[Discuss] licensing: who freakin cares?

[jc at trillian.mit.edu]

Rich Pieri wrote:
| On 4/9/2016 4:14 PM, Eric Chadbourne wrote:
| > I bet most of you really don't care.  I know most non-tech humans
| > couldn't care less.
|
| Think about it. Think about what the world would be like if all of the
| software we use was up to these standards of no coding discipline, no
| quality assurance. Think about all of the machines and devices in our
| lives with computers embedded in them. Think about ...

Hmmm ...  My personal experience is of being pushed in  exactly  that
direction  by  "management",  while  the  developers were pushing for
more/better testing, standards  compliance,  etc.   But  the  primary
motive of most managers I've known is to get the product out the door
and producing comapany income.  We can fix the  problems  when  users
report them.  In other words, the push for quality usually comes from
the developers, while management normally  wants  the  least  quality
that they think they can sell.

In particular, I've on numerous occasions been  specifically  ordered
to  not  implement  some "unnecessary" parts of standards.  This does
tend to produce quick complaints from customers,  often  followed  by
refusal  to  pay  for  the  software  until such blatant failures are
fixed.  Then I get asked  how  quickly  I  can  produce  a  minimally
functional  implementation  of  the  things  the customers have found
missing.  All this never  gets  the  message  across,  and  the  same
managers  just  go  on  to order incomplete implementations, combined
with delivering what are effectively pre-alpha versions to customers.

The open-source work I've been involved in has rarely acted this way.
Part of the reason is that if the leaders try it, people just quietly
drop off the team and start working on something else.  Or they  fork
the  project  and do the needed work themselves (leading to the usual
hassles if they try to merge it back into the main package).

I have released open/free software before I thought it was ready. But
I  included explicit lists of the important things not implemented or
fully tested to my own satisfaction.  I know lots of other people who
have done this, often as a way to get a collection of willing testers
who understand that the author(s) don't think it's really  ready  for
prime  time  yet,  but are willing to be "guinea pigs" to get some of
the functionality a bit earlier.  I haven't  often  seen  this  in  a
business  setting,  where  the  developers  are rarely even permitted
contact with the customers, and "negative" parts of the documentation
are routinely deleted from deliveries.)


--
------------------------------------------------------
   _'
   O
 <:#/>  John Chambers
   +   <jc at trillian.mit.edu>
  /#\  <jc1742 at gmail.com>
  | |