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You ask about how many open source projects I manage. None. I am a completely private sector guy. I've done a lot with $5K; employing that focus I talked abo

by gm 18y ago

You ask about how many open source projects I manage. None. I am a completely private sector guy. I've done a lot with $5K; employing that focus I talked about. I was not taking a shot at anyone, nor at open source. Just at resources vs resource administration. I do not know which project this was (I know the guy mentioned it on his post), nor do I particularly care. A resource is a resource and a manager is a manager. A project that is in development must move forward, open source or not. Case in point: We are using a certain OSS project in house. We ran into a bug, it's a well-known bug, been there for a long time. We fixed it because we had a time motive, resources, and focus. Right there: done. No hesitating, we needed to move onto something else. That kind of focus would certainly help OSS. $5K or not in our pocket, it was fixed. Anyway... That may very well explain why private projects move faster than open source ones, the private ones have a profit motive, failure means financial failure. No matter how altruistic you are, if you fail financially, you don't eat.

SwellJoe 18y ago
You ask about how many open source projects I manage. None. I am a completely private sector guy. So you pretty much don't get Open Source. And that's OK. There's plenty of room for both commercial and Open Source development. But, it nullifies your claims on the topic, since you've established you do not share, or comprehend, the mindset of Open Source developers. We fixed it because we had a time motive, resources, and focus. Right there: done. No hesitating, we needed to move onto something else. That kind of focus would certainly help OSS. What makes you think OSS needs help? I think Apache just called to remind you not to teach your granny how to suck eggs. You're making the very common mistake of assuming Open Source software is for you. Open Source software is for the developer of the software. If anybody else likes it, that's wonderful. But it's not (generally) the reason it exists. It exists because someone wanted to build something. Sometimes they also want to build a business around the software they build, in which case they have to answer all of the needs of commercial software, in addition to keeping an Open Source community happy (which makes it a doubly hard challenge, but it brings some advantages, as well). Anyway... That may very well explain why private projects move faster than open source ones, the private ones have a profit motive, failure means financial failure. And it may explain why OSS projects, in general, have dramatically higher quality code. Motivations are different. "Needs" are determined by hackers...not marketing guys, MBAs, or even (perhaps to the detriment of user friendliness) customers. Though I question your unfounded assertion that proprietary projects move faster, and I think you need to be specific. Does Microsoft innovate faster than the Linux developers? How about Apple? Would Apple be where they are today without FreeBSD and Mach? I would concur that proprietary software companies sometimes move faster on usability. Certainly Microsoft has better accessibility than Gnome and Linux. But Linux has better large systems support than Microsoft or Apple (but not as good as Sun...though Solaris is now Open Source, I think we can give this point to the proprietary side, since most of the features were developed by a single company and before Solaris was fully Open Source). Likewise small systems support, where Linux has a very solid lead over Microsoft and Apple (and Sun). Hardware support is also better in Linux than both Windows Vista and Apple OS X (and Solaris). So who is moving faster? And, to come back to Apache...name any proprietary product that does half of what Apache can do or gets support for new protocols sooner. Open Source developers and commercial developers have different priorities. Your priority seems to be condescension. ;-) No matter how altruistic you are, if you fail financially, you don't eat. Altruism isn't the point of most Open Source software.
- gm 18y ago
  It's not about being condescending, my point was that the manager of the OSS project was a bad manager. A bad allocator of resources. That's pretty much it. I have no desire to get into a Technology A vs Technology B pissing match so I'll not even address those issues.

by gm 18y ago

SwellJoe 18y ago

You ask about how many open source projects I manage. None. I am a completely private sector guy. So you pretty much don't get Open Source. And that's OK. There's plenty of room for both commercial and Open Source development. But, it nullifies your claims on the topic, since you've established you do not share, or comprehend, the mindset of Open Source developers. We fixed it because we had a time motive, resources, and focus. Right there: done. No hesitating, we needed to move onto something else. That kind of focus would certainly help OSS. What makes you think OSS needs help? I think Apache just called to remind you not to teach your granny how to suck eggs. You're making the very common mistake of assuming Open Source software is for you. Open Source software is for the developer of the software. If anybody else likes it, that's wonderful. But it's not (generally) the reason it exists. It exists because someone wanted to build something. Sometimes they also want to build a business around the software they build, in which case they have to answer all of the needs of commercial software, in addition to keeping an Open Source community happy (which makes it a doubly hard challenge, but it brings some advantages, as well). Anyway... That may very well explain why private projects move faster than open source ones, the private ones have a profit motive, failure means financial failure. And it may explain why OSS projects, in general, have dramatically higher quality code. Motivations are different. "Needs" are determined by hackers...not marketing guys, MBAs, or even (perhaps to the detriment of user friendliness) customers. Though I question your unfounded assertion that proprietary projects move faster, and I think you need to be specific. Does Microsoft innovate faster than the Linux developers? How about Apple? Would Apple be where they are today without FreeBSD and Mach? I would concur that proprietary software companies sometimes move faster on usability. Certainly Microsoft has better accessibility than Gnome and Linux. But Linux has better large systems support than Microsoft or Apple (but not as good as Sun...though Solaris is now Open Source, I think we can give this point to the proprietary side, since most of the features were developed by a single company and before Solaris was fully Open Source). Likewise small systems support, where Linux has a very solid lead over Microsoft and Apple (and Sun). Hardware support is also better in Linux than both Windows Vista and Apple OS X (and Solaris). So who is moving faster? And, to come back to Apache...name any proprietary product that does half of what Apache can do or gets support for new protocols sooner. Open Source developers and commercial developers have different priorities. Your priority seems to be condescension. ;-) No matter how altruistic you are, if you fail financially, you don't eat. Altruism isn't the point of most Open Source software.

gm 18y ago
It's not about being condescending, my point was that the manager of the OSS project was a bad manager. A bad allocator of resources. That's pretty much it. I have no desire to get into a Technology A vs Technology B pissing match so I'll not even address those issues.