cannot be redistributed freely.
If the article submission page asked people to categorize the articles under these criteria; if articles were prominently labeled (with appropriate icons for brevity; I would suggest using icons similar to the public/protected/private icons used in VC++'s ClassView window) with their categories; and if searching CodeProject offered options to return selections that met certain criteria (e.g., only Free, only Open Source, etc.) it might make CodeProject a bit easier for everyone to use and help us all to remain a bit more civil to one another while we're at it. He was allying himself to science, for what was science but the absence of prejudice backed by the presence of money? --- Henry James, The Golden Bowl
- Open/Closed categories>
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Lots of flames always ignite when someone posts something to CodeProject involving a commercial closed-source tool or library. Personally, I like the fact that companies will post articles plugging their tools together with links to evaluation versions. This provides a place for CP people to comment about a tool and discuss how useful it may be. It provides a very useful way for the tool's authors to receive feedback and target their work more precisely to our needs. The problems arise mostly because people are dissapointed in their expectations---they click on a link expecting to see a free open source tool and instead find that it's some closed-source commercial dingus, so they get upset and turn on the butane. It seems to me that it would benefit everyone if all articles were clearly categorized in the CodeProject database under two criteria:
- Open/Closed categories>
- Open Source: The article includes all necessary source or has links to open source projects that supply all missing code.
- Uses Closed Source Libraries: The code in the article requires linking with closed-source libraries
- Free Closed Source Tool: The article describes the use of a closed-source tool which is available free to CodeProject users.
- Free/Paid
- Free: The article describes tools that are freely (as in beer) available and redistributable (perhaps with restrictions such as GPL, BSD License, etc.)
- Paid: The article describes tools that are available free to CodeProject users, but which cannot be redistributed freely.
If the article submission page asked people to categorize the articles under these criteria; if articles were prominently labeled (with appropriate icons for brevity; I would suggest using icons similar to the public/protected/private icons used in VC++'s ClassView window) with their categories; and if searching CodeProject offered options to return selections that met certain criteria (e.g., only Free, only Open Source, etc.) it might make CodeProject a bit easier for everyone to use and help us all to remain a bit more civil to one another while we're at it. He was allying himself to science, for what was science but the absence of prejudice backed by the presence of money? --- Henry James, The Golden Bowl
Um...OK. I think I can do that (or at least the equivalent) but it will take some time. Patience, grasshopper. cheers, Chris Maunder
- Open/Closed categories>