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Does Open Source Need Quality Standards?
underpar writes "This Techworld.com article reports that a UK group called the Open Source Consortium is being officially launched today. The article further states that the goal of the group is to respond to claims that switching to open source is more expensive than using Microsoft products and to help smaller companies compete with Sun and IBM for open source contracts. They say they will not compete with other open source groups and they intend to eventually come to the US. The hype-filled about us section of their site says their Quality Standard Certification provides a "simple framework for self-assessment and performance improvement." The question of whether this is useful or even wanted in the US still remains to be answered."
Some open source projects do (carrier grade linux; linux in medical devices).
Others don't (screen savers, C# clones(to match MSFT's Quality Standards), etc)
Just because Linux is under the GPL which is an OSI aproved license does not mean that anything that has to do with open source has to be about linux.
I like the dedication to quality evidenced in their About Us page:
We are a not-for-profit organisation which guarantees the the quality of open source deployments in the public sector (emphasis mine)
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
Short answer is YES, almost everything needs a certain level of quality standards for widespread use. Even MS has its own quality standards :)
However, who is to set these standards and who is to govern them is another question.
I have a subtle feeling that Open Source = Freedom, that's probably why we see so many forks and distros because "I would have done this that way, and I could".
So what is to stop a "US Open Source Consortium" being officially launched tomorrow because another group of developers have different idea on Open Source's quality standards?
Can Linus the most influential man gives a single, authoritative guideline?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
More to the point, isn't ISO 9001 one of those standards where you prove your ``quality'' by committing to following a process, and documenting that you do indeed follow that process? The inevitable result is that you can commit to shooting your customer in the foot, and document that you have done so, and earn the highest ``quality'' rating for it. That sort of ``quality'' isn't very reassuring.
See what I've been reading.
If you have had Six Sigma traning, then you are definitely baffled about what it is.
--- Ban humanity.
Is that where they test Linux by throwing it in the ocean? Much like testing Windows by defenestrating it?
I think we all agree that a business world based on OpenSource would be preferable to a Windows-centric system. To achieve this, high-quality-business solutions have to be written and found. I am running my own business and am using Linux on 5 machines. There is some old Mac, but I do not really use it anymore. To please the Finanzamt (the german IRS), you have to file reports, do some accounting etc. This has proven very difficult for me when I tried it with OpenOffice. So I searched for business software, e.g. accounting suits, ERP and CRM-Software. I tried for over 2 months and have compiled about 100 different approaches - but all of them were either abandoned, not scaleable to other countries needs (I cannot use spanish tax forms) or they simply didn't work the way they where supposed to do (I even had an KDE program that was published with internal static linking to the programmers home directory!). I finally settled with lxoffice (http://www.lxoffice.org), which is fairly scaleable and where 95% of the system works, but it was a hard fight. While I am accepting such situations as a hobbyist, as a business owner that's lots of time I am not paid for. Quality control could help in such situations, helping users choose reliable software. And yes, I'd be willing to pay for it.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
"Who is this 'We,' paleface?"
... MR. SUBARU!
:)
Lots of people are quick to say that someone else's work "needs" something. My car needs its cupholder in a sane spot, instead of so it just about blocks the radio buttons. It's true, but that's not exactly a demand on the car maker. Just a hint
Sometimes it's hypothetical and prescriptive; "Red Hat needs to compete in the market X, so it needs to advertise in trade publication Z and add the de-pre-mux-defrobnostication patch that this special niche requires." Fine
Other times, the "need" is expressed as an imperative, when the speaker has no standing to demand anything ("The GIMP interface needs to change!") etc, or (as in the headline here) where there is no single Thing to change. "Open Source" covers a huge range; it's like "Things that have the letter R." It's true that some of these things (like Catherine Zeta Jones) are beautiful, but it it does not follow that all things with "R" better our existence in quite the same way.
It's perfectly nice and positive and welcome etc that someone has decided to promulgate what they consider higher standards of quality for "Open Source" -- as long as everyone realizes that only a certain subset of open source software can be scrutinized by any given such body, that developers may have their own ideas (even if they are not universally popular, and even if they have no intention of following someone else's ideas of UI perfection), that open source's great advantage in this context is that UIs are a) frequently separate from the underlying code and b) forkable.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Certain versions of embedded and server Linux had already passed the Telecom Carrier Grade Reliability Test. Carrier Grade Linux is 99.999% Reliable. Any Window is NOT Telecom Carrier Grade Reliable. Microsoft won't even try because it will fail.
I can imagine an organized group like this, though, would be excellent at answering issues like corporate generated FUD in an organized and coherent way. That's our big problem, we lack representation (not counting eccentric geniuses with big ZZ top beards).
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
Not only an overgenralisation, it is a redundant idea to boot. OSDL already provides a lot of the stuff they publicly talk about - code quality etc. The real purpose of the organisation comes to light when you read deeper into the site.
You need to be skilled in their "consulting framework" and you need to conform to some "financial framework" as well. Their membership criteria are mysterious (hint, you probably need to be a member of their club of buddies) and some of the organisations that are members (and knowing those organisations intimately, they probably are the drivers behind this thing as well) are decidedly dodgy - Open Forum Europe has publicly spoken as "Open Source Representatives" and as such, have signed a declaration supporting software patents. Looks to me like just another group of people trying to corner a market. Anyone remember the Open Group, and the "good" they did for UNIX? (another hint - a lot of the same people are involved)
This is so much the wrong crowd to hang out with....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.