[iDC] mining open source

[John Hopkins]

>In my view, a well funded "bounty hunt" model would work great. See 
>an example for the Gnome desktop project that is funded by Novell:
>http://www.gnome.org/bounties/

nice idea!

>So the question is: Why do Institutions have no "bounty hunt" 
>budgets for their OSS use and deployments?

mostly because they have active clients who cannot / will not wait 
for a functional implementation -- IT support in a typical university 
is de facto centrally deployed and relies on canned solutions.  Of 
course, there is substantial academic support for open source 
solutions in terms of more localized solutions (say, within a 
department), but in terms of widely deployed solutions, they often 
don't have the time-frame to de-bug, user-test, and implement (as 
they are competing with other schools for paying 'clients' and must 
have operational and flashy bells-and-whistles for marketing).  The 
market can't wait for the Bounty Hunter.

A thought came to mind as I was re-reading Steven Hawking's "A Brief 
History of Time."  In an elegant description of the concept of a 
theory, he points out that Newtons model of the universe is held to 
(by most people) because of its simplicity, not necessarily because 
of its validity -- as a matter of fact, 99.9% of the population could 
not describe the Newtonian model of the universe -- because it is 
simply accepted de-facto as the way to view the world -- and even 
less, could folks demonstrate its fundamental principles (especially 
the mathematics that Newton created to describe and validate his 
model).  Yet it is what we hold onto by-and-large in the 
contemporary/developed Western world.

Somehow, this seems to relate to the Open Source discussion.  The 
reason people go for canned software solutions is for simplicity. 
The reason people use Newton's mechanistic model of the universe is 
for simplicity.  While it would be much more 'accurate' (and 
powerful) to use the relativistic Quantum-based model in predicting 
the behavior of the universe, it's easier to comprehend and predict 
things based on Newton's model.  And we would not be faced with the 
numerous problematic moral issues which Quantum confronts or suggests.

The same with open source -- it is able, through its dynamic and 
adaptable evolution, to more precisely fit the needs of the 
individual user, however, this process requires the user to shift 
their point-of-view of the universe -- taking active control vs 
passive following in the use of the machine.  Simplicity dictates the 
use of brute canned software.  Now, defining the concept of 
simplicity is not so easy, but relates to low-level survival 
mechanisms and not to elegance.  Conservation of energy for physical 
survival.  When healthy and well, the organism proceeds this way: by 
an optimization of internal and external resources given a set of 
external challenges.  And in a social system, the optimization 
proceeds such that individuals end up trusting others -- in the sense 
of believing when someone relates an experience which leads to higher 
odds of survival (that large hairy thing moving toward us is 
dangerous -- I KNOW cause I saw it eat somebody yesterday -- RUN!). 
This is the (or one) essence of social systems.  Imagine the 
difficulty of living life in which you distrusted every bit of 
second-hand information coming from another human.  Where you trusted 
ONLY your own first-hand observations.  It would be the life of a 
child -- where every day is full of painful and rewarding lessons. 
It would be a life in the moment.  A perfect Buddha existence.  If 
that large hairy thing eats me, so be it.

Humans are always confronted with this dilemma -- between physical 
survival and something higher than that.  If one is content with 
"Might is Right" then one can easily swallow proprietary software. 
It will facilitate immediate survival.  Open Source is about 
something altruistic beyond survival -- it puts the user at risk of 
error, or stumbling down a hidden pathway, or creating something 
difficult to understand.  It brings life back to its true chaos, 
complexity, and possibility.  Only certain kinds of people can 
tolerate that indeterminacy.

Of course, I am being a bit dramatic and sarcastic here in these 
comments, but...  we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously about the 
validity of our ideas versus anyone else's.

cheers
John