Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: My Rant.

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:8/29/2000; 11:06:24 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 8/28/2000
Msg #:20496 (In response to 20455)
Prev/Next:20495 / 20497

What could be more interesting than writing software that helps lots of people? In a way, I see where you are coming from -- I remember the shock and then the depression that set in at 17 when I realized there was more money to be made from writing database programs than device drivers. "Real programmers don't do databases", I thought, yet here I was stuck doing databases because I needed to make a living.

The truth, however, is that it is more technically challenging to write software that masses of people will pay money for than it is to write mandelbrot set generators or device drivers. Just think of some of the things that are possible today now that we have an ubiquitous communications infrastructure like the Internet. People like Ted Nelson have been thinking about possibilities for decades, and the idea behind zigzag (www.xanadu.net) is coming closer to reality. The stuff that userland is doing with distributed outlining and two-way web is truly innovative. Or look at Napster. These things are just the beginning of what is possible.

Now if I were to look at things from the perspective of "interesting technical problem", I would approach it as Ted Nelson does with zigzag. He finds it not too difficult to get programmers to help him as long as he develops in Java for Linux. There are plenty of "volunteers" available who want to say that they "worked with Ted Nelson when". But the problem, IMO, is that he lets his programmers infect him with this whole open source idea. As a result, he has had a nice toy that runs sometimes on Linux, but has wasted three years developing it, and is still not any closer to blessing the world with his ideas. That is not only a crime; it is a cop-out. Sure, it is difficult to fight the religious zealots that say your software isn't cool if it runs on windows. Sure it is challenging to get this thing out to the masses and let the ideas roll back in. But challenges are what we live for, right?

On the flip-side, we have a program like napster. Screw open source, screw Linux, screw XML and standards. Just write an app and put it out there. Demand was there, and social impact ensued.

So really my long-winded reply is meant to say that if you are giving source away for free, you may not be working on the truly challenging problems. Solving problems with software is easy (sort-of). The really hard part is the making the problems relevant and the solutions impactful. Software's power extends way beyond the initial act of writing the code, and unleashing that power is the most exiting challenge of all.

[Side note: some would say that it's unethical to *ever* give anything away, since that compromises libertarian values. Problem with giving away code and code samples is that the value of the contribution to another could usually only be measured in micropayment terms. It's far too inconvenient to pay *every* time you download a piece of software or look at a code sample. I think that the net is showing us some good ideas for how micropayments could work in the future (subscriptions, amazon affiliates, epinions royalties). Of course a much better model of supply and demand would need to evolve, but that is just another one of those interesting technical challenges for you to dabble with when you retire :-) ]

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