Testing reports

Colin Scott gnucash at double-bars.net
Tue Apr 17 08:07:00 EDT 2012


That message represent an extraordinarily blinkered view, as well as being gratuitously - and IMV unforgiveably - offensive to someone who has offered insights that are both interesting and relevant.  (Whether or not one accepts they are necessarily applicable is another matter, though I must say that to me his comments made a lot of sense.)

In particular, your parting crack about free-riders is, I would have thought, offensive to a significant chunk of the audience in here.  More importantly, it is way off-beam unless you believe that the *only* purpose of an open source project is to provide a product that meets the needs of its developers and nobody else.  In that case, and only in that case, your attitude (if not your comments) might be acceptable.  However, based on the fact the gnucash is distributed freely on the internet, it is a perfectly reasonable assumption that its developers wish it to be available to others.

(Actually, I think it would be a helpful exercise for the developers to sit down and write a mission-statement.  Not, I hasten to add, because the mission-state is necessarily useful /per se/, but because the process of producing one is extraordinarily helpful in clarifying and distilling what one *really* wants to achieve and where one wants to go.  In particular, the team need to decide whether or not they really *do* want external users.  And should they decide not, then we would all of us, developers and users alike, be saved a lot of time and grief were we all told about it!!!)

On the assumption that it is the developers' intention  that gnucash should be useful to a market beyond their own circle, then these outside users, your alleged "free-riders", *do* have a contribution to make, and a very important one at that (and thus cease to be free-riders at all!).  By offering their comments and opinions they *are* contributing to the project, because they provide the developers with important insights into what the market outside their own restricted and blinkered circle *actually* needs (as opposed to what they assume it needs)!

If outside users are unwelcome, then the project team should say so,  the website should not try to attract us in, and the product should not be on free distribution all over the internet.  If on the contrary they are a part of the project's target market, then they should be treated at least with the respect due to somebody who is trying to help, even if the team can't bring themselves to think of them as "customers"!

Even if you do not agree with opinions expressed (and anyone would be hard put to agree with all of them, given how diverse they can be), there are often valuable insights to be gleaned from them  Don't forget that quite a few of the contributers in here have many years of relevant preofessional experience.  Two things I learned in my own three decades  as a software professional were that a) nobody has a monopoly in right (or bright!) ideas, and b) one can always learn something from another professional - even if it is how *not* to do something!  :-) 

I sincerely hope those who control the project will give serious consideration to my comments about a mission-statement ...

Colin Scott

-------- Original Message --------

*Subject:* Re: Testing reports
*From:* Johnny <yggdrasil at gmx.co.uk>
*To:* john.layman at laymanandlayman.com
*CC:* "'Derek Atkins'" <warlord at mit.edu>, gnucash-user at gnucash.org
*Date:* Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:25:11 +0100

"John Layman" <john.layman at laymanandlayman.com> writes:

> costs no more than GnuCash

Ah, another free software project then!

> developers are savvy enough to know that the customer ain't them.

"Customers"? Gnucash has users and developers. Every now and then, the
occasional twat appears though.

> Our consultancy specializes in general business process improvement,
> but since all of our backgrounds are in software, that is where a lot
> of our work lies.

But contributing did not occur of course? Do I sense a freerider? [1] 

> I am going to discontinue monitoring this list.  It adds a far too depressing element to my day.

Thanks!

number_of_twats -= 1

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

-- 
Johnny
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