Re: [xml-dev] XML Performance in a Transacation

[Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@allette.com.au>]

Michael Kay wrote:

> In my experience many of these organizations have just begun to get their
>
>heads around the fact that it makes sense to *use* open source software. The
>notion that they can also improve their life by sponsoring the creation of
>open source software is just too much of a mental leap. 
>
Good point. Mike is right that that is the starting position of 
something like a competition: that some users of open source XML 
software are complaining that the software does not match their 
requirements for efficiency, but that they cannot expect an adequate 
response from open source developers unless there are positive incentives. 

Open source software is not a free lunch, it is stone soup.*

>They do many other
>things that create a community benefit rather than pure competitive
>advantage, for example taking part in industry standards bodies, but
>investing in software that's immediately available to their competitors is
>something that gets a reaction of complete incredulity. There are a number
>of Saxon users at present trying to persuade their bosses to invest in
>enhancements that their organization needs, so I know!
>  
>
Yep, but it only takes a handful of forward thinking business, a 
fraction of a percent of a percent to get this going. So the idea of a 
competition is as a practical example that open source users should be 
considering how to get a hand on the rudder to help steer the open 
source ship.

And there is a long established precedent: companies like TI, Sun and 
Microsoft very often
provide prizes for the best engineering project at a university, or the 
best software engineering  idea from under 25 year olds, and so on.  
Google's Summer of Code initiative is in a similar vein.  My company 
Topologi has one product using WebOrganic's PageSeeder collaborative 
framework, which largely owes its continued existance to an "IBM Java 
Brainwave Award" given at WWW7.

Cheers
Rick

* http://spanky.triumf.ca/www/fractint/stone_soup.html