4 ms·

I agree with you, but still someone has to convince the customers to pay for that, and sometimes they won't. I've been on far too many projects where the custom

I agree with you, but still someone has to convince the customers to pay for that, and sometimes they won't. I've been on far too many projects where the customer won't even pay for unit tests and gets angry at the suggestion.

ddingus 6y ago
Well, is that a contract scenario? If so, they can pay now, or pay later, just make sure you manage expectations so they actually do pay. If, somehow that ended up on you, of course they refuse! Why pay for a free lunch? So don't allow that. Seriously.
- cycloptic 6y ago
  You're preaching to the choir. I wouldn't work on such a project again, but when you say "manage expectations" what usually happens there is the customer realizes it doesn't match their expectations and then goes somewhere else and finds something that's in their price range. The point is, there is a class of customers that aren't going to pay for this. Ever. They either can't afford it or have decided it's not valuable.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    So let them. That's what I do. And I do that because someone, somewhere will pay now, or pay later. Maybe the customer finds someone hungry enough to pay for them. Or, maybe that customer pays hard going through this cycle a few times too. Not my problem and it does not have to be yours.
    - cycloptic 6y ago
      To be clear, I was mostly referring to low-or-zero-cost products mentioned previously like gmail, outlook or excel, or any random zero-cost piece of open source you can download on github. If you depend on that stuff then it is your problem, that's a signal that you won't pay the extra cost for stability. The businesses that can afford the extra stability are not using the consumer offering, they pay Google/Microsoft for a long term support contract. (And yes, Xorg, Wayland, GNOME, KDE, and all the other open source Linux desktops are all under the category of random free project on github)
      - ddingus 6y ago
        They are making total bank on those things. And the users are paying, just not with dollars. Can definitely be robust and should be. In this scenario, it is a mutual problem. Nobody has to use the software, true. However, it again is all about managing expectations. If it is oversold, people will end up with bad experiences and that does impact who delivered them. This has already happened. Will again too. On a short timeline, maybe no big. On a longer one, higher order impacts may actually be painful. Say a decade of negative public sentiment sees a brutal regulation kind of painful. Entities putting billions in the bank can and should make reliable software. There is a YUGE diff between Gmail, Excel and friends, and rando OSS. This discussion ranged far away from the initial premise. So, let us take it back a bit. Weyland. Wants to be the defacto display solution. Does not have the same priorities many users have. Also does have priorities many users have. Replacing X11 was made an explicit intent too. Well, if it does not actually do that? "All that Weyland shit talk" is the outcome. Maybe subtract the replace X11 part, or maybe find a way to actually replace X11, or maybe just ignore the shit talk?
      - ddingus 6y ago
        I do not agree all those are the same as rando OSS on github BTW. Because of that problem, I have always maintained we need a way to better fund some projects. I would love to see the display system funded and all the good stuff worked out properly. For me, the network features and general flexibility of X is worth some money. When I ran SGI machines, that money was paid and the display systems were flat out awesome. If it does not do those awesome things? Meh, can just run Win 10.
        cycloptic 6y ago
        I believe there are still people maintaining paid X servers on Windows, on Linux not so much.
        ddingus 6y ago
        There are, last I looked. I used Exceed a lot. Exemplary. That program did everything nicely. I even used a CAD app on Windows that actually was built for X and it was network transparent same as any Unix box! There is a sub $100 one out there. Maybe a bit more now. Maybe gone too. It was very good. The freebies are respectable and great for sysadmin. Funding a first class X11 replacement that also does some new things people want for mobile and embedded makes a ton of sense to me, and I would sign right up too. Maybe getting a bunch of us tossing a tenner a month at this would fund a project that just gets it all done. And we need one. It is obvious to me X11, used as it can be, sees way more than anyone may have thought today. When I was on IRIX, X11 was flat out awesome. Shit just worked, and was fast, and 3D graphics over the wire smooth, fast, performant. It took a long time for the rest to get there and when they did, nobody really grokked it, unless they came from a solid implementation. And nobody from the PC, Windows camp got it. Did not even understand what an app server even was. No fault here either. People saw what they saw, worked how they could work. I get that. But today, people still saw what they saw, work how they work and ripping all that up is painful enough to not make sense. If it did, we would have seen this go differently. So maybe this should not be a volunteer effort. Matters too much to way more of us than I also believe was expected. If we fund something thwt does what X11 can do and that also will do the new, spiffy, lean things people want today, we would have a killer environment. Having that be OSS? Worth it to me. Or, we can watch the carnage for another decade... Good discussion, BTW.

ddingus 6y ago

Well, is that a contract scenario? If so, they can pay now, or pay later, just make sure you manage expectations so they actually do pay. If, somehow that ended up on you, of course they refuse! Why pay for a free lunch? So don't allow that. Seriously.

cycloptic 6y ago
You're preaching to the choir. I wouldn't work on such a project again, but when you say "manage expectations" what usually happens there is the customer realizes it doesn't match their expectations and then goes somewhere else and finds something that's in their price range. The point is, there is a class of customers that aren't going to pay for this. Ever. They either can't afford it or have decided it's not valuable.
- ddingus 6y ago
  So let them. That's what I do. And I do that because someone, somewhere will pay now, or pay later. Maybe the customer finds someone hungry enough to pay for them. Or, maybe that customer pays hard going through this cycle a few times too. Not my problem and it does not have to be yours.
  - cycloptic 6y ago
    To be clear, I was mostly referring to low-or-zero-cost products mentioned previously like gmail, outlook or excel, or any random zero-cost piece of open source you can download on github. If you depend on that stuff then it is your problem, that's a signal that you won't pay the extra cost for stability. The businesses that can afford the extra stability are not using the consumer offering, they pay Google/Microsoft for a long term support contract. (And yes, Xorg, Wayland, GNOME, KDE, and all the other open source Linux desktops are all under the category of random free project on github)
    - ddingus 6y ago
      They are making total bank on those things. And the users are paying, just not with dollars. Can definitely be robust and should be. In this scenario, it is a mutual problem. Nobody has to use the software, true. However, it again is all about managing expectations. If it is oversold, people will end up with bad experiences and that does impact who delivered them. This has already happened. Will again too. On a short timeline, maybe no big. On a longer one, higher order impacts may actually be painful. Say a decade of negative public sentiment sees a brutal regulation kind of painful. Entities putting billions in the bank can and should make reliable software. There is a YUGE diff between Gmail, Excel and friends, and rando OSS. This discussion ranged far away from the initial premise. So, let us take it back a bit. Weyland. Wants to be the defacto display solution. Does not have the same priorities many users have. Also does have priorities many users have. Replacing X11 was made an explicit intent too. Well, if it does not actually do that? "All that Weyland shit talk" is the outcome. Maybe subtract the replace X11 part, or maybe find a way to actually replace X11, or maybe just ignore the shit talk?
    - ddingus 6y ago
      I do not agree all those are the same as rando OSS on github BTW. Because of that problem, I have always maintained we need a way to better fund some projects. I would love to see the display system funded and all the good stuff worked out properly. For me, the network features and general flexibility of X is worth some money. When I ran SGI machines, that money was paid and the display systems were flat out awesome. If it does not do those awesome things? Meh, can just run Win 10.
      - cycloptic 6y ago
        I believe there are still people maintaining paid X servers on Windows, on Linux not so much.
        ddingus 6y ago
        There are, last I looked. I used Exceed a lot. Exemplary. That program did everything nicely. I even used a CAD app on Windows that actually was built for X and it was network transparent same as any Unix box! There is a sub $100 one out there. Maybe a bit more now. Maybe gone too. It was very good. The freebies are respectable and great for sysadmin. Funding a first class X11 replacement that also does some new things people want for mobile and embedded makes a ton of sense to me, and I would sign right up too. Maybe getting a bunch of us tossing a tenner a month at this would fund a project that just gets it all done. And we need one. It is obvious to me X11, used as it can be, sees way more than anyone may have thought today. When I was on IRIX, X11 was flat out awesome. Shit just worked, and was fast, and 3D graphics over the wire smooth, fast, performant. It took a long time for the rest to get there and when they did, nobody really grokked it, unless they came from a solid implementation. And nobody from the PC, Windows camp got it. Did not even understand what an app server even was. No fault here either. People saw what they saw, worked how they could work. I get that. But today, people still saw what they saw, work how they work and ripping all that up is painful enough to not make sense. If it did, we would have seen this go differently. So maybe this should not be a volunteer effort. Matters too much to way more of us than I also believe was expected. If we fund something thwt does what X11 can do and that also will do the new, spiffy, lean things people want today, we would have a killer environment. Having that be OSS? Worth it to me. Or, we can watch the carnage for another decade... Good discussion, BTW.