May 1, 2005 at 5:20 pm
We've got open source and closed source, but now community source?
It's an interesting ideas. A few companies join together, form a community and build software that they can all share. They build a framework, add-on modules, even whole applications that each company can then draw from, customize, and use in their own business. Since lots of businesses have similar needs and may not be direct competitors, this seems to bring some of the benefits of open source with the customization and competitive advantages of building your own applications.
I have to admit, this is one of those things that I never thought about. Bundling up a few companies and co-developing code and applications. In the heydey of the dot com boom, there were some incubators in the Boulder area and I consulted with one of these. A VC co-located some companies in adjoining, sometimes shared, suites of office space and the mail, network, administration of the computers, was handled by the VC, contracting with some company. Space, servers, backups, etc. were a shared cost that each company was "billed" for. Since the VC was footing the bill it was a shell game, but it enabled the VCs to lower some of the costs that were common to their companies. And starting up another company was much less expensive.
But they didn't share code. Each company had their own VCS and maintained their own development process and team. As far as I saw in my consulting, they didn't even talk that much about what they were doing. It was more like roommates that had their own life to live and merely cohabitated.
A friend and I thought about this idea for other companies, at least as far as the network end. Run a "wired" building for all the businesses in there. Medical complexes are a shoo-in here since they could all use some help, though I'm not sure how many of them use the Internet. They definitely could use PC help. Wire the building, setup central servers, handle backups, mail, file services, etc. Get a whole business park and this could be a nice service.
But the development center sounds better. The catch is in convincing 10 companies to each fund a framework, just as it's tough to convince building owners to provide the network service. After all, most companies have somebody to do that work.
But if you could convince your own company to community source with some others...
Maybe this is a good user group networking opportunity.
Steve Jones
May 2, 2005 at 9:17 am
This is an idea that works well in the non-profit world for sure. My company has worked for several years building a software package that is used by several unrelated, same industry non-profits. They split the bill and each add and remove features as they see fit.
By doing this we have been able to create the best software in the industry and other institutions regularly ask to join the group.
How it would work in the for-profit world seems a little more complex to me.
FWIW, Tony
May 2, 2005 at 10:10 am
There might be liability issues with regard to code sharing. What if poorly used code crashes the other companies servers or more practically causes massive problems with the formulas/values within (a) table(s), where some coder thought nvarchar at 50 was too long for example and decided to use a subroutine to change any old tables to say 25.
As there are seemlingly few on the planet who even who know what a T-SQL statement is and even less who care, I kind of thought this forum was the 'shared/community' code source for SQL, with a bit of peer review built in just to let one know some of these things have been given a once over before some errant DBCC command truncates the tables at 12:00PM instead of AM. =)
And yes I did enjoy I, ROBOT.
May 3, 2005 at 2:04 am
If companies are in a non-competitive but symbiotic relationship it could work.
As pointed out liability for faulty code may be an issue although I suspect the sticking point would come from who fixes the code. If Company A employees monkeys for peanuts and Company B ends up fixing all the code they produce then it could all end in tears.
There would need to be a shared source code repository.
I too liked I, ROBOT inspite of being an Asimov fan. But what a mess was made of H2G2
May 3, 2005 at 7:03 am
H2G2 they rushed and glossed over every joke, it needed to be paced slower, but I did like the overall pun.
Just because your house gets demolished and you lose what you think could be love of your life to a jerk it is not neccessarily the end of the world. =)
May 3, 2005 at 7:11 am
I liked the gag about a gun designed by a woman and the airlock where the bottom falls out of it, but yes, they rushed through the opening (and best) scenes of the book.
Couldn't they have skipped the "So long and thanks for all the fish" bit and put some more content into the film?
In terms of overall quality it's about on par with the TV version which was strong in the 1st half and then slumped in the 2nd.
May 3, 2005 at 7:29 am
Regarding community source, I have a million ideas, they all point to certain death.
May 3, 2005 at 3:29 pm
What you are describing sounds suspiciously like "Shared Source":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source
This is supported by a number of large companies, like IBM, Microsoft, Novell, BEA, etc. Really, AT&T was the first to do this, ages ago:
http://opensource.oreilly.com/news/scoville_0399.html
Anything about "Community" and "Sharing" is good; even my mother would approve. But my question is; what's in it for the little guy? How does this help me? I'd say it doesn't, so it's not that interesting.
Open Standards, now, that's interesting...that helps me. SQL, XML, HTTP, Web Services; the internet and apps we all use today would not exist without these standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standards
Really, Microsoft (that is who we're talking about, right?) would be much better off opening up their file formats rather than sharing their source code (And quit adding proprietary extensions to open standards!) Even then it may be to late for them.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1791600,00.asp
Another paradigm similar to Shared Source is the "plug-in" architecture; where the application is nothing more than a module to correlate other modules. Eclipse is probably the best example of this, as an plug-in IDE created in Java.
Some plug-ins cost money, others are free. And the plug-in architecture is open (at least with Eclipse), so you can always make your own (and charge money for it, or OS it). This is a win-win for everyone involved, and the main reason Eclipse is fast becoming a standard IDE:
And yes...you can use it with C# and SQL (it's just a plug-in, after all):
http://www.improve-technologies.com/alpha/esharp/
http://www.myeclipseide.com/ContentExpress-display-ceid-62.html (part of a larger package, but the best plug-in for SQL at the moment)
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