Re: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

Dan Weinreb wrote:


> That's true, but you can't necessarily get those changes to be checked
> back into the main source stream of the open source project.


True enough, although I personally have never had a problem getting
something checked back in.  There are certainly no guarantees;
it's still better than the plead-with-BigCo-to-do-right approach.
In general, the maintainer has little vested interest against
letting your code go back in -- perhaps with an option, config file
setting, or even conditionalized compilation.

> But what happens when the mainstream development line of the open
> source project comes out with a new release?  You have to either
> forego the new release, or merge in all of your custom changes with
> all of their changes, and deal with any conflicts, no?


Yes, which is an incentive to send the changes back.

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