PS: The last msg to come in while i was laboring over my last (like a fool, it now appears) really begs a response. (Now it's my turn to get "torqued"
:-<
on 4/5/01 4:23 AM, Chris McDonough at chrism@digicool.com wrote:
I think Albert's saying (forgive me for speaking for you if I get this wrong) that no-one but DC can evaluate the opportunity and make the decision if DC should do this work.
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. ;-)
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. I must confess that this whole business of free software development is new to me (less than a year). I am not a programmer. I do however employ programmers -- too many of them, alas (for more info, ask Kaivo Inc., who've provided me with two good ones [a small majority of the total, alas] over the last six months, since they bravely accepted from your company the handoff of our RFP, on the very eve of proposal due date). Over the last decade, i have run more software projects and paid more programmers than i care to remember. I cite these facts to let you know, i am no piker in this domain, panhandling for a free lunch. In fact the landscape of this turf, dear Chris (ridiculous as it is to talk about intellectual properties as though they were physical properties, enjoyment of which is *inversely* proportional to the number of people sharing them) looks to most of us here a bit more like this: We are all busy professionals, and those of us that don't work for DC are over here in *your* sandbox, doing our best to contribute substantially to the intellectual capital of *your* enterprise (remember, it is DC's stock that rises or falls in direct proportion to the installed user-base of Python/ Zope -- certainly not mine), in the hope that we can enjoy a somewhat beter experience as tenants in this commons whose future is under your defacto control (i.e. if you say Zope is for Content Managment, and i say it's for eCommerce and/or eCommunity, we all know who wins the argument). But who wants to engage in any such ridiculous argument? We all agree that Zope can and should do all this stuff; the only argument i see going on here is some sort of pissing contest over who is the busiest. That's a conversation i have no interest in whatsoever -- as is the case, i suspect, with *most* of us here. I've only joined the conversation here because the prospect of eCommerce in Zope (up to now an oxymoron -- rather like "military intelligence," or "jumbo shrimp") appeared for a fleeting moment like something worth talking about. If that was just a mirage on the horizon, forgive me; been thirsty too long, i guess. I guess somebody here needs a long weekend to think about priorities; i for one sure do. |/|/alt Walter Ludwick wludwick@mail.walmar.com