quality@glassfish.java.net

RE: Request for comments : FishCAT, the way forward

From: Vladimir Perlov <vladperl_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 19:30:49 +0000

Hi Kristian,

> and first off, thanks a bunch for your comments. Some thoughts on that,> on my part again:
I should say that your detail response will help a lot to develop motivation policy such way that will attract people with your kind of mindset.

> I've been dealing with proprietary, "pay-to-get-any-information"> software long enough to know how to estimate this kind of "open-ness"> as well as this kind of being able to address problems and get them> resolved, to be "heard" without being required to throw ¤10k at a> problem unsure to know whether or not your issue will/can be fixed in
The real currency can't be used effectively as payment mechanism for fixing issues or for providing ideas because cost of this kind of stuff changing constantly and in most cases have too much dependencies form other factors. Only fluid kind of currency can works in this area in timing and effective manner.Fluid currency is the currency whose value is in direct dependence from current situation and current situation is always dynamic by nature.
> than virtually "hunting for flaws" and reporting each and any minor> annoyance they could find just to have a chance of being entitled to> some reward.
This situation would be a great achievement for our motivation engine.For minor things we could pay dukelets instead of dukes :)By the way imagine a situation when you lost your job and have plenty of time on your hands but worry about financial situation.Day after day pass and you are still looking for job.It could be very depressing isn't it. Than you have the way to make some developer's bucks without waiting for somebody to hire you.The more bucks you have the more value is in your hands. You could used them in many ways such as putting the amount you earned to your resume or exchange them for green stuff.How many millions of people will be back to working life with this kind of currency :)
> - The "run-off-do-work-report-issues" approach> - The "coordinated-testing" approach, done by people adopting certain
I like your terminology on this and if "currency approach" will be put in production then "coordinated-testing" approach is the only way to go.Probably you should describe in more details how you see it.

> From this point of view, I dare to say that a "reward approach"> obviously is not the only thing to attract people...
I dare to say that a "reward approach" when is done right will attract hundred times more people comparing to "pure enthusiastic approach" :)

> Yes. It happens once in a while, to both open source and closed source> "sold" products/projects. I don't think that something like this can be> resolved by some sort of "reward" scheme as, in my opinion, it is a> completely different problem, it is a problem of people seeing "value"> in things which are free-of-charge. The very moment people see "open> source" just as a matter of something you can download and use for> free and forget about people actually investing work and effort into> this, things are lost.
It's more complicated matter than it seems. People are using in their life many things every single day.We can't request from them to spend time for evaluation the value, to make effort for arranging the payment, to pay something and so on.But many problems easy to resolve with simple technology approach. If millions of developers who are using Firebug had a very quick mechanism to make micro donation to the author of Firebug they would do it without doubt.This case with the author of Firebug all about how quick process of payment is.If it takes about 10 seconds to be done with donation then almost everybody will participate considering that amount of donation should be very low for every participant. In case it takes 10 minutes a few people will do it. This principle is works every time.
>Open source needs an attitude of collaboration> and contribution to work, and, as far as I see in example on apache,> codehaus, eclipse and elsewhere, this works - by people using, testing,> contributing code, documentation, ... - and all this almost completely> without any rewarding scheme, leaving "community acknowledgement" aside> for a moment.
It works but to some degree.If you will calculate rate of successful projects to failed projects then you will see clearly that picture is not that bright.In my opinion current business model of open source projects is pretty weak.Too often only way to make the money from working on open source project is providing support to clients who are using it.What if the product is done perfectly and with good documentation then no needs for people to pay for support.

> It is interesting, we used to have a discussion almost like this> yesterday in the evening during our JUG meeting (which I happened to> organize as I am one of the founders of our JUG). We were talking about
That is a great news that you are founder of JUG. I'm sure this fact is give you a big leverage to quickly promote "motivation" engine.If many people will accept and willing to follow the conception of the developer's currency than official proposal to Oracle will get serious consideration.I wondering how many people can you bring to the discussion?It's critical to success of the "motivation" project number of people in it.
> people. As a German business consultant used to say: "Be careful to> hire people who just come here for the money. Those who come here for> the money always will be ready and willing to leave for money." I think> there is truth in that. ;)
I completely agree with you on this. So it makes sense to bring to life more lighter currency :)
Your detail response significantly increased my motivation to push "motivation" vehicle further.
Best regards,Vladimir


> Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:07:42 +0200
> From: rink_at_planconnect.de
> To: quality_at_glassfish.dev.java.net
> Subject: Re: Request for comments : FishCAT, the way forward
>
> Hi Vladimir;
>
> and first off, thanks a bunch for your comments. Some thoughts on that,
> on my part again:
>
> > > eventually, the kind of "reward" making things interesting to
> >
> > The key word here is "eventually" and in my opinion the word means -
> > something could happen someday. That is not a thing developer can
> > count on in his business.
>
> It depends, from my point of view. In some cases people want a
> more-or-less immediate reward for things they did, in others knowing
> that getting active actually helps resolving / fixing issues one
> stumbled across in day-to-day work in itself is a "good" reward, too.
> I've been dealing with proprietary, "pay-to-get-any-information"
> software long enough to know how to estimate this kind of "open-ness"
> as well as this kind of being able to address problems and get them
> resolved, to be "heard" without being required to throw ¤10k at a
> problem unsure to know whether or not your issue will/can be fixed in
> time, at all. I want good tools, I want work done, and anything that
> gets me there is fine. I would be in FishCAT/NetCAT/whatever, too, if
> there were no point/reward concepts at all.
>
>
>
> > Again the word "eventually" kill my interest to participate actively
> > instantly.Beside this your hope to make direct connections is not
> > scalable at all.
>
> I think it is. Most open source projects work just like that. In most
> situations, of course, it's a matter of governance, of sorting,
> prioritizing, getting enhancement requests set straight. After all, its
> a voluntary thing, and no one needs to really participate. So I am not
> sure whether energy should be spent in/on attracting people
> demanding/expecting an immediate reward for their doings or if/whether
> we should focus on people ready and willing to contribute, for
> whichever reasons that might be. Nevertheless, feel free to prove me
> wrong here anyone - why are you folks hanging out on FishCAT? How much
> does an active scheme of reward matter to you?
>
>
>
> > I mean if only a few people participating in Fishcats
> > then your plan could work but the program itself will be failure.We
> > need to establish reliable way to get benefits from participating in
>
> Closed development cycles => closed products. Open development cycles
> with a community invited to provide input and feedback => products
> better suiting the needs of at the very least these users who cared to
> provide feedback. ;) Consider this as an "alternate" solution to, say,
> buying Oracle/... support and have issues fixed more or less quickly
> and "at a price", I wonder whether this really is that unreliable...
>
>
>
> > It's easy one to fix. The issue filler will get some score only after
> > review and confirmation from quality engineer from Oracle.
>
> Yes, that is possible, but it also introduces a whole load of new
> bureaucracy which would not be there if people "just" were about to
> report findings and provide feedback on what they stumbled upon rather
> than virtually "hunting for flaws" and reporting each and any minor
> annoyance they could find just to have a chance of being entitled to
> some reward.
>
> Maybe however it needs to be a, say, more "flexible" system. What about
> an approach like this:
>
> - The "run-off-do-work-report-issues" approach, working the same way
> FishCAT used to work by now, by users using the server, providing
> feedback on issues they find, in exchange for that knowing to be in
> touch with the right engineers to have these issues resolved.
> "Reward", asides having issues fixed/addressed, eventually same as
> now.
>
> - The "coordinated-testing" approach, done by people adopting certain
> pre-defined test cases / frameworks to test on the server / ... . In
> such cases, people are likely to spend more effort on things than
> they do by "just" trying to get their application to run on a new
> version of Glassfish, so maybe this would ask for some reward to
> "pay" this additionale effort?
>
>
>
> > That why I'm suggesting to make virtual currency instead of plain
> > points.You will be able to earn the currency in many ways. For
> > example helping on forums, suggesting new features, making demo or
> > promoting the product. I will describe in details how it should work
> > in the document that I will have prepared by Monday.
>
> I am looking forward to reading that. :)
>
>
> > Sun had problems in this respect. Just a couple examples to prove my
> > view.Dukes that developers could earn on the forums didn't have any
> > power and didn't provide any real incentive to developers who earned
> > them. Voting points for project issues also was completely useless.
>
> Yes. But talking about the "Dukes" points: I see that the Sun forums,
> in many fields, were next to empty _despite_ the existence of something
> like "Dukes" as a schema of, at the very least, collecting some
> "points" for being active, whereas there are forums out there which are
> _way_ more active, with users that have provided > 1000 substantial,
> kind, helpful post with _no_ reward schema whatsoever being in place.
> From this point of view, I dare to say that a "reward approach"
> obviously is not the only thing to attract people...
>
>
> > again to prove my point.Author of "Firebug" if I remember correctly
> > worked on his product at least one year. One day he asked for
> > supporting his work or he couldn't continue it in the same way as
> > before.I don't really know what kind of support he got from
> > developers but I definitely know that he dropped his work on the
> > project.You probably know that Firebug actively in use by millions of
> > developers.
>
> Yes. It happens once in a while, to both open source and closed source
> "sold" products/projects. I don't think that something like this can be
> resolved by some sort of "reward" scheme as, in my opinion, it is a
> completely different problem, it is a problem of people seeing "value"
> in things which are free-of-charge. The very moment people see "open
> source" just as a matter of something you can download and use for
> free and forget about people actually investing work and effort into
> this, things are lost. Open source needs an attitude of collaboration
> and contribution to work, and, as far as I see in example on apache,
> codehaus, eclipse and elsewhere, this works - by people using, testing,
> contributing code, documentation, ... - and all this almost completely
> without any rewarding scheme, leaving "community acknowledgement" aside
> for a moment.
>
>
> > Kristian, please think again about motivation engine.
>
> It is interesting, we used to have a discussion almost like this
> yesterday in the evening during our JUG meeting (which I happened to
> organize as I am one of the founders of our JUG). We were talking about
> how to attract more people, and we came down to seeing that, actually,
> it is just a very "special" kind of people willing to be there, willing
> to spend time and effort besides their day-to-day work to come see such
> events, to participate in coordinating and setting up new ones, to
> communicate and keep things rolling. All in itself, there _never_ is
> any rewarding involved - the people who do that do that for the sake of
> it, indeed driven by curiosity, enthusiasm, fun to be had with the
> technology they use and, to some degree, the desire to communicate, to
> exchange experiences and thoughts with other, like-minded people.
> Again, anyone, feel free to prove me wrong here, but I am convinced
> that this is a _strong_ motivation and driving force, and one wonders
> whether it might be the kind of motivation to attract reliable, active
> people. As a German business consultant used to say: "Be careful to
> hire people who just come here for the money. Those who come here for
> the money always will be ready and willing to leave for money." I think
> there is truth in that. ;)
>
> K.
>
>
>
> --
> Dipl.-Ing.(BA) Kristian Rink * Software- und Systemingenieur
> planConnect GmbH * Könneritzstr. 33 * 01067 Dresden
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