RE: alternative to WebFacing -- MIDRANGE-L

Joe,

I think it was Hammer, or some other pop artist, that said "Boom!  There it
is".  (I.e. powerful post, Joe!)  I don't know that I had an idea of what to
expect from your reply (and, in fact, have pretty much given up on expecting
replies altogether).  But the ideas you've expressed weren't what I was
expecting, at all...


I couldn't help but notice your reply came in just before the midnight
"deadline".  I sure hope you knew I was kidding.  Where the last line of the
post I sent James ended with ":-)" I should have said ROFLMAO.  You see,
I've tried to collaborate with folks lately, myself, with little success.
At times (most recently on my last post to IGNITe) I've tried to impress my
sense of urgency by taking an attitude:  SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE TODAY; I
NEED AN ANSWER TODAY.  As often as I've done that, and had it blow up in my
face, I think I've finally given up on that foolishness.  So I was really
saying "by midnight" as a joke on myself, to those who have seen me do this
a time or two.  I've learned to develop a pretty good sense of humor about
my foibles, over the years, because I have so many of them...:-)  I'm not
sure if that was apparent...  If not, I apologize that my humor went awry.

All that to say, I'm glad to see your reply so soon!


I can't refute a single point you made, and am very surprised how similar
our views are.  But I think I can build on your thoughts, to show a possible
scenario where OSS might be developed effectively.  I'd actually started to
lay out some of these ideas in my previous post to you, but decided it would
be better to put all that in a separate writing.  I may respond to some of
the specifics in your post, or I may even ask David if I could submit a
piece (or more likely multiple pieces) for the IMHO column.  (In fact, I've
just e-mailed David to float the idea.)

It might take a while, and I need to do some paying work, too, from time to
time.


But I did want to amplify one statement you made:

"you'd need one of the following:

1. A specific project.  Not simply a goal, but a well-defined target with
specific requirements and restraints.  Consensus here is not easy to
achieve."

Very, very true.  Even with specific projects, I've never had much luck
trying to collaborate with a large number of people.  But at the same time,
I don't think people will stick with something like this, over the long
haul, unless there is an overall agreed on principle that can be used for
support, when times get rough, as they inevitably will.

For Linux, that principle was that a free OS needed to be developed.  I've
seen some of the technical arguments about micro-kernel vs. macro-kernel.
Never paid a whole lot of attention to the technical arguments, because they
never even came into play, as far as the ultimate success of Linux.  The
success of Linux, today, is strictly because the fundamental principle took
hold within the academic community, and (as they say) the rest is history.
How else would an OS based on Eunuchs gain such popular appeal?

So while I agree that a specific project is necessary, the paradox is that,
no matter what that project is, it will also require a sound fundamental
principle, if it is going to be successfully accomplished by volunteer
efforts.

In this here example, there are a number of good principles to operate from.
(And I don't think you necessarily have to have one single principle.)

Some might be motivated by the goal of ending the "interactive tax".

Some people might stick this project out just to be part of an effort to
start OSS development in the 400 community.

Some might persevere in order to form a common-sense alternative to, what I
perceive as the madness of, the Linux movement.

Some (namely me) might be interested in an even loftier goal:  putting
together an organizational structure that could be adapted for the iSeries
Nation to use.

I think these are all good principles, and I'm sure there are others.  But
the one I like best is where you said in an earlier post "a company's
largest asset is not only its legacy programs, but also its legacy
programmers".  Those of us who are legacy programmers can sure relate to
this, and those who are more experienced can leverage their skills to help
make PCs and the Net as easy to program as green screens.  The great thing
is this not only helps the old dawgs, but also does for the Net what RPGIII
did for interactive programming 20 years ago.  Takes it to the next level.


But I think you and I, Joe, agree that a sound fundamental principle and a
quarter won't even get you a cup o' Joe these days... ROFL.  There's no
getting around the fact that it takes a lot of hard work, over a long time
period.

I'm cautiously optimistic.  I believe that many people are ready to hear the
message that Mr. Zwiren said in this article I've linked to in many previous
posts (http://www.as400network.com/channel/story.cfm?ID=7811).  The very
first statement says it all: "Much has been said about taking control of our
own destiny within the AS/400 community. No longer can we wait for IBM to
act to take the actions so many of us know have to be taken."  Obviously, to
hear this message means to decide to take action.  But even more, to
understand it fully means to know that it takes a lot of hard work if you
want to do your part in controlling destiny.

I agree with you completely, Joe, that if OSS is going to take hold in the
400 community, it will take a lot of hard work, and it will require
leadership.  I'm not the man for this job; I can say that very easily.  I'm
not saying this to shirk responsibility, but because my heart just isn't in
it, sufficiently.  If it was, I'd have done a whole lot more work on the
code-generator I referred to, than what I have.  My actions speak:  I
probably wouldn't be in it for the long haul, and this kind of thing isn't
worth starting if it isn't worth finishing.

But I'll try to do my part, to help those that step up.

Thanks so much, Joe, for your views.

jt


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Joe Pluta
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 11:45 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: RE: alternative to WebFacing


> But the funny thing is that lately I've been told, quite frequently
> actually, that I rush in to things way, way too fast...  And I know there
> are a lot of folks, such as yourself, who have a h*lluva lot more
> experience
> at these things than I do.
>
> So, for the time being anyway, I'll wait and see who (if anyone)
> is willing
> to step up to the plate, and in what capacity.
>
> Now if I don't hear anything by midnight tonight...:-)

JT, over the years I've tried to cobble together a couple of efforts like
this.  They haven't been terribly successful.  For example, the free code I
give away on zappie.net (and its successor, www.java400.net) had only one
other contributor, Alex Garrison.  And while people are often (and I do mean
OFTEN) willing to help one another in remedying a specific problem, when it
comes to the amount of work required to actually develop some sort of open
source project for the AS/400, well, few of us have the time.  Most of us
are probably working more hours than we care to, with less job security than
we've had in a long time.  To attempt to start what would in essence be a
"side job" is asking a lot.

It's not that the idea is without merit, you understand.  It's just that
it's a whole lot of work for not a lot of perceived benefit, and with a
major stumbling block to boot.  I think in order to even attempt something
like this, you'd need one of the following:

1. A specific project.  Not simply a goal, but a well-defined target with
specific requirements and restraints.  Consensus here is not easy to
achieve.  For example, you have about five different factions here, some of
which have vested participatory interest.  Brad has e-RPG, Nathan has his
HTTP plug-in, I have revitalization, and I suspect that SPECIAL files, MI
hooks and some sort of TCP/IP redirection would each have their adherents as
well.  So, your first issue would be to decide which of those architectures
are the one you want to pursue.  You can guess that if I were to participate
at this level, it would probably only be to continue with the revitalization
approach, and I doubt that Nathan or Brad would be interested in helping.
Multiple agendas are unlikely to achieve results, unless you were able to
create:

2. An umbrella project.  This is the situation where the various ideas are
hashed out and reviewed.  Areas of commonality are identified, and
interfaces are designed to allow each of the various techniques to
interoperate.  Teams (a very loose term, as a team could conceivably be a
single individual) would choose to implement one or more of the various
components.  As they are designed, each would then go to a testing
environment.  This is the most democratic and the most productive
environment for long-term development, but it has some severe drawbacks.
For our community, the most critical problem would be that it splinters the
development effort.  We don't have a lot of spare hours as it is; focusing
in several directions dilutes those hours even further.  Another potential
problem is that you still would need an architectural overseer for the high
level infrastructure.  This sort of design actually cannot be done by
committee.  Ideas can be floated, but one individual, or at most a team of
two or three, would have to be given the full oversight of the umbrella
interface design.  Anybody working on the project would have to work within
those guidelines.  That would be quite a tall order.

IMHO, it's not the technical difficulties.  I'm pretty close to a functional
subset of a full technical solution, written entirely by me, in my copious
free time.  It can be done.  No, the far more difficult question for an open
source project is whether the community is willing to relinquish control in
any degree to an overseeing agency and work within that framework, even if
it might not directly promote their own personal agenda.  This group?  Um.
Well.  Read some of the posts over the past months and you may come to some
opinion as to whether that would work.

And to those who disagree with my assertion that software projects of any
magnitude require an autocratic rather than democratic model, please
remember that the most successful of the "open source" projects, namely
Linux, was primarily run by a single individual.  Only because people were
willing to contribute work with the understanding that the final, inarguable
decisions were his, was the Linux project able to work.  Closer to home, the
most successful AS/400 software company was System Software Associates, and
it was only successful when run by a single individual.  When that person
left, and management by committee began, the company folded.

IMHO.

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