> Another word of unsolicited advice - when you have a lot of energy and
> passion to do something, step back for a moment and think about your goals.
> Do you see free software as an end in itself or means to an end ? Or is
> your goal to get a 'guru' status in a group that appreciates your knowledge
> relevant to the group ?
The best choice could be to make software FREE for the world. All of it.
May be totally depending on the students. But then things like Database
etc which are commercially required [Are they? I think so at least] and
are highly unpopular [read boring] to students in the labs [while their
reaction engineering experiments takes 9 hrs for one run]. Commercial
world could suffer. As for vision, it loses me here. Still, if essence
of the commercial software is to lie in designing GUIs then I'd rather
not have those. Distributed development is the best bet. In terms of
quality, yet there is slack-time-boundednes found in freeware etc.
Uncertainty prevails.
And there are times when deadlines need be met. Are those deadlines of
projects really important. Need the systems be replaced so fast as these
are being done right now? Do we really need MORE on the desktop?
Now that I have thoroughly confused myself, I will stop. Sorry all, but
I think the vision
is still required. And a lot is there, uncertain, and certainly bad
about software world as such.
Linux is an example of a good O/S that evolved slowly and became good
enough for many. Did it come
in time? Or too late? I find it impossible today to move entirely to
Linux. For good reasons.
May be open-source and free-license ARE slow due to little cash
incentive. Yes, more cash
does not necessarily mean better O/S or applications. This comes from
being able to use the
acid test feedback from the users, which is a very effective tool. Any
better ideas?
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