Re: INFO-ADA Digest V93 #359

[world!srctran@decwrl.dec.com (Gregory Aharonian)]

Dave Emery:
>Gee, Greg, you can't have it both ways.  You complain that the
>government undercuts your reuse business, and then you want the
>government to produce CD-ROMs.  There are 2 (count them) CD-ROM's full
>of Ada currently in production.  MITRE is not permitted to compete
>with private industry, and as a policy government tries to avoid doing
>work that can be done by the private sector.  

    Look, CDROM distribution has little impact on software reuse business.
Cost effect software reuse is technology transfer, and requires a lot more
than CD-ROMs full with software. So I don't care if the DoD did send out
CD-ROMs.  My point is that the DoD id funding three software reuse centers,
which could be replaced by one guy with a CD-ROM printer, who would be
more effective than the current DoD efforts.  No matter how you look at
it, ASSET/VCOE/DSRO are a duplicative waste of money.  So when you said
that the DoD is effectively promoting reuse, you're wrong, as illustrated
by the shutting down of the SIMTEL-Ada repository, the inability of the
socialist bureacrats at ASSET to use the Internet and USENET, the lack
of interest by the DoD in my massive database of all of the government's
software, etc.

  Withr regards to MITRE, and all of the other FFRDC's, you do compete with
the private sector.  In fact there was an article in the May 20, 1993, issue
of Washington Technology talking about how the Professional Services Council
(130 federal contractors) is waging battle in Washington to "stop what we
think is unwarranted growth" by FFRDCs like MITRE, SEI, IDA and RAND.
Times must be tough when you guys start turning on each other.

>Incidentally, which CD-ROM format do you suggest?  Have *YOU*
>considered publishing a CD-ROM?  Frankly, 3 1/2" 720kb DOS formatted
>disks are about the most universal medium I know.  There are a heluva
>lot more people with PC's (and Mac's that can read PC disks, and Suns,
>etc that can read PC disks) than there are CD-ROM readers...

With all of the money the DoD is wasting on its current software
reuse efforts, it can afford to support all of the formats, though even
supporting a few would well cover the PC/MAC/SUN market.  Someone wants
to give me some money, I'd be glad to put my massive databases on CDROMS
and distribute them more widely.  But unlike the freeloaders at ASSET etc.
I have to pay for this stuff out of the very limited profits (i.e. none)
I make with my business.

The DoD has absolutely no interest in wide-scale software reuse, only
in wide-scale control of reuse activities. The three current efforts at
ASSET/VCOE/DSRO would last at most two weeks if they had to become a real
business and charge people for their products and services.  Their 
operations are based on nonsense economics, they show no interest in
the operations of reuse businessmen like myself, who do orders more for
orders less money, they make no use of computer technology and the Internet,
they have no skills in locating software around the country, and are not
subject to any qualified peer review.  I can go into any DoD lab and find
tons of Ada software publicly available that is not in any of these
repositories.

Say what you want about other things, but when it comes to software reuse,
the DoD doesn't care about being effective, about supporting the private
sector, and about enforcing new contract procurement regulations asking
contractors to submit list of available reusable software.

   I just hope the current DoD study of the economics of the reuse centers
tells the truth about this waste.  At least they have a trained economist
conducting the study, probably a first.

Greg
-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178