On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 4:27 PM, Pete Helgren <pete@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Among others, I am hopeful all participate who have an interest.
My biggest complaint has been the fragmentation of effort. The problem
is, we are passionate about IBM i and open source (to address what Bradley
was talking about) so rather than finding a group of like minded folks and
banding together, we go off in single threaded style and get 'er done.
I was suggesting that limiting yourself to open source may limit
contributors and solutions. If we want the IBM i to survive, open source
is a part, but keeping great vendors that provide "closed source" solutions
around also helps the IBM i in a big way.
Most of the folks I know in the OSS space are entrepreneurs (or started
that way) rather than members of big, monolithic companies, and we
entrepreneurs don't suffer policy and procedure lightly.
I consider myself a very successful entrepreneur.. mostly closed source
solutions. I can think of a few other small ISVs in the same boat.
Closed source has it's place. Just as open source. But those in the OSS
community seem to think it's their way or the highway. Why not change
that?
Most users of open source never even touch the source... they just use it
because it's free... that's a lot easier than asking your boss for a
requisition form... just install it! (Although, I have a few customers now
who are moving to "no open source allowed" type rules... so that's a
roadblock).
There's no reason those of us in the IBM i community that offer closed
source solutions can't help in the OSS world... and most do.. But because
they charge for a license vs charging for support they're not worth a
mention from the OSS community?
So there are two approaches: 1) Aggregation. You can have a site that
trolls the Internet looking for all things OSS and post links (been there,
done that) 2) You can have a site that is dedicated to providing the latest
information, documentation, code and news for IBM i OSS AND has an
incubator with some funding to start and sustain some OSS projects.
Aggregation... don't get me started on that B as in B... S as in S.. haha..
I do wish you luck... I would love some place to catch on and be the "place
to go for the IBM i" (as long as it's not linked in.. ugh!).
But that's a catch 22 as well... there's no place to go to tell everyone
about your new ideas/solutions/site/etc. And, if you do happen to run a
very popular place, you sometimes see them start limiting what's said and
talked about (ie, no commercial solution talk, no talk about competing
solutions, start advertising, asking for donations, etc...)
But I think it's more fragmentation in the long run. I personally have
been down that road 3-4 times now in the past 20 years. Everyone seems to
think "if I do it myself.... it will work out". But it really means "if I
can get everyone else to support me, it will work out." And we're full
circle back to fragmentation.
The best advertising for any solution is word of mouth... and those in the
community not poo-pooing a solution they've never used or never would try
simply because it's not open source.
Is that "source-ist" to only promote open source... haha.
Brad
www.bvstools.com
midrange.com
