Re: Coverity Open Source Defect Scan of Emacs

[David Kastrup]

Alan Mackenzie <address@hidden> writes:

> OK.  Again, could you either give a link to a page describing your
> product in technical terms, or create such a page if it doesn't
> already exist.  Even if the product doesn't cost any money, it will
> certainly cost a fair bit of time to download, install and evaluate,
> so it's only reasonable to expect this description.
>
> Is the product free software?  If not, it will meet with some
> antipathy from free software projects such as Emacs.

It's not really a principal problem for fixing bugs: bug reports don't
introduce copyrightable material into the fixed product.  And if
someone else is running the tool and reporting its results, there is
not much more to be annoyed at than at not having access to the brains
of human bug reporters.

Of course we would not want to become reliant on proprietary
technology, but refusing additional input for which it has played a
role seems a bit pointless.  Like a vegetarian not buying at a grocer
that isn't vegetarian himself.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum