[Sussex] Giving something back

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff

On  05 November 2002 at 12:58 wrote:
> 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.

Happy to help - I'm in NY (North Yorkshire; not New York) this week
(and prob. next) which is why I didn't answer before.

[Nik - I've seen your reply by you sniped out part of the original I
would rather cover some of those points.]
 
> 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've done better than you.  I left Uni and when to work for the Military
sector.  Poor pay but interesting (after I got some experience) work.
 
> 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.

You'll get this in any company.  Unless you're employed for what you have
already done and are famous for it (like Alan Cox).

> 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!

So speaks a man with is pants on view.  If your not a builder then
you must be married. :-)

Joking aside, there is a lot of OSS out there that isn't worth much.
Enlightenment has been criticised for being poorly designed and coded.
Rasterman, to name but one, is not a "professional" coder but a
graphics artist that expresses himself in software.

I'm know there are some very good closed source projects that are
well written -  I've written some of them.  Don't paint all closed
source with the same sh*t that is brushed on your current bug bear.

> 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 doubt you could do all you claim.  Good code is refactored as
new ideas and expereace come to play.  The INSIDE code I published
a while back I'm quite proude of - but it will be improved (a lot)
by me.  It's just a pity that I don't have time time at the moment.

OOS allows others to added their good ideas.  The ego of the
original has to be suppressed in the light of this.

> 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.

It's not just there.  Alan Cox and Stephen Teewlie are good examples
here.  Remember we here about the best (and the worst) by the average
is just to common to get a look in.

> 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.

Okay - I take the point - but even abroad these are the excpetions not
the rule.

> 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 do think that there is something fundamentally wrong with British
Management.  It's summed up with the phrase: "Promoted to your level
of incompetence."

> 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). 

Not true; there are may examples where this is not true.  Lotus and
Morgan in the car industry, Dyson in white goods.  But I do agree
that most big companies are stuck in the mud.  But isn't that true
of the US too.  Look at the DMCA.

> 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.  

I'm not sure I can fully agree with that.  Do IBM really get
Open Source?  No.  Why?  They have not given up Software
Patience.  There are many companies wanting Linux and they're
just responding to that business need.  IBM, SGI, Sun etc can
lenience software for no fee as they sell hardware.  The 
software is the vehicle for selling hardware.  Also the
projects turned over to OSS are old hat by then (NFS).
 
> In the UK we seem to be constitutionally incapable of 
> investing for the long
> term good of our companies.

True.  If a project can show a profit in five years its canned.
Same is true of US.  (But not Japan).

> We carve our plans in stone and 
> punish people
> when there forecasts are wrong - we doubt anything new and 
> never make the
> leap.

Most people avoid change.  You (I and all Geeks) are freeks.
We work in an industry that complete changes its base every 18
months (Morse Law).

> 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.  

Agreed - me must move one; but not forget the past.  Leasons can be
learned from looking back, but the head must turn a look forward too.

> 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.

True, but that is how empires fall.  The British Empire fell because
we believed we couldn't fail - an internal process.  Was the fall of
the Roman Empire really that different?  I know the Vandals attacked,
but wasn't Roman so convinced of its own invincibility?  Just like
we were with India?

If you talk you most Americans they believe the same.  There "Empire" 
will last for every.  Even:
  1). in the light of every other empire in history failing, and
  2). as they pass laws to limit their own creativity (see
       Lessig's "The Future of Ideas".
If you want to go to somewhere were they are allowing thinking out-
side the box then it looks like S. America, Africa, India or China.
But they'll try anyting to catch up to the rich west.

> 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.

At the moment I think that the UK and US software engeers are better
value for money (less bugs per line of code) than India and other
3rd worlders.  But that will change.  Sure India is cheeper but as
I have said elsewhere engineer costs are not that significult.
As the quality of the workforce improves so to their salaries.
Look at Twain, or better yet Japan, as an example of this.

> 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.

Not all software should (let along needs) to be OSS.  That's 
to long a rant for one AM.

Eric A of sendmail fame now heads his own company.  He no-longer
codes and he wants to.  But for his company he needs to devote is
time elsewhere.  Do the coders at Sendmail Inc feel the same passion
for sendmail source that Eric does?  I don't think so.

Yes there are a few (a very few) that get the perfect job of 
developing OSS.  Most work is done in the Unis.  There are few
paid by commercial companies.  It's not that big a list.

If you want to be paid to develop software you have to work within
the company structure.  That is a fact of life; live with it.
There are many who start "companys" on a new idea and many fall
by the way side.  Those that make it we get to hear about.  Those
that don't are never heard of.

Of the many small computer software companies being run out of a
small office or room back in 60s & 70s few made it biggest; I 
wouldn't want to work for most of them.

> Discuss.  ;)

See above.  I know the general note of my reply is doom and gloom
(must like your posting) but I have come to the conclusion that if
you want to do something different you need to strike out on your
own (or with a few like-minded individuals).  Success is not 
guaranteed. To quote from "Dune":
  "They tried and failed?"
  "They tried and died!"

If you do go it alone that brings its own set of problems and 
restuctions.

Steve