[Queue-developers] Re: business model & GQ NOT dormant.

[John M. T. Jr. <jo...@ca...>]

Hi,

When I used the phrase "the market is wide-open for a good, solid
queuing product", I merely meant something like "the set of potential 
users of such a tool is large", or "(I think) there is a large pent-up 
demand for such a tool". How it is paid for, or not, and who does the 
work, or not, were intentionally not mentioned by me.

In my experience code created and maintained by folks who are doing it 
for love of the game is simply of better quality than code that is done 
by folks "only" because it is their job. There are exceptions both ways, 
to be sure, but in most fields of endeavor this is true, and it is true 
in software, too. There is a sweet spot where you have a developer who 
also loves writing software...their avocation also happens to be their 
vocation...they are not coding by day only to subsidize their real 
passion, which is something completely tangential to coding (not that 
anything is *completely* tangential to coding :) )

Now how to pay for the web site, the broadband connection, the new 
computer, and all the rest: that is another issue altogether. And, for a 
potential user, deciding whether to run their mission critical project 
on some software written by a bunch of strangers on the Internet - that 
is another issue, too.

Most all open source projects are struggling with these same questions, 
so at least we are in good company.

-- johnT


wernerkrebs wrote:
> Two things:
> 
> 1.
> 
> In fact, GQ hasn't gone dormant.
> 
> If you take a look at http://www.gnuqueue.org, you'll
> see that Mike's been pretty active in the CVS
> repository.
> 
> Of course, as Eric S. Raymond points out in his famous
> essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", in proprietary
> software one only wants to a release when everything
> is "perfect", whereas in Open Source development one
> should "release early, release often." 
> 
> One can put out frequent development releases that are
> just snapshots of the latest tarball, even when things
> are not exactly perfect.
> 
> Which is sort of what the world expects, which is why
> people think GQ is dormant. We're working on Mike to
> make him a convert, and maybe we'll get a development
> release that's a tarball snapshot.
> 
> That way, he'll get the credit he deserves for all the
> hard work he's been putting into this behind the
> scenes.
> 
> 2.
> 
> You mention "market."
> 
> Some of the really successful open source projects
> have come up with business models, enabling them to
> get salaried programmers to work on the code.
> 
> There are a number of models. A business can see the
> code base as a critical piece of its infrastructure,
> and donate its own maintainance efforts to the Net. If
> enough companies do this, an informal consortium of
> cost-sharing companies becomes a formal consortium.
> The Apache consortium started this way, and then IBM
> came along and, I believe, actively funded the
> consortium and optimized the NT port in exchange for
> use of the code in some of its products, I think.
> 
> TI (or its subsidy Alantro) wanted to make GQ into a
> software license system. I convinced them to modify
> that in to a central resource control system for GQ,
> which is now an optional part of the code base. So
> that sort of happened for GQ.
> 
> In other models, the authors publish a book on the
> software, and use royalties from the book to support
> programming and marketing efforts.
> 
> Still another model, which might work for GQ, is that
> an optional component is sold as proprietary, and this
> is used to support the free, Open Source component.
> For GQ, these could be fancy GUIs that allow
> centralized control of large cluster, enhanced GQ
> versions optimized for large clusters, or NT versions
> "compatible" with the Unix cluster system. These
> proprietary versions would create a revenue stream to
> enhance the free, Open Source versions, which, in
> turn, would create a larger potential user base for
> the for-pay versions.
> 
> Currently, our "business model" is (almost) entirely
> volunteer. Although some companies have contributed
> code and bug-fixes developed by for-pay programmers,
> Mike isn't getting paid for his efforts.
> 
> It would be great if we could have a salary for Mike,
> or people under Mike somehow, but this is sort of the
> model we're stuck with for now. 
> 
> (Maybe this will change with the next development
> release once more people learn of the many
> behind-the-scenes improvements Mike has made. >;->).
> 
> 
>>John McKowen Taylor, Jr. wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>and GQ might as well be it!
>>>
>>>Please let me know if you have any questions or
>>>comments.
>>>
>>
>>Comment:
>>   "the market is wide-open for a good, solid
>>queuing product"
>>   Amen.  Ain't that the truth, brother.
>>
>>John, I am looking forward to the results of your
>>efforts.  It is 
>>regretable that GQ has gone dormant.  Hopefully your
>>efforts and 
>>enthusiasm may yet breathe new life into the old
> 
> girl.
> 
>>Best wishes from one of the non-coders.
>>
>>   -Buckley
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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