Re: Reuse Repositories (Was: Object Oriented Turing Demo on FTP)

[world!srctran@uunet.uu.net (Gregory Aharonian)]

> 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 to
> 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 efforts.
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.

   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

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Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178