[Chris]
I'd like you to figure out whether you'd like to mow my law, Michael. There's big things in it for you. Get back to me in a week, please. ;-)
[Walter]
YO, dude: Analogies are odious, but this one really stinks. Neither Albert nor Michael, nor anybody else in attendance here asked you to analyze the opportunity of mowing his lawn, or anything of the sort. While we all see something to gain in the opportunity arena we've been attempting to scope out (else why are we even talking?), let us not kid ourselves about who it is that stands to gain the most. Yeesh.
[Chris] I'll revise this analogy (I realized it wasn't accurate after I had sent it). Walter, you're a florist. I'd like you to plan the planting of a garden in a public park. You should "own" this effort, which implies you should actually mow the land and plant the flowers if nobody else is willing to do it. Then I'd like to you then water it and weed it for perpetuity (you own it don't you?). I can't pay you, but I'm willing to provide input on which flowers should be planted. There's big money to be made in gardening, and people will be able to see that you did a great job on the garden. We all know you want to be a gardener, and you're the one who stands to gain the most from this garden, because you sell flowers. To a certain extent, the pattern desribed in the analogy makes sense. Perhaps you could make money as a florist planting a garden in a public park. Perhaps you *do* want to be a gardener. But (describing the 81 dangling fishbowl proposals), what if you had 81 people ask you to be things you're not at the same time? What if you didnt actually want to be a gardener? Or a landscaper? Or an exterminator? What if you had decided that being a florist was just fine? I'd *love* to see this project scoped out. I just bristle at the notion that *DC* absolutely, incontravertably has to "own" it when it's just not an area that we've decided to do battle in. We've decided to concentrate on the content management space, which has so far only proved to be tangentially related to ecommerce. If you don't like this, I'm sorry, and we'll need to agree to disagree. [Albert] Stop bristling - it doesn't help. Hot air that bristles is really pathetic. One reason that ecommerce stuff needs somebody to own it is because as well as the very interesting stuff that Walter, Richard and others were talking about, it also involves things like order processing, payments and audit trails that are utterly fascinating to accountants. Accountants are very boring people, worse than hairdressers. Most open source developers would rather do something more interesting, with more interesting domain experts. Even the beancounters would rather be lumberjacks. So if you need ecommerce done, it has to be paid for, and that has to be done by someone that can make money from doing so. But the main reason you asked for but didn't wait for a reply on, as to why DC ownership of the APIs is needed is pretty simple. It doesn't make sense to commit even minor resources for anything more than a prototype unless somebody in a position to keep watering the APIs has made a commitment to do so, by "owning" them, and a reasonable judgment can be made that they do seriously intend to do so because they do believe it is in their own interests to do so. Without that there won't be more than prototype development for ecommerce on the Zope platform. That means either: a) DC decides it's in it's interests, b) Some other company that can be relied on to do it decides that it is in it's interests c) An open source community that looks viable takes it on d) Zope does get not get an ecommerce capability, as opposed to prototypes. So far a), b) and c) hasn't happened so d) has been the result. Paul's said he wants c) but has been discussing a) with Walter in what I thought was a more positive manner. In that discussion he *asked* why DC should "own" such a project. You previously announced that you weren't speaking for DC and anything more you said would be just hot air. As I'm re-reading this, I've just noticed Walter, having responded. Instead of treating whatever you say as "hot air", he's treating you as some sort of spokesperson for DC and drawing the obvious conclusion. That's dumb - he should know you are just full of hot air, since you are at least honest enough to admit it when you bungle (that is sincere). So I don't have time to polish this up and am leaving the rest unedited in the hope of catching him before he unsubscribes. It's the aggro version which I usually leave for 24 hours before re-writing. I specifically asked for an "official" reply *not* to be given immediately. Paul gave one immediately, half of which was bristling and the other half saying that I had a point. Last few messages I saw included him saying: "To tell the truth, I'm mad at myself for responding strongly, particularly as our position on this is weak. The folks in zcommerce have been doing the work, not DC, so I didn't have much right to get torqued. And besides, his idea has merit." I haven't (yet) seen messages from zcommerce developers saying they are pissed off. I have noticed one from someone associated with EMarket expressing interest in similar ideas as Walter about some things. That was also the situation a year ago when another one mentioned moving to ZPatterns to be able to support RDBMS access in response to a posting on OpenACS. Walter's given some answers and I haven't seen an "official" response yet. I got the impression Walter *was* waving some money around. He's certainly in an industry that needs exactly what's been talked about For a CTO with 30 years experience in a low tech services industry that doesn't usually have CTO's, he has a remarkably deep understanding of why. The dotcoms don't need DC's consulting services - they need a miracle. Sectors like where Walter's coming from do. You are talking to him like you don't even know he's one of your customers and want him to be one of your open source developers. Have you even looked up where he's coming from? It would be odd if Walter wasn't keen enough on getting the job done to help pay for it - and odd if he couldn't see possibilities of recovering the costs from others with similar needs. But he's obviously been doing some research and he *said* he wants to help pay for it while you are abusing him for not doing so, when I'm quite sure you really meant to be abusing me (which doesn't worry me in the least - at least you got it right - I am not offering to help pay for it). Now he's pissed off - and that doesn't help either. When starting off this thread I mentioned I'd be going on the warpath on the first anniversary of having raised the issue. That isn't until 6 June and I don't have time to get *really* pissed off until then. So give me a break, please. If I wanted to get pissed off I'd have got pissed off at being told to read Eric Raymond on what open source is about - but I managed to just ignore it. The only reason I can't just ignore you is because you insist on announcing what you believe I think. If occurs to me that you might be doing that with respect to DC too. If an "official decision" has been taken and you've been told to deliver the news the way you are, please say so. Otherwise, please take Walter's suggestion to let it go over the long weekend (and Walter, please take your own suggestion too). Sheesh I'm a *professional agitator* by trade - my role in this sort of thing is to beat CEO's around the head with clubs until they get angry enough to start looking for arguments to prove I'm wrong and they are right, after which I can just move on because they aren't stupid and know what to do when they can't come up with those arguments. It doesn't win friends, but it does influence people. I just don't have *time* to be telling junior staffers not to piss of the CTO of one of their customer's. So many heads to beat,... so little time (sigh ;-) [Chris] Furthermore, I don't even think you and Albert are talking about the same problem. I believe Albert is talking specifically about porting ACS' ecommerce module to Zope. You want collaborative filtering and personalization. They aren't necessarily even related. We've been talking about OpenACS' ecommerce module as if it's the holy grail, but are you sure it solves your actual problem? Have you thought about what it doesn't have that you want? It's a major job just to decompose all the problems exposed in these gargantuan email replies. [Albert] Mike doesn't agree with at least part of what I'm saying - but the views he did attribute to me were correct. Yours are not. It may well be my fault for not explaining them clearly enough but you have said yourself that you are having difficulty following what I am on about and I can assure you that you simply have not got it. Likewise I did not suggest "get back in a week" but just agreed with your estimate from nearly a year ago that a week's work would be needed to review OpenACS. That would be better spread over several weeks. Nor do I believe all that's needed is an interface to the SQL tables replacing the Tcl interface. It certainly isn't Walter's fault that you haven't the foggiest clue what he's on about as he has been *very* clear. Please take this as a general denial of any views you may attribute to me. Any further attempts on your part to describe my views will be responded to in 19 words or less as you requested - and you won't like any of them. I'm not prepared to try to explain it to you until after you have stopped bristling, and then only if you actually do want to find out what I think rather than tell me what I think. If you don't want know, fine. But spare me your beliefs about what I think. [Chris] To address the rest of your mail, I don't doubt your experience nor do I think that having a Zope "ecommerce story" is a bad idea. My problem is understanding how it's possible that DC *needs* to do this. Do you think we're just a bunch of guys sitting around without a plan who need to have some structure put in to our lives or what? I will reiterate that Zope is a platform. You can build on it what you like. Please, go ahead! Don't wait for us! [Albert] You obviously haven't got the foggiest clue about what Walter's experience is or how to deal with a customer that says he needs something. If, after time for reflection, DC does decide, for whatever reason, that it does not need to do this then I think it is pretty likely that somebody else will do as you insist. Looks like there are some unusually savvy suits around who would know what to do if they can't get what they need for a fairly small project that they understand the need for. Ecommerce is *not* just another application as you keep saying, so it does require some actual staff resources committed to it. But you are right about them not being huge resources. Since both Zope and ACS are open source, it wouldn't be enormously difficult, for people who do understand why open source is a plausible business model to get some developers (lot's more looking for jobs these days) and raise enough for a small properly staffed project based on existing code bases. But it would certainly take longer and wouldn't be done as well and would cost more to do because DC *are* the logical people to do it. The recovery of those extra costs could only come from direct competition with DC in the same market - offering similar consulting services *with* ecommerce expertize lacking in DC, under a "Powered By Pissed Off" button instead of a "Powered By Zope" button. I doubt that would be good for DC. On the other hand it would certainly require that DC spend the time necessary to get familiar with Ecommerce issues, so maybe it would be good for DC. Meanwhile, I suggest that you and Walter just have a good weekend, and Walter talk to Paul, not Chris, after the weekend. (Paul's entitled to a weekend off from being clubbed too ;-)