Re: distributions: UBUNTU vs DEBIAN

[Bob McGowan <bob_mcgowan@symantec.com>]

Mike McCarty wrote:
> Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
>
> > On 2006-04-23, Kevin Mark penned:
> >
> > [some snippage]
> >
> >
> > > In this context, free software user can never buy the software from
> > > a company because their is no company and their is no legal monetary
> > > contact between Debian and its developers and thus no one can make
> > > the free software developers do anything. The free software model
> > > does allow a free market whereby any other developer can be paid or
> > > convinced to do what you want.
> > >
> > > But it seems the free software developers are usually simply
> > > 'scratching their itch' to their satisfaction and others may or may
> > > not like the result.  And the average users is more or less
> > > powerless to force the free software developer to listen to them
> > > sans forking over money and the developers accepting a contract to
> > > do what they want. 
> >
> > When you say that the average user is powerless to force the free
> > software developer to listen to them, I'm wondering what you're
> > comparing this experience to.  Have you ever, as an average user, been
> > able to convince a commercial software company to do something for
> > you?  I'd love to hear about it, because that hasn't been my
> > experience.
>
>
> Well, I've been on the other end of this particular stick, both
> working for "large corporations", and running a "small business"
> (I and one other guy in a garage writing software; you can find
> some of our ads in the back of Byte magazine in 1986 or so,
> under the name Kydor).
>
> Everyone in every company I have worked for was acutely aware that
> satisfied customers were our paychecks, and all but the slackers
> (all large corporations have these) worked hard to keep our customers
> satisfied. And that was not the only motivation... Most of the
> engineers were also motivated by pride of ownership. Some, sadly,
> were really in the wrong career, putting in their hours and going
> home. But most were excited about their jobs. Most were doing what
> they did because they like to solve challenging puzzles.

I, to, have worked on the "other end", and I can say, from personal 
experience, that the bigger the customer (ie. the more money they have) 
the more likely they will be able to get something changed ASAP.  Yes, 
the little guy may be able to get help and have some input, but little 
will happen until either thousands of the same general request have been 
received, or the issue is taken on by a 'big' customer.

As for input to the free software developer, the issue for them will, I 
think, be a combination of 'will it be useful for a large user segment 
and does it fit with the design of the system?' (as understood by that 
developer).  My experience here is that the developers are quite willing 
to listen and work with users.  I attended a Linux show in San Francisco 
several years ago and spoke with some folks in the KDE and Gnome booths 
about a small enhancement to panel hiding functionality.  Though I have 
not seen any tangible result (no bug number to track the issue, no name 
to contact), the people I talked with seemed quite eager to have 
feedback and suggestions from users.  And willing to consider the change 
if it was useful.

Commercial developers are always constrained by the bottom line.  Neat 
features that could be useful for everyone but that don't contribute 
much to the bottom line are less likely to be done than those that are 
central to the function of the application being written.  Open source 
developers have more freedom to try things out, to be innovative or even 
eccentric.  And, of course, if an open source developer doesn't like 
what's being done and can't generate support for their position, they 
are free to move to some other project or even start their own branch of 
the project, without worrying about their own income being impacted. 
There is always self interest involved, whether corporate or personal.

Bob

---snipped---

> Mike