[geeks] Open office expansion (formerly bridging networks)

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 14:43:38 +0200
"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" <gsm at mendelson.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 19, 2006 at 08:26:10AM -0400, John Francini wrote:
> 
> I wrote:
> 
> > >A friend of mine has an idea for  "killer app" for Open Office. It
> > >will never go anywhere because no one will fund it. It's too big a
> > >project for people to tackle at home.
> > 
> > Like the Linux kernel?  Like Apache?  Before they were 'adopted' by 
> > for-profit concerns, they were originally developed (and still are) 
> > by hundreds, if not thousands, of contributors world-wide working
> > in their bedrooms, basements, or dens, or living rooms.
> 
> The Linux kernel was an academic project that took off. Apache was an
> already existing product that people just started expanding. Wasn't
> it based on the work done at the NSCA which would also make it an
> academic product?

Yes, but there is little difference between academic and garage
programming, except the latter is often done by people with a lot more
experience.

The Linux kernel was only an academic project for the first 0.<some
zeros>1 percent of its life.  It very quickly became a community effort.
Same for BSD.

Lately most of the hard work on X has been individuals and small
groups.  In fact, its corporate sponsors have done almost nothing.

> No one, nor any group would take it up, it's too narrowly focused. If
> people were paid to develop it, the cost would be under $500k (which
> is quite cheap) and it could be sold as an add on to Star Office. It
> would replace software which goes for about $500 a computer on up. 

Sounds interesting.  

The one big problem with open source is that too many of the developers
are immature and undisciplined.  The projects never stabilize so they
are constantly moving targets.  You don't support sources in reality,
you support binaries, because those are builds you can test and know
the details of.  The open source world largely doesn't understand
that.  It has nothing to do with wether or not the source is availble.
Even totally open source projects benefit heavily from binary
stability.  That's why the Linux kernel binary API madness is so
stupid, and to a lesser extent the same problems applies to *BSD
systems.

Microsoft is no better really.  While they do preserve binary APIs for
a long time, at the same time they constantly make new ones, partially
overrid old ones or subtly change them, and otherwise trash the benefits
of API stability.

Damn... doesn't anyone get this right?

> If it were to be taken on by a corporate sponsor or VC, it could be
> given away if you sold 10,000 support contracts at $100 per year
> each. Considering the sales of the proprietary products, it would be
> quite possible. 

Maybe it just needs to hit the ears of the right person.



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shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Tara is grass, and behold how Troy lieth
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