[dba-Tech] Why is there so many OSS projects?

Jim,

I'm working on several projects currently, as part of my in-depth mental
conversion to Alpha Anywhere. One is a volunteer-management system for a
non-profit housing outfit called Woodgreen. I am doing it for nothing.
How's that for recursive? Another one is an app for safety engineers, which
I'm also doing for nothing. A while back I wrote an Access + SQL app for
the premier safety engineering firm in Canada. The app is perfect for
tablet and/or smart phone so I'm rewriting it in Alpha Anywhere. (For those
unacquainted with the term, safety engineering involves inspecting
workstations in a factory, taking measurements of response times and in the
event of non-compliance, making recommendations for fixing the problem.)
Currently the users lug a laptop from workstation to workstation; a tablet
makes a lot more sense.

I've also got something that is part-time, and involves mentoring rather
than hands-on development. The app is the largest Access app I've ever seen
(700,000 lines of code); it talks to a MySQL back end. I'm providing help
and analysis of the app to optimize it for performance; lots of replacing
Access queries with Pass-Through queries that fire stored procedures in the
BE. So far the results have been quite dramatic, in some cases a tenfold
increase in performance.

That's about it, at the moment.


Arthur


On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 1:02 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Hi Arthur:
>
> A very interesting set of comments, Arthur. My question is why so many of
> the best young (or should I just say younger) programmers in the world
> spend so much of their time working on projects that will bring them no
> financial gain... IOW it appears that money is not the main driving factor,
> especially in the computer world...or is that financial motivation is
> easier to quantify in this particular business. Is this the case in most
> businesses?
>
> So what projects are you working on Now?
>
> Jim
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arthur Fuller" <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
> To: "Discussion of Hardware and Software issues" <
> dba-tech at databaseadvisors.com>
> Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2013 3:17:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Why is there so many OSS projects?
>
> Jim,
>
> I can think of four reasons:
>
> 1. it is so difficult to find the funding for any given project;
> 2. if one has the passion for programming, then funding and subsequent
> corporatization of the concept is way too much pain in the ass;
> 3. Jjust because I had the idea doesn't mean that I have the best
> implementation;
> 4. It's social networking on an intelligent plane, as opposed to the nude
> sex-vids so popular among those with no other claim to fame.
>
> My partner Peter Brawley and I are both working on separate apps, which we
> will both place in the OSS community as soon as they are ready for public
> consumption.
>
> This could be because we are both now senior citizens and thus receiving
> pensions, and therefore have enough to subsist, and consequently, money is
> no longer a goal. Which is not to say that I am averse to money, but merely
> that it is no longer a significant motive. At the moment I'm doing some
> part-time mentoring for a client in San Francisco, and I bill him for about
> 1 hour in 8, because a large part of the task involves research, so that
> part is on my dime not his. I'm doing it because it's intellectually
> interesting. The occasional check is nice, and I invest it in toys such as
> my spanky new laptop, but it is certainly not the goal. As the
> aforementioned Peter is fond of saying, "The best defense against
> Alzheimer's is to Keep Thinking." The virtue of being old enough to collect
> a pension is the freedom to choose which projects are worth your time. In
> days of yore, we used to have an acronym in our company: YAFOES (yet
> another f**king Order Entry System). Been there, done that. Now I'm on to
> more significant problems, almost none of which pay money. And guess what?
> I don't care. I can't afford fancy vacations in sunny climes but that too
> is OK.
>
> Arthur
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:10 PM, Jim Lawrence <accessd at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
> > One of these strange questions... It sure can not be the money? So why is
> > there any Open Source projects at all...no money no work may seem logical
> > to many but according to the following article this is not the case.
> Humans
> > are strange animals to say the least and programmers are probably the
> > strangest humans. ;-)
> >
> >
> >
> http://readwrite.com/2013/08/14/mobile-developers-its-not-about-the-money#awesm=~of1TClo7jXYlzl
> >
> > Jim
> > _______________________________________________
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> > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com
> > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech
> > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Arthur
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-- 
Arthur