Don't you just wish Rev would do this?

[Richard Gaskin]

Randy Will wrote:
 > What all this comes down to is that "ease of use" is in the eye
 > of the beholder.

In many areas I would have to agree, but this need not be the case. 
There was a time when usability was more the result of research findings 
than marketing slogans.

While it's true than even the best research will be flawed due to its 
nature (my friend refers to cognitive psychology as the act of doing 
watch repair where the only tool you have is another watch <g>), we have 
sufficient evidence to suggest that earnest research in which dogma is 
kept out of the methodology as much as possible does result in 
objectively measurable productivity enhancement.

FWIW, I've been subscribed to the Gnome Usability discussion list for 
some months now, and I've been impressed with the thoughtfulness and 
thoroughness of the discussion there. While research is expensive, there 
does seem to be a strong effort to apply heuristics to solving problems 
cost-effectively.

I have no doubt that as Linux grows it'll attract more usability 
specialists, and perhaps some of the development funding will be used 
for usability research, providing within perhaps as little as ten years 
or less an OS which is the unquestioned world leader.


 > Since you brought up the Mozilla foundation and "paid open source
 > development";  Personally, I like this model.  Of course it leads
 > to licensing issues leading to stupid forks like Iceweasel and
 > Icedove, but to me, it's a nice muddying of the waters between
 > commercial development and FOSS.

Agreed.  Dual licensing has the ring of fairness to it:  free for free 
software, paid for paid software.

But paying developers does raise the question of who pays the piper?

In most FOSS models, more than 80% of users are simply enjoying a free 
ride, only a relative handful actually contribute to the code base, and 
very small number of players are putting in the big bucks to drive it 
all.  With RunRev's more traditional model, the piper is paid in the 
most egalitarian way possible:  each person pays an equal amount to 
support the ongoing development effort.

It's important to note that FOSS investment is coming from companies who 
also sell proprietary works, or in the case of universities the money 
comes from public funds which in turn come from taxes derived from 
proprietary works.  So in the big picture it is largely proprietary work 
which makes FOSS work possible.  Even with smaller all-volunteer 
efforts, without open source housing and open source food the money 
needed to sustain the developer is coming from somewhere, and it's 
extremely rare when donations alone cover all expenses.

So as long as the owner of the engine relies on revenues from the engine 
as its primary source of income, I think it's safe to say the engine 
won't go open source.  If someone here wants to pony up the cash to buy 
it from RunRev and open source it themselves that may change, but I 
don't see it happening anytime soon.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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  Rev tips, tutorials and more: http://www.revJournal.com