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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2021-02-18 09:55, Bernhard E. Reiter
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:3102825.44csPzL39Z@kymo.gruen"><br>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">There has been some cooperation in the past (I'll have to look it up),
this is why I know that it is not easy and a wide field. For most people, the
quality aspect of software development is not what they are interested in
initially. And in general higher quality means defining it, measuring it and
funding it and overal in IT this is often not happening. It feels like in this
field we are trying to get the basics right. My idea is more along the lines
to teach and enlight people about the specific quality aspects that a nice
Free Software and community development can contribute to IT.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I think, also responding to points made by Vitaly and Paul, that
software quality guidelines are mainly the responsibility of the
projects. As for software quality in Free Software:</p>
<p>The ultimate goal of the free sofware movement is that <i>all</i>
software should be free software and respect the users' freedoms.
A sensible sub-goal is that producing free software should be the
industry standard whenever new software is commissioned.</p>
<p>Thus, if an organization needs some software and finds it does
exist, it would a) hire developers or b) commission another
company to make the software, with everyone taking for granted
that of course it will be free software.</p>
<p>Then, as in all other kinds of engineering, the contractors would
be expected to adhere to recognized industry-wide quality
standards, which nowadays means coding guidelines, linting, code
reviews, automatic testing and many other things.</p>
<p>A lot of existing free software does not adhere to such standards
mainly because it's old-ish and not made as you would do a similar
project today. But that is not specifically because it's free
software - the same is true of a lot of proprietary software as
well. It's more because it was built on practices that were normal
at the time but considered legacy today.</p>
<p>So a lot of the work to improve quality in free software is <i>political</i>
- and is that of changing people's attitudes to make free software
the automatic default in <i>all</i> software procument. This is
going to be a process, because in many areas the software needed
to support daily workflows and infrastructure doesn't exist as
free software yet. So decision makers need to be convinced to
start that process.</p>
<p>And then, the issue of quality in free software will become <i>the
same</i> as the larger issue of quality in software in general.</p>
<p>Best<br>
Carsten<br>
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