Re: Reuse Repositories (Was: Object Oriente

Re: Reuse Repositories (Was: Object Oriente

[Stephen P. N orman]

In article 93Apr29094316@world.std.com, srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonia
n) writes:
> 
> > ASSET, DSRO, C2Store, STARS, CARDS, DISA, DSSA, PRISM, CASS, ARC, SIMTEL,
> > etc. seem to be reorganized all too often. We have a hard time staying up t
o
> > date with who is where, who used to be what, and so forth. Was very
> > convenient that at the 'Who's doing What in Reuse' pitch at the STARS 92 
> > conference there were no handouts of the slides available.
> 
>    Not only do they reorganize too often (in order to distance themselves
> from initial promises and goals that were impossible), but you should of
> questioned why they are in existence at all.  Consider software reuse
> centers - if there is any economic value in the process that it should be
> possible for the private sector to assume the responsibility.
>    I am trying to run a such a software reuse center as a private
> enterprise, and all of my competitors are government funded government effort
s.
> ASSET, DSRO, VCOE, ADANET, COSMIC, NTTC, etc all with taxpayers dollars
> can advertise, have 800 numbers and goto trade shows and conferences (well
> at least the non-DoD efforts).  I can not afford most of these marketing
> luxuries, and can't offer my services for free, making it difficult to find
> paying customers.  I can't find investors since they don't want to invest
> in a business where the "competition" has such an outrageous advantage.
> And the shame of it all is that my database of information on reusable
> software is probably three times larger than the collective totals of all
> of the government sponsored efforts.  Yet it languishes because of these
> socialist interventions in the marketplace by the comrades in the DoD, DoC
> and NASA.

Yes, this doesn't help, but there are other market forces at work here too.
Look at the some of the larger issues such as the immaturity of most
organization's software processes. I submit that without a mature software proc
ess
reuse cannot pay off in any significant type of way. Most types of reuse
occur now in an ad-hoc fashion. Implementation details often kill the reuse
potentail of the components in question. And in the government world, the prima
cy
of program requirements rule out most possibilities anyways. Not to mention tha
t current DOD regulatory policies are diametrically oppossed to private 
investment in domain architectures, where there could be a larger payoff.
So with what's out there now, I don't think there would be much of a profit mar
gin
anyways, and with the government competition you are really in a pickle.

BTW, we have your software directory in-house and I think it is a reasonable
approach to marketing this stuff. It must have been a heck of an effort to 
dig out all of this software from the various government organizations. But if
I were running your business, I would certainly tone down your caustic postings
to the net (maybe the pot is calling the kettle black here :-) ). You can't ber
ate people into changing their ways, perhaps you have tried the subtle salesman
approach and have gotten fed up with it.

> 
>    The DoD might get estatic about the "control" it has over software reuse
> in the defense world by controlling these centers, but it is at the expense
> of more efficient software reuse than the private sector could offer.
> 
>    The choice is simple: does the DoD want control or success with software
> reuse in light of the greater goal of systems development?  Putting people
> with no experience in charge of software reuse centers, but are good
> soldiers (literally and figuratively) indicates that the DoD prefers control
> over success.
> 
> Greg Aharonian
> 
> -- 
> **************************************************************************
> Greg Aharonian
> Source Translation & Optimiztion
> P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178


Steve Norman
Software Reuse Group
Martin Marietta Astronautics
PO Box 179
Denver CO 80201

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