[Sussex] Giving something back

[Geoff Teale]

OK chaps.. 

Bear with this one, it starts off as a moan, but it leads somewhere...
Steve D and Nik B especially, I'd like your thoughts on this one.

It's 12:50 and I'm bored.  Bored with a degree of severity that I haven't
felt since I was forced to study accountancy at Uni (I did a degree in
Business Studies as well as one in Computer Science, the Business studies
thing was possibly the worst idea of my entire life.. although learning any
VB at all comes a close second).

I think of all the useful things I could have coded in the time I've been
sitting here, bored, waiting on other people for their decisions on the
simplest little aspects of work - which itself consists of searching out
minute bugs in poorly written legacy code.  I came here as a Technical
Architect on the promise of exciting new projects - I now find myself doing
Jr. Programmer work in a beurocratic nightmare of an overruning project.

The code got so bad by lack of pier review or the burn of external scrutiny
- it is a typical example of why proprietary software cannot guarantee the
quality of Open Source Software - if you never show your pants there is no
insentive to keep them clean!

I've been doing this since March - I could have written a major new LINUX
app in that amount of time.  I could have got the INSIDE code finished 10
times over.  I could have written a sensible front end for sendmail
configuration, I could have written a football game for LINUX (the only
things in the windows world I actually miss are - Sensible World Of Soccer,
Fifa (various versions) and the like).  Dammit I could have devoted that
time to rewrite our core application on LINUX and seriously improve the
performance and ease maintenance.

I've read a lot about companies in North America, Asia and on the continent
who employ people to work partially on community projects, I've even
experienced this first hand with the W3C work I did for Thomson.  Companies
do this because:

1. Their output also benefits the company because it allows them to add
features they need into software they use.

2. It's great PR and it's good for the share price.  IT companies especially
benefit from enhancing their image in the community.  The likes of IBM, Sun,
SGI, HP and Oracle are always harping on about all the "good work they do
for the community" - it makes people feel better about handing over the
humungous cheques required to buy these peoples time and products.

These companies derive benefit from these activities, however they all have
something in common.  They exist (or are run) outside the UK.  My W3C
involvement at Thomson came about because I pushed for it - UK management
refused the idea, head office in Canada overruled them.  I read all the time
about companies across the globe who gain competitive advantage by "daring
to be different", by cutting through the bullsh*t and getting down to what
is important.

In my youthful idealism a little part of me hopes that one day I'll work for
a company like that - one that isn't crippled by layers of redundant
management - the people who had the ideas knocked out of them and swallowed
the mission statement whole.  

I am beginning to doubt that it is possible for such companies to exist in
this country, at least not on any scale.  Everything is weighted towards
monotheism in business - the protestant work ethic rules supreme.  The
overriding view is that the only way a business can be better is if we do
the same as everyone else, but we have fewer people working more hours for
lower pay (and we have better marketing). 

Now, in my view, to really appreciate and adopt open source software you
have to put something back.  It's all well and good businesses in this
country adopting Open Source software and reaping the benefits of low cost
software - but somewhere someone has to do the development work.  More and
more we're finding that the tools businesses need to run LINUX successfully
need some commercial development to make them truly useful.  Surely this is
wrong - LINUX in businesses is a living indication of the shift to a service
culture in society.  Software should be free (in both respects) and service
companies should support it's development, otherwise they'll have to provide
and service proprietary software and we'll end up with the same old problems
on a different platform.  IBM seem to get this, Sun get it, HP sort of get
it, SGI certainly get it.  All of those companies have donated resource to
community projects in order to address weaknesses in their products.  Gnome
2 and Apache 2 bear the hallmark of Sun and IBM expertease, we all benefit
and those companies and they reap financial benefits from it.  

In the UK we seem to be constitutionally incapable of investing for the long
term good of our companies.  We carve our plans in stone and punish people
when there forecasts are wrong - we doubt anything new and never make the
leap. We have become a nation of followers, looking back at our glory days
(if you really feel that an imperial Britain was glorious) instead of
driving our community and our business forwards.  

If British businesses does not look for ways to enhance themselves and the
community in which they exist, instead of trying to harvest every last drop
of resource right now, the  we will find ourselve a poor nation all too
soon.  Already the skilled work is leaving ur shores to India, Pakistan and
south-east Asia just as the manufacturing and primary industry did before
it.

In the global economy the UK is the guy whose been there for years - we may
be slightly better than the new guys, but we cost a lot more.  Guess who'll
get the sack when the company needs to "grow" a little more to keep the city
happy.

Open Source software, it's commuity, spirit, and business model represent a
change in attitude that could divert that fate.  Surely it's better to adopt
a service culture, and support that culture in a sustainable manner rather
than playing the same old game until the UK is nolonger economically viable.


Discuss.  ;)

-- 
GJT
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk


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