From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3cd3b8571c28b75f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-08-22 05:45:44 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!stamper.news.atl.earthlink.net!newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F461071.70703@noplace.com> From: Marin David Condic User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (OEM-HPQ-PRS1C03) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software References: <3F44BC65.4020203@noplace.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 12:45:44 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.165.23.197 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net 1061556344 209.165.23.197 (Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:45:44 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 08:45:44 EDT Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:41785 Date: 2003-08-22T12:45:44+00:00 List-Id: True - to a point. There are programmers with knowledge of other fields and with interests beyond the technical hacking. (Your humble narrator, for example, happens to know something of accounting and has an interest in developing such an application) But the critical point being that unless someone sees it as an opportunity to somehow get paid for doing the development work, a project like this doesn't get very far. A lot of the server and network and other "geek tools" that are available under things like Linux as GPL'ed projects got developed because some geek in some company needed it for internal purposes and saw no point in not releasing it to the rest of the world. Something like an accounting package doesn't fit in the same category. Companies don't usually develop these on their own anymore - they only buy off-the-shelf packages. To get someone to develop an off-the-shelf accounting system in some version of Open Source they either have to do it as some sort of "labor of love" or they have to see some potential for financial payoff. The "labor of love" variety of projects don't always get real far. MDC Hyman Rosen wrote: > > Thereby demonstrating exactly the problem that Ernie Ball was talking > about - programmers like to do programmer things, and that's what they'll > do unless they're paid to do otherwise. > > Also, programmers know how to do programmer things, but not necessarily > other things. And the people who know how to do the other things aren't > necessarily programmers. That's why you don't get much free software in > non-programmer areas. > -- ====================================================================== Marin David Condic I work for: http://www.belcan.com/ My project is: http://www.jast.mil/ Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g "In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire ======================================================================