On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:55:30AM -0700, Landon Blake wrote: > Is OpenJUMP the only community with these open source lurkers?
No. > How many of these companies do you think there are? (I'm not talking about > one guy who downloads an open source app and uses it. I'm talking about > actual companies with more than one employee.) The majority. I figure it's approximately equal to the iceberg effect: Unless you are a consultant advertising your services far and wide, my guess is that for every one company you see participating openly in an Open Source project, there are probably about 9 that are using the software without you having any clue. > Why don't they get more involved? * No need: When Open Source solves the problem, you don't need to get involved. * No time: We'd love to participate more, but we've got our own problems to solve -- and they don't match those of the community. * No understanding: We download this software just like all of our other software. What's a mailing list? * Not enough encouragement. Gtting started in an open source project can be a daunting task even for the well-educated in the open source world; for those who aren't, it's an order of magnitude more difficult > Are they embarrassed? Do they not want > their competition to find out about the open source program they are > benefiting from? Are they violating the terms of the license and don't > want to get busted? I think these are generally unlikely. > Do they not understand that their involvement is a > key part of the program's survival? It is likely they do not, in my opinoin; and in this, they may well be right. The software existed before they started using it; it is likely it will exist in some form afterwards as well. > This has become an important question for me recently as the active > development of OpenJUMP has slowed. We don't have any organizations > actively participating in development. (Well, maybe one or two, but they > have been quiet lately.) I'm the only one working on serious > improvements or changes, and not just bug fixes. I would really like to > reach out to these lurkers to get them more involved. Ultimately, the > survival of the project may depend on it. See also: OpenLayers. Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt Web Developer _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
