http://HowDoesJottitFormattingWork.jottit.com (same site in theory...doesn't seem to be working, though.)
Anybody know of where you can get more instructions on how to use it?
Handy for throwing together a random anonymous blog, I guess. Ad-supported, I assume?
edit: It's still there in history to be reverted.
And I just noticed...it didn't give a username for your edit. Can it be edited by literally -anyone-, member or not?
--Nevermind. You can set that up in the setting. The defaults are somewhat curious.
Hah, anyway I myself do enjoy webpy and wouldn't mind giving something back to it, but if I were him I'd probably rather do a startup.
The focus is there. I've been lurking the web.py mail list for a long time (Jan 19, 2006 ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/88347878/ ) and there has been a steady progression of code since then. So in my view it is being promoted, worked on and improved.
"The programmers were in the corner doing what they were told.
That's one reason they were so easy to outsource. If a programmer
never really talks to the customer, never thinks, just solves little
puzzles, well that's a perfect candidate for something to offshore."
~ Founders at Work, Ch24, Philip Greenspun, P325, Livingston, 2007.
I can only think of projects that involve a lot of drudge work that nobody wants to do unless they're paid to. I suppose this includes most services. What else has to be done by a company?
There are high stakes, business wise, in web search. But then again, that was just as true for operating systems and web browsers. So cross that one too.
Google is resource intensive. Open source is good at providing manpower, but not so good at sustaining huge running costs of other type. But then again, Google started quite small, and I'd guess Wikipedia, Usenet or Debian need more resources than many small companies. So, is it only a matter of size? In any event, this doesn't apply to Aaron's new startup.
Anything else?
I don't think it's only (or mainly) a matter of accountability. In general, volunteer services are given for the benefit of a community. Services targeted to individuals (except casual social interactions like answering questions) don't attract much volunteer effort, and are generally provided by for-profit companies.
The examples cited so far are basically special cases of this. Google needs to be able to enter into contracts for hosting, bandwidth, power, uptime, etc, so it needs to be a real corporation. When you entrust sensitive personal data, you want an ongoing obligation to keep that data secure, which you can't get with open-source. Additional examples might be corporate support contracts, support for certain platforms, and any service dealing with payment or finances.
Basically, open-source is good for sharing what people have done, while corporations are good for determining what people will do.
Even certain open source projects require paid staff. The only reason FireFox exists is because the Mozilla foundation can pay programmers to work on the ugly parts.
- Militance: They believe in a cause and do some sacrifices to further it. Like translating software and docs into an obscure language. This can be done by zealots of the software, of the language, or both.
- Self-image (somewhat related to the above): After having completed the sexy parts, you care about the appearance of your project as a whole, so you fill in the boring parts.
- Pleasing users (somewhat related to the above): You get hooked in a virtuous feedback cycle with your users. Some things that would be boring in themselves get done in anticipation of the positive feedback.
- Competitiveness: a mix of the two above. You want to be the best at what you do, and the boring stuff offers opportunities to differentiate.
- Scratch a personal itch: I think many Linux device drivers get done because of this. Also most of the external bug reporting (and most of the business sponsorship.)
- The long tail of vocation: what is boring to most is probably someone's joy.
- Retribution: You love an open source product as an user, so you give back.
- Social acceptance: You want to become part of the community of contributors. You aren't qualified to do the hard stuff yet.
In MMOG's, lots of people volunteer for Game Masters, which is an euphemism for unpaid customer service. They do very boring, repetitive work for the benefit of a for-profit company that gives them absolutely nothing in return (indeed, it's legally dangerous to give them anything in return).
So don't underestimate people's ability to do drudge work for free.
You can say they were motivated by a feeling of notoriety. In my area we have problems with people that would sneak and set woods on fire only so they can feel important helping to extinguish the fire. They get no tangible benefit from it, not even power, and they risk shame and jail if they get caught. Feeling relevant is a strong motivation for some people.
Like programming languages:-)