> This means that the general public has access to the source code which makes it tick, and that anyone can modify it or improve it to suit their needs.
But most of the OS code is maintained in such a way that only a small group of motivated users would be willing to fiddle with the build infrastructure necessary to even attempt modifying any of the core functionality.
That, along with the long wait times of recompiling, is functionally equivalent to burying entire process of "modifying or improving to suit needs" behind a blockchain. E.g., you have to walk awkwardly through a tarpit to arrive at the modification. (Hint for Blockchain Fans-- that's a bad thing here.)
It would be neat if there were a distro that shipped with all the build desiderata in place. So that I could at least go into ls.c or whatever and add a printf "all your base are belong to us" line and have it just incrementally recompile that single command.
Bonus points for a browser repo that could do that. Let me add a menu option that reads, "Poop" in less than ten seconds. (Btw-- how are incremental builds for browsers? If someone wants to printf their way through a bug, what's the recompile latency like?)
Edit: clarification
But most of the OS code is maintained in such a way that only a small group of motivated users would be willing to fiddle with the build infrastructure necessary to even attempt modifying any of the core functionality.
That, along with the long wait times of recompiling, is functionally equivalent to burying entire process of "modifying or improving to suit needs" behind a blockchain. E.g., you have to walk awkwardly through a tarpit to arrive at the modification. (Hint for Blockchain Fans-- that's a bad thing here.)
It would be neat if there were a distro that shipped with all the build desiderata in place. So that I could at least go into ls.c or whatever and add a printf "all your base are belong to us" line and have it just incrementally recompile that single command.
Bonus points for a browser repo that could do that. Let me add a menu option that reads, "Poop" in less than ten seconds. (Btw-- how are incremental builds for browsers? If someone wants to printf their way through a bug, what's the recompile latency like?)
Edit: clarification