[Info-vax] EDS and HP hard to tell the difference

[P. Sture]

In article <7jrht3F35dhi9U1 at mid.individual.net>,
 billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:

> In article <paul.nospam-F6F5F5.16423916102009 at pbook.sture.ch>,
> 	"P. Sture" <paul.nospam at sture.ch> writes:
> > In article <26c7e$4ad7a6b4$cef8b7b8$15268 at TEKSAVVY.COM-Free>,
> >  "John Smith \(not the one @ HP\)" <a at nonymous.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> "seasoned_geek" <roland at logikalsolutions.com> wrote in message 
> >> news:5c431829-37b6-47a1-8b93-32e179e1b9a1 at f21g2000vbm.googlegroups.com...
> >> On Oct 14, 2:00 pm, "John Smith \(not the one @ HP\)"
> >> <a... at nonymous.com> wrote:
> >> > http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://kerstein.org/dilbert/dil...
> >> >
> >> > same applies to the youngsters who promise the moon in 7 days and can't
> >> > deliver in 7 months of moons.
> >> 
> >> Youngsters???  Don't you mean every off-shore team?
> >> 
> >> Pretty much.
> >> 
> >> It always amazes me how management can convince themselves that the 
> >> off-shore team deliverd great value when more times than not the project 
> >> is:
> >> 
> >> a) late,
> >> b) over budget,
> >> c) riddled with flaws,
> >> d) there is zero knowledge transfer,
> >> e) the code is poorly documented (worse than my uncommented APL),
> >> f) the business opportunity the code was meant to give the organization a 
> >> jump on the competition has evaporated,
> >> g) there is less than a 10% cost savings vs. developing in-house and 
> >> retaining the local institutional knowledge.
> > 
> > f) is pretty high on my list of potential drawbacks.
> > 
> > Maybe an h) there.  If you buy COTS software aren't you automatically 
> > depriving yourself of creating a business advantage over the competition?
> 
> Which is, as I have tried pointing out here and in other places in the
> past also a major problem with GPLed software.
> 

Yup.  There's also stuff like the Affero GPL which means you should make 
available on demand any modifications you make to anyone who "interacts" 
with your software (e.g. by accessing your web site). I can imagine one 
unfortunate side effect of this is that someone wanting to use such 
software can involuntarily get sucked into the software distribution 
business.

http://civicrm.org/node/166

-- 
Paul Sture