Sysadmin Field Notes

May 13, 2004

You can probably sum up a lot of open source's problems by examining a description of how Microsoft adds features to their software. No test plans, no usability testing, no one person in charge driving a unified vision for the product. Some of these are liabilities, some are advantages, some are both depending on the circumstances. Why couldn't open source have more of this rigor? Take a look at that list of job titles involved:

• Program manager
  
• Localization expert
  
• Usability Expert
  
• Tester
  
• Technical writer
  
• Technical reviewer
  
• Copy editor
  
• Documentation manager
  
• Translators
  

Now we see the problem. All of those job functions as they exist on open source software are typically part of a commercialization effort by a particular company. Those efforts feed the code back into the community, but not much of the rest; that's where they are adding value. There are lots of volunteer developers, but not many volunteer project managers, copy editors, testers, writers, translators, etc...why is that?


The developers get something out of the software. They are scratching an itch; producing something useful that they can use. This is why we have so many frameworks; they can be managed, documented, and created by programmers, since their audience is primarily programmers. Since the programmer will derive value out of it, working on it in their spare time isn't such a drag.


Plus there's the hacker mindset. We love solving these problems, so it's fun to do in our spare time as well. Do you know anyone who loves QA'ing software so much that they are willing to volunteer lots of their time? Copy editors? Program Managers? Until the community gets more volunteers in those areas, or at least builds those roles into the process regardless of who fills them, many open source apps are going to continue to frustrate.