Le mardi 02 mai 2006 à 09:24 -0500, Rod Engelsman a écrit :
> > End users see the blinking lights and developers see the actual
> > processes. That is why we haven't come and will never come to an
> > understandment. However this is where the Marketing project need to step
> > forward since is the bridge for translating the message to end users. I
> > think this is what they ought to be doing and come with a solution once
> > and for all. Once said that this is the discuss list where this
> > discussions happen everyday without lookng back.
>
> It's going to take more than marketing. That's a M$ tactic. It's going
> to take a serious re-examination of the processes themselves --
> development, management, and decision-making. Because it's either an
> industry, in which case you have to listen to and satisfy consumer
> demand, or it's a hobby and you're just playing with yourself.
Open-source is an industry when there are people paid to participate in
the process, including people paid to listen to user tantrums.
Open-source is a hobby when people contribute gratis pro deo and have
little time and inclinaison to do the same kind of user knowtowing they
do at work.
When you buy StarOffice, or Red Hat Entreprise Linux, you do not get the
same service than when you download OpenOffice.org or Fedora Linux for
nothing. Nevertheless they are essentially the same technical FOSS
products. The main difference is only suits paid to listen to consumers
and bark "yes sir" at the right time no matter how they are addressed.
Current western societies have little patience for politeness. You pay
for a product, and buy the right to yell at the call center ("customer
is king" and such crapola. Difficult to address one another as decent
persons in this ideological context)
However if you think any normally constituted human being is ready to do
call center duty for free ("satisfy the consumer demand" as you
euphimisticaly write it) particularly on FOSS mailing lists where the
average technical level and income is light-years from call-center
level, you are sadly mistaken.
--
Nicolas Mailhot
