Re: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

> Open source can and does work as you describe.  Good 
> point, John.   The rights I get out of a maintenance 
> contract depend on negotiation, money's offered, etc. 
> All software companies do not act exactly the same 
> way.


Granted.  I should have said "vendors of mass-market
software": the contracts-of-adhesion type.

> One can turn the open source 
> argument on its head though and say that if a 
> company has a sizable user base, that user base 
> can and does often act in concert or small groups 
> to get a BigCo to make changes


Been there, done that too.  It was just amazing, what
happened in the (Xerox) Star User's Group when I
announced the first (open-source, though I didn't
know the term then) software ever available for Star
other than from Xerox.  Before then, the user group's
mood had been basically "How the @#$* can we make
Xerox reprioritize our bug list?"  All of a sudden,
it was "Can you write some software to do what we
want?"  I never got more applause for a speech in
my life.....

> and that getting 
> someone to keep their promises is the same 
> problem regardless of the software source.


Not really.  In one case, there *are* promises
if you pay to arrange for them; in
the other, the only promise is "AS IS, NO WARRANTY,
MAY RUIN YOUR COMPUTER, PROBABLY WON'T EVEN TOAST
BREAD" in insulting capital letters.  (Yes, I know
why caps have to be used.)

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