On Tuesday 23 January 2007 18:36, David E. Jones wrote: > On Jan 23, 2007, at 4:17 AM, Ian McNulty wrote: > > Let's try a slightly different tack. Tailor-made is what we're > > talking about here. > > > > Tailor-made suits fit like a glove and cost more than most of us > > can afford. > > > > There was a time when that was all there was, and tailor shops on > > street corner were as common as greengrocers. But tailor-made suits > > were so expensive that most ordinary working people bought only > > one of two in a lifetime. Sunday-Best they used to call it. > > Preserved in mothballs in the wardrobe and only ever worn for > > church. Of course for top-drawer executives it was different. But > > then it always is. > > > > When the first off-the peg chain stores started appearing on the > > High Street, almost everybody was appalled. First into battle were > > the tailors in their corner shops. > > > > How can one size fit everybody? > > > > Well, of course it can't. > > > > The great leap forward - the Blue Ocean thinking outside the box - > > was to produce a carefully banded range of sizes, to fit most of > > the people most of the time. > > > > "But then no size will ever fit anybody," was the next outraged cry. > > > > Well of course they can't. Never could. Never would. And still don't! > > > > The trick was to produce suit designs where it doesn't really > > matter. Pile them high and bang them out at prices everyone could > > afford. Making the leap from fitting some of the people all of the > > time to fitting most of the people most of the time was all it took > > to turn a whole industry completely upside down. > > > > The average tailor on the average corner quickly lost the plot. The > > master tailors in Saville Row upped their prices even more. > > > > Personally I thing that's all very sad. But you can't stop > > progress. That's the way all technology goes. One-off automobiles > > for the aristos give way to Model T Ford's for the masses, putting > > average tailor-made manufacturers out of business and leaving a > > small niche of master-tailors servicing the extremely well-off who > > would never be caught dead in anything off-the-peg. > > > > If David is saying is that he wants to stay tailoring for the > > executives and is appalled at the idea of selling ill-fitting suits > > to the masses then no way would I want to knock that. > > Except I didn't say that. Suits and software are a bit different. > > What I said is that whatever we try to do, there has to be a model > for it and a plan to make it work. > > I think it would be cool to go after the end-user who would never > think of customizing OFBiz or paying for it. The question is, how do > we get people to work on this as a derivative of OFBiz? What will be > the incentive for analysts, developers, documentation writers, > support personnel, etc? One possible motive it to get people started on a convertion, and then when they discover how wonderful it is, AND that it is very customisable they will start to pay for work.
David > > Not that it's impossible either. There are a few open source groups > doing packages oriented this way. Their funding model is usually > similar to commercial software though, which is why they like the GPL > license, or even worse the HPL, (onerous enough that some will need/ > want to buy a commercial license). > > So, in a community driven project that as the target audience how do > we get people interested enough in working on it to design it, build > it, document it, maintain it, and support it? On top of all of that, > if we really want a lot of users we'll probably need to market it a > bit too. > > I never said I want to stay doing what I am. It's really not that > great. I'm certainly not appalled at doing something different, > though I do appreciate the dramatic effect of the phrase-ology. I did > say that I don't know how to do that, especially in a community- > driven project. > > -David
