Robert Collins <[email protected]> writes:
> On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 20:27 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
>> Jeff Waugh <[email protected]> writes:
>> > <quote who="Ken Foskey">
>> >
>> >> Hmm discounts all my work. In one company a mere 2,000 employees
>> >> got to see it.
>> >>
>> >> Hey if my software is used by tens of people but the results are
>> >> seen by millions does that count? Nope I guess not really.
>> >>
>> >> I am wandering away depressed that I have squandered my life
>> >> programming meaningless applications...
>> >
>> > Not sure it makes too much sense to review your life's work on
>> > Daniel's very literal argumentation... :-)
>>
>> Colour me bitter, but the standard that Robert set seems a touch
>> dismissive by placing a bar that almost no software every achieves.
>
> Nearly everything in Ubuntu's default install reaches that degree of
> usage, more or less. Sure, most of the software in Ubuntu isn't in the
> default install. Heck, most of the software I've altered or written is
> almost certainly several orders of magnitude less used than say 'gdm'.
>
> Clearly, you get more feedback as you get more users, and anyone with
> a product used by thousands of users should be happy with that.
I absolutely agree with that.
> But "Mainstream" software -
Oh. My "ah-ha!" moment. I wasn't talking so much about the line
between "mainstream" and "non-mainstream" as between "no real users" and
"real users".
> which for me is software that has crossed the divide and become
> broadly available in its chosen market rather than being available
> only if you know about it and ask the right questions - really does
> have millions of users.
For the former I can see the argument, even if I think you are at least
one and probably two orders of magnitude too high — I though you were
talking about the later, and putting anything that hadn't achieved
millions of users into the "no real users" bucket.
> And yes, I know I'm discounting niche software packages like urban
> waste planning software - for such software the entire market is
> probably only just big enough to meet 'millions of users', if that.
>
> I certainly didn't mean to diminish the contribution we make when we
> contribute to an open source project that *isn't* already used by the
> vast masses.
Well, I am also willing to own up to being, perhaps, a little grumpy at
present and so inclined to read worse intention into things than was
intended — so, thank you for saying that.
> It is important to realise that the dynamic of talking to all your
> users and getting good bug reports changes drastically as the user
> base scales out.
Absolutely. Having worked on projects, in core and peripheral roles,
that range in size from one user through hundreds, thousands and,
occasionally, millions, I absolutely agree with that.
> With all of those caveats, I *still* wouldn't call a piece of software
> that 2000 people use as 'mainstream', particularly in a closed
> environment like in-house software:
Neither would I; I would, however, say that it has "real users".
> You've got at most $EMPLOYEES configurations to deal with, and
> typically internal IS will be trying to keep that down to a single
> digit count, as every different configuration adds to the support
> burden.
*nod* Having worked on products that were "toolkit" level, as well as
targeting system administrators, and strictly internal things, something
strictly in-house is decidedly easier. :)
Anyway, sorry if I grabbed the wrong end of the stick in what you were
saying; I have a lot less complaint now that I understand what you meant
better.
Regards,
Daniel
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
