Ensight – Jeremy Wright

I recently wrote a little blurb on Longhorn. Specifically I commended MS for being as open as they are being.

Mike, a frequent commenter here, took offence to a certain part of my post, which he is free to do. Here’s what he didn’t like:

MS is being more open than I’ve seen any company be in the development phase, with the possible (read: possible) exception of Open Source projects

I’ve bolded what he didn’t like. I wrote the “possible” bit knowing it might raise some backs. A little controversy is never a bad thing, after all. Here’s my take on it. Possible?

Yup, possible

Open Source isn’t actually “we’ll do what you say with the code”. Nor is it “we’ll even take what you say into consideration”. It’s more draconian, much more draconian, though it is in an “open” fashion.

Typical Open Source (including Linux, PHP, Apache and MySQL) is, basically “we’re going in a direction, you can do what you want with what we’re giving you”.

After all, when was the last time you got to contribute personally to any of these projects? My experience with the PHP/Apache/Smarty groups has been that the team does as they see fit.

That doesn’t bother me. I said “possible” for a reason. Because, as always, it’ll be up to the project leader.

That applies whether it’s open source or not.

In essence, I feel that Open Source projects are more likely than most corporate projects to ask for this degree of feedback during the development phase. I do not believe, though, that Open Source by definition means that feedback will be sought during development. In fact, it doesn’t even mean feedback will be sought after development.

I’ve decided, so it’s therefore official. All techies are just like my wife. No, not gorgeous people I’d love to have a nice dinner with and cuddle all night. God no. No, techies are like my wife because we never really enjoy a ‘moment’.

DISCLAIMER: Before I go any further I have to say that I love my wife and she is the most fantastic person in the world. She knows I’m writing this post, and we often laugh at this tendency of hers, so it is in no way disrespectful.

Moving on then.

The other day we got a new couch. Nothing fantastic, just a new couch because we had a few old ratty chairs and felt a nice new couch would look much better. So, we go get the new couch. As soon as it’s in my wife says:

We really need a new dinette set, and it’d be nice to paint Evan’s room.

Now, I agree with both of these statements, however the tendency in question is to get one thing done and to move directly onto the next thing. The fact of the matter is we could be given a whole new house, decked out with perfect furniture and interior design and my wife would want a new car. It’s always something.

Techies are exactly the same. We never stop to appreciate the moment, the quality of a product or anything. Unless, of course, it is our product of choice being attacked.

You can see this on a daily basis if you want. Just go to Slashdot and find any article on Microsoft. Or any article on Apple.

Read the comments. What’s happening?

MS guy: “Microsoft just released a whole new security model”
Other guy: “Yeah, but it’s still insecure, they should show their products before release so people could review it”
MG: “They just did with Longhorn”
OG: Yeah, but they didn’t open up the source
MG: They did with .NET.
OG: ….

Ad infinitum. I’m not saying Open Source guys are evil, not at all. MS guys are just as bad towards Apple. Sun guys are the same towards IBM guys. Etc, etc, etc.

We all have ‘lists’ of things we feel the ‘other guy’ should change. The instant it happens we don’t congratulate them, we get either defensive or aggressive and drop a new thing on top of the list of things that will eventually make the other guy’s product ‘worthy’ in our eyes.

It’s pathetic.

Why can’t I say ‘congrats’ to Panther? Why can’t the xNix guys who look at LongHorn Blogs and congratulate MS on several advances? Why can’t…

Ergh, I’m not really frustrated, I just wish we were an “open source” community in terms of our ideas and ideals. Letting them be constantly adjusted for the good of the whole. Where we don’t discount anything as unworthy just because it isn’t in our sphere of …

Okay, someone in the office is singing. That’s my cue to shut up.

Well, today’s part of the move is done, so I figured it’d be time for another Longhorn/.NET linkdump since the MS PDC is now done.

PDC 2003 Harvester – notes, source code and presentation for all sessions
Avalon is Hot – Andrej’s linkdump on Avalon since the PDC
Good News for Gamers – info on how longhorn will affect gamers
New Command Shell for Longhorn – possibly the one thing all xNix people say they wish they had in Windows
Slides & Code from PDC (official)
Avalon Review

Ignore the rants and raves about how Apple is better than MS and vice-versa (notice that the author stayed out of it?) and read some of the ideas put forth by Robert about some fundamental changes that need to happen to computers.

I’ve ranted about computers, input devices and UI many times before, and agree completely.

The comments in the feedback are all “well, you think MS is solving this with Longhorn” type stuff, but a lot of what he’s saying seems beyond the realm of any single OS, so I’d say it’s really more his personal frustrations which are valid no matter who he works for.