I'm proudly an open source developer, working on Java, And I just realized I can't live without source code of every framework or library I work with. I know many of you are like me, we know we speak code, we write it, we hear it and we communicate in it. Not having source means we are impaired.
Before it happened to me, Neither could I imagine nor perceive myself working with a piece of software without source code, It was so common to have code before, and hey shouldn't that be included in programmer's bill of rights? But, First time in last few years, luck had it and I am working with a closed propriety framework, its painful for all. If you're in the great world of open-source software, you might have started thinking how painful it can be to program without code.
Not having source code means lot of things, debugging becomes nightmare which not only makes you feel stupid to debug but also it frustrates as you feel back in blind environments like the one in M$'. If there's a bug you have no way to look what's going on in the library or framework, you would wait till their (software vendor's) "support team" identifies or guesses what's the problem and gives a patch, which would take like weeks.
In Java, You can try decompiling the binaries, it's easy with Java unless binaries are obfuscated, this can be helpful to an extent. But most decompilers are not very debug-friendly, it would generate source in arbitrary assumptions, so unless you recompile the source back, you're stuck. But decompiling, recompiling and then looking around the weird identifier and method names and reordered statements will drive you crazy, but for Java developers there is a cool eclipse plug-in which would feel like a medic, it's name is JadeClipse. Though, it's too much for just knowing what's going on inside the third party's code.
While wider acceptance of Open-source in the industry is a definitely good thing, but beware it makes you feel less comfortable working with proprietary closed source softwares once you are used to it. I'm still wondering, how long would closed source software exist in platforms like Java or languages like Ruby and likes?
But please, for the hack's sake, please let us, the software developers on the mother Earth, see the SOURCE CODE.
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