ChemWriter, Google Chrome, and Many Eyes in Open Source
- given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
Rich of MetaMolecular works on Open Source and closed source cheminformatics solutions. ChemWriter is one product he is working on which uses JavaScript and SVG (two Open Standards), and recently asked feedback on the new version. Test users found a problem on Google’s Chrome browser, and Rich then did something that is only possible in an Open Source environment: he downloaded the buggy product (Chrome), started looking for the cause, found it, and filed a detailed bug report. Just think that would have happened if this problem was in MS Internet Explorer…
Well done!