From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 27 Jan 93 19:12:23 GMT From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) Subject: Re: Guest account at Center for Software Reuse Message-ID: List-Id: >Two questions: > Have you thought about calling DSRO to apply for an account? >(Because of Export Controlled material there needs to be individual >accountability) [703-536-6900]. > Because everyone else does it differently, does that make them right? > >Ken. Ken, Your questions reflect why reuse is so screwed up in the DoD. Reuse is a technology transfer problem. For those of us who try to earn a living on reuse and techtran, the key is marketing, marketing, marketing. I have to go out and find customers and sell, sell, sell. They are not going to come to me, I have to go to them. I shouldn't be calling DSRO - DSRO should be calling me and everyone else pushing their reusable software. DSRO, like all of the prior funded DoD reuse efforts, are groups of people in a business who don't want to be in a business. The result is the endless Santayana disasters that always repeat the prior mistakes. Sure there are different ways of doing things. The problem with DSRO, ASSET, RAPID, etc is that they never learn from the mistakes of previous efforts, nor do they seek out those who have succeeded with reuse. I know of half a dozen or so substantial reuse efforts in other branches of the government who have never been contacted by any of the DoD reuse efforts. What kind of incompetence does this show? For example, I am always seeking out collections of reusable software to add information on to my databases, a very active process. Not once has any DoD reuse effort ever contacted me to arrange to get at my information, or my techniques for tracking all of the government's software output on a budget of $2000 a year, or my knowledge of the locations of thousands and thousands of defense computer programs available publicly in source code form. What does this say about DSRO's real interest in reuse, as opposed to their real interest in spending whatever money they have been budgeted? If DSRO has to exist as a stand alone business, with no government support, with its current management and business practices, where users had to pay for access to reusable software, DSRO would be bankrupt in six months. If DSRO showed its user interface to their components library at any trade show or conference, they would be laughed off the stage (and having once seen the source code to the interface, a well justified laugh). What this means is that contractors don't like to spend money on reuse, and that efforts like DSRO are just another welfare subsidy to defense contractors too long coddled with blank-check government contracts, and a place to prepare resumes. Greg Aharonian Source Translation & Optimization -- ************************************************************************** Greg Aharonian Source Translation & Optimiztion P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178