2 Aug
2005
2 Aug
'05
9:38 a.m.
Mark Constable:
On Monday 01 August 2005 23:20, Kjetil Svalastog
Matheussen
<k.s.matheussen(a)notam02.no> wrote:
I am talking about "projects" that both developers and users happen
to be associated with. I don't see what's provocative or in anyway
rubbishy about a statement like "a project cannot survive without
users".
If you develop software for your own needs then great, if some other
people also happen to use it then power be to your software... but I
hardly see how that software compares to major core code that the
rest of us totaly rely on... like the kernel, ALSA/JACK, X/desktops.
Okey, with those clarifications, I can to a certain degree agree with you.
But I will also add that your tone about users and developers where
provocating, which led me to write what I wrote. Some peope are
pure developers, but most of us use our own software as well, and
even for core-projects, the reasons for devloping are probably quite
diverse.
--
You make
it sound like a one way street all about the developer(s).
A "project" cannot survive without users. If users do not use the
software the developers are sweating over then that software project
will go nowhere and die. Every bit as much as us users leach the
efforts of developers is the developers need us as users or else
their efforts will come to nothing... they also need to pay homage
to their userbase... or another project, that does so, will succeed
in the long term and their baby will not.
Extremely provocating rubbush! In addtition to general generalisation, you make
programmers seem like
some mindless robots slaving for their users. Personally, I don't care
very much whether my software is used. That does not matter. Its the fun
of making new types of software, and that I need the software myself. If
others like the software too, thats great!, but its normally not of very
much importance for whether I keep developing or not.
And so goes your project(s). I wasn't talking about the kind of project
where someone like yourself does not care if anyone else uses your
sofware... that is not the backbone of the larger and really important
major projects we all absolutely depend on.
I'm talking about the survival, or not, of core projects that, if
successful, will be used by many MILLIONs of users in the next decade.
Some of the software we use today will become major international
institutions over the next 5 to 10 years... and I'm very sure the
current progeny that evolves and survives the next few years will be
the ones that are most end-user friendly.