>     However, there is always a "software religon" problem, i.e. PCs will
>still run any software so using MS OSs and other software is not mandatory
>-- but most people and companies don't want to learn enough about software
>to deal with alternatives. This is why the SW consulting business worldwide
>is more that twice that of primary SW sales -- and why SW religons
>flourish. Branding works most in situations where people are
>unsophisticated and confused.
>     Dan Ingalls has pointed out that in an Open Source Software of modest
>size -- and particularly one that tries to be self-disclosing (as we hope
>to do a lot of in the next year) -- one or two savvy people are all it
>takes to be independent.

Synchronicity -- I was just talking to my Sophomore Squeak-using students
about this kind of contrast this morning.  They just completed an
assignment to create a multimedia slide show presentation tool in Squeak,
handling GIF/JPEG/AIFF/U-law/MIDI, etc.  The students were complaining that
multimedia handling in Squeak was "inconsistent" and "there had to be a
better way" and "why wasn't this documented better?"

I suggested that they build the consistencies and better ways and
documentation themselves.  I made a contrast similar to Alan's, but in
terms of respect.  Standards and closed languages implicitly say, "We have
this covered.  People smarter than you have already figured it out.  Just
take our way." And if bugs appear, the answer is, "We will fix it for you.
Soon. Really."  Squeak (and other Open Source efforts) are implicitly
saying, "You are smart, too.  You can figure this out and improve it.
Please share what you have done because then we'll all be better off."  The
former path respects the programmer as a user, while the latter path
respects the programmer as a peer.

Mark

--------------------------
Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing : Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
(404) 894-5618 : Fax (404) 894-0673 : guzdial at cc.gatech.edu
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/people/Faculty/Mark.Guzdial.html