David,
> It's a sign that there are no major artificial barriers to entry for service
> providers, things that are anti-competitive (as so much of the commercial
> software industry thrives on), and are VERY bad for customers. They result in
> lock-in and force system changes rather than just service provider changes
> when something goes wrong.
Yes, more proponents for open source! I say that too, no lock-in with open source (I have many
usable self-maintained branches of abandoned projects). Definitely right about the "force system
changes".
Way I see it too, going back to closed source applications is out of the question. I use whatever
closed source apps that aren't broken yet, and move on to open source when they do break.
> So, for me the evidence he sites leads to a very different conclusion... one
> that supports the inherent stability and strength of community-driven open
> source projects that have an adequate contributor and service provider
> base. OFBiz is not nearly as big as Postgres, but I think we hit the critical
> mass point for long-term survival a year or two ago.
I agree about the critical mass. That's the biggest reason I "bet my career on OFBiz" (in my boss'
words) in the first place. I see many competent OFBiz engineers popping in an out of the MLs.
Problem is I don't see many contributing back. Guess you're right about some of the "dark side" of
open source projects.
Do you think actively training/creating more OFBiz engineers will explode the rate of development
of OFBiz? Or is that gonna further fuel the "take out without putting back in" syndrome?
Jonathon
David E. Jones wrote:
On Feb 6, 2007, at 2:20 PM, Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
> If you have ANY questions about the authors opinions in this direction,
> read his next article, a great blinders-fully-on article about
Postgres,
> showing a clear misunderstanding of community-driven projects:
>
> http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197002954
That article confuses me. Is it saying that "more core developers does
not equal better support"? Seems more like it's saying "it's not easy
to get paid and committed support because many support companies are
not sticking with providing PostgreSQL support for some (unexplained)
reason".
As I see it the argument in the article is that a couple of companies
failed in their attempt to compete in the PostgreSQL service and support
market, and therefore users should be wary of using the software.
Doesn't quite make sense to me. In fact, I'd say that this is a good
sign that there attempts by larger organizations to compete using things
other than quality of service is a very good sign. It's a sign that
there are no major artificial barriers to entry for service providers,
things that are anti-competitive (as so much of the commercial software
industry thrives on), and are VERY bad for customers. They result in
lock-in and force system changes rather than just service provider
changes when something goes wrong.
So, for me the evidence he sites leads to a very different conclusion...
one that supports the inherent stability and strength of
community-driven open source projects that have an adequate contributor
and service provider base. OFBiz is not nearly as big as Postgres, but I
think we hit the critical mass point for long-term survival a year or
two ago.
-David
