I agree that sentence two is the operative factor at
play here. Gregor and I talked about this motivation (or
rather, non-motivation) in the first article back in
September.
However, in the CMS world, it leads to a serious
problem. Most people that write content in the world aren't
software developers. Maybe they are manager, or
secretaries, or public administrators. They already have a
tool they use to write all their content.
MS and Apple (the #1 and #2 end user vendors) both
have desktop integration with WebDAV. You can treat a
DAV server as folder and shove stuff in it. And I'm sure
some in this thread will claim that MS has bastardized
DAV, but the truth is, you can connect quite easily to an
Apache DAV server.
This is a real benefit for users. Would you rather futz through some bizarre HTML interface
that made you do a file upload for every change, or just
do drag-and-drop? If you say the former, you're obviously
not the target market.:^)
Thus, while this is uninteresting to developers, it is
interesting to users and thus decision-makers. And they
will make decisions we won't really (in the aggregate)
like.
These are good points, but I worry that they are the
ones traditionally grasped at so we can avoid tackling
something unintersting but important.
As an example, our article mentioned WebDAV. In
the more mainstream world of content management, this
is one of the most widely implemented standards. It's
built into Windows and OS X. It's built into almost all
Adobe and Macromedia products. It's built into KDE and
kind-of into Gnome. You can get a kernel module for it.
And of course, it showed up first in Apache, created by the
new head of the ASF (Greg Stein).
Thus, I don't think any of the four criteria above apply
to WebDAV.
And yet very few open source CMS projects implement
WebDAV. In fact, few implement the CMS-important pieces
of HTTP (like DELETE).
However, a higher percentage of commercial CMS
products implement WebDAV. There's some kind of
factor at play here, and Gregor and I are curious about to
hear people's insights.
Indeed, that's a good point and the basis of our article.
But where does that leave the 99.99% of the world that
doesn't want to become experts in the internals of
someone's software?
In the world of content management, we're trying to
get governments to use our software instead of paying
$1-4M for a commercial deployment. Can you imagine a
government bureaucrat's reaction to the statement
above? They have money, but not software engineering
talent. They'll have to find something else that fulfills their
needs.
And thus the crux in content management. Many of
the open source CMS projects are launched from a web
consulting company that needs the software to generate
demand for services. It needs to please customers. Thus,
this is a different motivator than what you describe.
It is true that in OSCOM we have found a pretty cool
social incentive to working together. That is, we all like
hanging out with each other. This winds up being a very
important part of the equation.
Regarding Twingle, Stephan said it well. Some of the
other responses in this thread imply that standards should
be forced upon developers. Actually, the point of our
article was to say that we should provide good reasons
why projects should interop, and make sure there is enough
incentive.
With OSCOM we're trying to find common needs and
work on them together, rather than duplicating the cost
across all projects.
Well, that's an interesting take on the state of the
industry.
On the other hand, I think all is not
happiness-and-roses on our side of the fence. In the CMS
market, we a ways to go on some things that are important
to more mainstream customers, such as vastly improved
usability. Let's face it, as some of the responses in this
thread shows, open source developers aren't always
enthusastic about such non-core activities.
For better or worse, commercial companies live and
die based on making people happy enough to fork over
money. This forces them to pay attention to things that
might not be a high priority for a geek, but are high
priorities for real-world folks.
I think interop is one of these things,
especially in something like content
management.
This is a reasonable assesment of the motivators in open
source interop. We talked a little bit about this in part
one of the article, last September.
Who are the beneficiaries of interop, and do these people
matter to open source developers? This is indeed part of
the challenge. The developers want their itches scratched,
but we all want to see open source used in important
places, like government administration. Those folks have
itches too. Telling them they have to implement their
needs really just sends them over to someone who will, for
money of course.
Part of what we're trying to do with OSCOM is create some
incentives and good reasons to work together. Thus,
instead of pushing people towards interop, we're pulling.
There's people in that site too!
on
LWN.net Closing Down
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I'm pleased to see all the positive comments about
LWN. It's also been my favorite Linux site, going back to 1998. In fact, LWN broke the news about Zope going open source, one hour after I announced it at a Python conference. We weren't ready for the exposure they provided, so we had to haul *ss to catch up.:^)
What isn't discussed here is the personal side. I think Liz, Jon, and Dennis are
some of the most honorable, decent people in the
world of Linux. They've all given a lot to the
community, even beyond LWN.
Lots of others shoved
wads of cash in their pockets when the bubble
inflated. LWN held out until an offer with
integrity showed up. Alas, it turned out to be
a moral but non-lucrative choice.
To Liz and Jon and Dennis: kudos for being Good
People. You've already created a warm legacy,
something not enough people in the community can
claim.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that sentence two is the operative factor at play here. Gregor and I talked about this motivation (or rather, non-motivation) in the first article back in September.
However, in the CMS world, it leads to a serious problem. Most people that write content in the world aren't software developers. Maybe they are manager, or secretaries, or public administrators. They already have a tool they use to write all their content.
MS and Apple (the #1 and #2 end user vendors) both have desktop integration with WebDAV. You can treat a DAV server as folder and shove stuff in it. And I'm sure some in this thread will claim that MS has bastardized DAV, but the truth is, you can connect quite easily to an Apache DAV server.
This is a real benefit for users. Would you rather futz through some bizarre HTML interface that made you do a file upload for every change, or just do drag-and-drop? If you say the former, you're obviously not the target market. :^)
Thus, while this is uninteresting to developers, it is interesting to users and thus decision-makers. And they will make decisions we won't really (in the aggregate) like.
These are good points, but I worry that they are the ones traditionally grasped at so we can avoid tackling something unintersting but important.
As an example, our article mentioned WebDAV. In the more mainstream world of content management, this is one of the most widely implemented standards. It's built into Windows and OS X. It's built into almost all Adobe and Macromedia products. It's built into KDE and kind-of into Gnome. You can get a kernel module for it. And of course, it showed up first in Apache, created by the new head of the ASF (Greg Stein).
Thus, I don't think any of the four criteria above apply to WebDAV.
And yet very few open source CMS projects implement WebDAV. In fact, few implement the CMS-important pieces of HTTP (like DELETE).
However, a higher percentage of commercial CMS products implement WebDAV. There's some kind of factor at play here, and Gregor and I are curious about to hear people's insights.
Indeed, that's a good point and the basis of our article. But where does that leave the 99.99% of the world that doesn't want to become experts in the internals of someone's software?
In the world of content management, we're trying to get governments to use our software instead of paying $1-4M for a commercial deployment. Can you imagine a government bureaucrat's reaction to the statement above? They have money, but not software engineering talent. They'll have to find something else that fulfills their needs.
And thus the crux in content management. Many of the open source CMS projects are launched from a web consulting company that needs the software to generate demand for services. It needs to please customers. Thus, this is a different motivator than what you describe.
Heheh, thanks for the nice words Stephan. :^)
It is true that in OSCOM we have found a pretty cool social incentive to working together. That is, we all like hanging out with each other. This winds up being a very important part of the equation.
Regarding Twingle, Stephan said it well. Some of the other responses in this thread imply that standards should be forced upon developers. Actually, the point of our article was to say that we should provide good reasons why projects should interop, and make sure there is enough incentive.
With OSCOM we're trying to find common needs and work on them together, rather than duplicating the cost across all projects.
Well, that's an interesting take on the state of the industry.
On the other hand, I think all is not happiness-and-roses on our side of the fence. In the CMS market, we a ways to go on some things that are important to more mainstream customers, such as vastly improved usability. Let's face it, as some of the responses in this thread shows, open source developers aren't always enthusastic about such non-core activities.
For better or worse, commercial companies live and die based on making people happy enough to fork over money. This forces them to pay attention to things that might not be a high priority for a geek, but are high priorities for real-world folks.
I think interop is one of these things, especially in something like content management.
This is a reasonable assesment of the motivators in open source interop. We talked a little bit about this in part one of the article, last September.
Who are the beneficiaries of interop, and do these people matter to open source developers? This is indeed part of the challenge. The developers want their itches scratched, but we all want to see open source used in important places, like government administration. Those folks have itches too. Telling them they have to implement their needs really just sends them over to someone who will, for money of course.
Part of what we're trying to do with OSCOM is create some incentives and good reasons to work together. Thus, instead of pushing people towards interop, we're pulling.
I'm pleased to see all the positive comments about LWN. It's also been my favorite Linux site, going back to 1998. In fact, LWN broke the news about Zope going open source, one hour after I announced it at a Python conference. We weren't ready for the exposure they provided, so we had to haul *ss to catch up. :^)
What isn't discussed here is the personal side. I think Liz, Jon, and Dennis are some of the most honorable, decent people in the world of Linux. They've all given a lot to the community, even beyond LWN.
Lots of others shoved wads of cash in their pockets when the bubble inflated. LWN held out until an offer with integrity showed up. Alas, it turned out to be a moral but non-lucrative choice.
To Liz and Jon and Dennis: kudos for being Good People. You've already created a warm legacy, something not enough people in the community can claim.