What Was Old Is New
Again
A number of old projects I worked on have begun to
stir up interest. On Tuesday I got email from some
folks who are interested in creating a German
translation of the
C# vs. Java article I wrote in college.
Yesterday I got email from Vladimir
Bossicard requesting links to my old code
because he wanted to begin implementing SiXDML
for Xindice
1.1. Of course, all the code is available from
Sanjay's
SourceForge project so he really doesn't need
anything from me.
This reminds me of my New Year resolution to write
more about about my personal technology interests
instead of just about XML stuff for the B0rg.
Hopefully things will look up schedule-wise in the
next few months and I'll find some free time to
write about cool non-XML technology completed
unrelated goings on in the Belly of the
Beast.
Speaking of schedules, it is quote likely I'll be
at in Dallas, TX in June for
TechEd 2003 which would be nice since I haven't
been to Dallas since I interned at i2 in 2000.
#
RSS Bandit
Taking On A Life Of It's Own
There are currently
16 developers signed up as co-developers for
the RSS Bandit workspace. Using typical Open Source
community math this still means I can at least look
forward to one primary developer working fulltime
on it in their spare time and two or three
secondary developers who'll be active with patches
and the like. It
looks like Torsten will be a primary developer
on the project based on the work he's doing in his
spare time.
The RSSComponents workspace only has
7 co-developers signed up but it also
looks like primary developer is already being
revealed. I hope I have enough time to keep
track of both projects along with all the other
stuff I juggle.
I hope there'll be as much interest in
my EXSLT implementation whenever I get around
to finishing it.
#
Release Early, Release Often
vs. Better Together
In David Stutz's
farewell email to Microsoft which eventually
made headlines in all the usual places he
mentionsbut open source software
in general, running especially on the Windows
operating system, is a much bigger threat. As the
quality of this software improves, there will be
less and less reason to pay for core
software-only assets that have become stylized
categories over the years: Microsoft sells OFFICE
(the suite) while people may only need a small
part of Word or a bit of Access. Microsoft sells
WINDOWS (the platform) but a small org might just
need a website, or a fileserver. It no longer
fits Microsoft's business model to have many
individual offerings and to innovate with new
application software.
the corporate delusion that goes by many names:
"better together," "unified platform," and
"integrated software."
There is another perspective to the above quotes
I've been thinking about for the past weeks ever
since David initially forwarded me the email.
Spurred by development at "Internet time"
epitomized where companies like Netscape during the
Dot Bomb boom and the Open Source community the
software industry for the most part is embracing
the practice of releasing early and releasing
often. However a business model that is based on
your various components working "better together"
and being a "unified platform" is essentially
stating that this software will
not released
often when compared to the rest of the software
industry.
I am of two minds about such a strategy. On the one
hand software users don't like the rapid upgrade
cycles enforced on them by software vendors and
appreciate it when applications are well integrated
(who doesn't love cut & paste between Office
apps and IE)? On the other hand the more you tie
components together the less rapidly you can
innovate in the constituent software pieces and the
more dependencies you have.
I really need to stop futzing around with XML and
go back to school to work on getting an MBA so I
can actually get paid to have these conversations
with myself. :)
#
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