David,
On Aug 9, 2011, at 6:26 PM, David Avendasora wrote: >> Yes well I think there is still an Amiga community so the community bit is >> sort of as important as a bake sale. > > :-) An interesting perspective. What is Cayenne, or any Apache project for > that matter, other than a community of developers? I believe that your > comparison to the Amiga community is a bit of a strawman, and it only > devalues all open source projects. Obviously you have taken offense at the "bake sale" metaphor, however it is a reality for both commercial and open source projects. There are wildly successful open source projects at the same time that there are poorly managed commercial projects. This is a very odd time for software developers and reputations are being made and destroyed by association with a project. The Amiga was an insanely advanced micro computer platform that was mismanaged and as a result set desktop advancements back years. The only think left is a small community who can't let go of the historic legacy. Apple has made incredible software pattern contributions that will be felt for the next few decades (if not longer). WO was a great library but the market has chosen Java. Ultimately having a tiny community who LOVE a software library does wonders for the developer's ego but nothing for his reputation and makes little or no contribution to the larger community of developers. Other than Apple, Google, and Pixar Open source projects are where the main action is. But obscurity will kill innovation for an open source project as fast as it does for a commercial project. So while, just like bake sales, it is great to be around people who think that the Amiga made an historic contribution it is time to move on. In fact Apple is now contemplating the idea that IOS is going to be the next great platform and that OSX will go away. Personally I think that is a crazy idea and that OSX is a great platform and will never go away. But I could be, metaphorically, baking pumpkin bread for a future OSX bake sale. :) Having said that, I personally think that the Cayenne project deserves a heck of a lot more recognition that it is getting. Joe
