[lmm]

A project that isn't being actively developed is dead. The idea of a "finished" program that does everything it needs to, one "so simple, effective and reliable that it doesn't need to be changed, except for bug fixes" is an attractive one but it's a myth; there has never been such a program, and I doubt there ever will be.

[stonefroot]

Hmmm. Very interesting perspective.

I'm currently using a number of "dead" programs.

In fact, most of my kernel is "dead". There is code in there that hasn't been changed in over 30 years!

I'm even communicating over a "dead" protocol. When were the last changes to TCP?

I'd even guess you are using some "dead" software yourself. Low level stuff that no one has the desire nor energy to modify.

(To be clear, I am not suggesting that we should not try to improve programs, continually. I'm only pointing out that perhaps sometimes code works for what it's supposed to do, no one has come forward with something "better" and hence the code does not need to be fiddled with endlessly in the absence of serious bugs.)

[lmm]

>I'm currently using a number of "dead" programs.

Then I hope you have a plan in place for when, not if, they break.

>In fact, most of my kernel is "dead". There is code in there that hasn't been changed in over 30 years!

If the kernel has people who take responsibility for it, and make changes to it, then it's not dead.

>I'm even communicating over a "dead" protocol. When were the last changes to TCP?

The fast open draft was published in July.

>(To be clear, I am not suggesting that we should not try to improve programs, continually. I'm only pointing out that perhaps sometimes code works for what it's supposed to do, no one has come forward with something "better" and hence the code does not need to be fiddled with endlessly in the absence of serious bugs.)

Sure, but I really don't think that's true. Possibly because the lower-level layers are still evolving - code written in low-level languages more than about 10 years ago (before the AMD64 architecture existed) probably won't work correctly on a modern system, and most high level languages have had incompatible changes over the same time period (I know Java's supposed to be an exception to this - allegedly you can still run the original java demos from 1994 on a current JVM). The fact is I've tried and failed to run several programs from >5 years ago, but I've yet to find one that still works without having been maintained.

[stonefroot]

Still waiting for Ethernet to "break". IP as well. UDP too. And netcat. It's been like 20 years. I'm still waiting.

I also wasn't aware that RFC drafts were the same as "commits".

Originally we were talking about "number of commits". Low number of commits means "dead", so they are say. Are you in agreement with that or not? If so, what does "dead" mean?

Now you are saying if software is maintained (fixing bugs) it's not dead. Who said it was? I certainly didn't. I even went so far as to clarify that.

Let's assume some software is maintained. There's someone to take responsibilty. As you have suggested. But there's no commits, except to fix bugs.

If there's no bugs to fix (maybe one every 15 years), then there's no commits. But if _number of commits_ tells you whether a project is "live" or "dead" then how do you call this a "live" project, if is has almost no commit activity?

My original comment was about the idea of "number of commits"-->"dead" as carrying some deeper meaning, e.g. about the quality of the software.

I like software that works and keeps on working. I really do not care that much if people are committing to it or not. In fact, I'd prefer they didn't because in many cases they only succeed in breaking it or in creating new weaknesses or insecurities.

The original netcat just keeps working. Last "commit" was in the 1990's.