Tending to mediocrity
For the first time in a few years, I’ve found an article linked off of slashdot that manages to be both articulate and interesting. Once I recovered from the initial shock of such an anomaly, I found surprising parallels between the trials and tribulations of wikipedia and the open source community.
The article, for those who haven’t read it, discusses why the very openness and ‘community’ aspect of wikipedia ensures its own limited usefulness.
Open source suffers from the exact same problem. The very openness of the source, the low barrier to patch acceptance (in most cases), and the group oriented approach ensures the final results is somewhat of an incoherent jumble.
There are, of course, many exceptions. The exceptions are in cases where there is a strong gatekeeper who by default refuses community submissions, preferring instead to have the submitter sell their case successfully first.
I’m sure all open source participants/project owners like to think of themselves as qualified gatekeepers. Statistically though, the majority of the patches you receive will be mediocre, yet for most projects, the patch acceptance level is well over 50%.
Setting aside the gatekeeper issue, there’s also the spastic community aspect to further defecate onto the project in ways far beyond harmful patches.
User contributions and suggestions are a good example. Much like in politics, the average bumpkin hasn’t a clue on what’s best for them. They will kick up a fuss and demand features that are simple bad design, out of scope, irrelevant, or already covered through some other mechanism.
The examples of this sort of thing are everywhere. Jakarta clogging is a good one, where a tool has come about that nobody actually needs. JBoss is the same, with huge disparity between various modules. Some are written by people who have perhaps taken a java class or two, whereas some are written by people who’s sole ability seems to be to flail about helplessly in the general vicinity of a keyboard (UnifiedClassLoader 1-4).
To be fair, I’ll toss in a closed source example; IDEA. The more community-driven IDEA’s features are, the more end users are dissapointed. IDEA 4.0 for example was driven by users feedback and what they wanted. It’s a shining example proving that that particular set of end users is as stupid as Texans.
So open source (I realise I’m generalising, and there are plenty of projects that prove this wrong, but they’re the minority) ends up suffering from the same problems wikipedia does. The competency distribution curve makes sure of this.
How is closed source any different? Well, there’s a higher barrier to entry, and there’s a carrot/stick mentality that caters better to the fact that the average developer is a fuckwit. You do well, you get paid well. Do badly, and you’re punished. Being paid well lets you buy shiny things, which makes you happy. Not being paid will make you sad, and your significant other will mock you/become sad/point and laugh at your genitalia/starve. Beyond some dubious penis tugging, open source just doesn’t have the same cold hard incentive/disincentive approach. Submit a bad patch that gets committed by a desperate committer? No big deal, at worst some random joe schmo will think ‘well this code sucks’.
I do want to stress that there are projects that buck this trend, but the laws of statistics apply there too, they’re few and far between, with the majority sitting pretty in the middle hump of mediocrity.
November 16th, 2004 at 1:25 pm
Commercial, closed source software is just as bad. How many XP “Professional” users need an animated cartoon dog to help them search for files? When closed source software is marketting led, instead of market led, the lower quality is obvious.
November 16th, 2004 at 1:33 pm
All very nicely written, but one fact remains: Wikipedia is useful.
No amount of excrement being hurled in the general direction of Wikipedia will take away the fact that several times a week, I turn to it and receieve some very useful information.
The same can be said about Open Source. While I agree in general about your statements, fact remains that the (closed source) project I’m working on would not be possible without open source. Or at least it wouldn’t have half the features it does today (the price of our product is nowehere near enough to let in even a single royalty-based closed-source product).
So in the end, the theory displayed in both the original Slashdot article, as in this bile, is sound and reasonable but reality someone defies the theory. In science that usually means the theory is wrong, or at the very least incomplete. Subject for further study perhaps.
November 16th, 2004 at 1:34 pm
Hani,
What the hell? Where’s the bile? This is actually a _good_ post. I’m very disappointed.
November 16th, 2004 at 1:41 pm
But Hani, so long as a contribution passes the unit tests all is well, right?
Right?
November 16th, 2004 at 2:07 pm
Hani: you say nothing new :)
Think at how a serious operating system like Windows NT 3.11 was perverted to become that pile of crap called “Windows XP”. In order to generate revenue, Microsoft lowered the barrier of acceptance to suggestions… the real problem is not that masses are stupid, but that if you need to find a median way between the interests of many (thousands or even millions) different individuals you will see that only the crappiest ideas survive, because better ideas fail to be accepted by many people. Better ideas are just too complex to gain “instantaneous acceptance”. Crappy ideas however, while they gain “instantaneous acceptance” like wildfire, have short legs, like falsities… and now Windows XP is a heap of junk on top of a series of fuckups (like Outlook Express die die die).
November 16th, 2004 at 3:21 pm
nice try fate, looks like JBoss beat ya, dumb voters!
November 16th, 2004 at 3:45 pm
If you think NT 3.11 is good and XP is crap, you need your head examined.
November 16th, 2004 at 6:14 pm
Very interesting piece. Quite impressed with the fact that there are still some people that believe commercial software is here to stay. I’ve always compared writing software to writing books. In the beginning of so to speak software revolution software is open and free, just like books are whenever there is a need to get the message accross. After a while authors both of books and software starve for a couple of years, say fuck it and go back to writing commercial software.
What message you ask? The message the Hippies brought us of equalness and freedom to do what you want.
November 16th, 2004 at 9:32 pm
I think Hani just pointed out the “Tragedy of the Creative Commons” ;D
~rmp
November 17th, 2004 at 3:29 am
You do soft as you were running for JCP ? Since when this blog has become something worth reading ? If I want to read something such boring than I go read fucking onjava.com. Or any other thing I have to read because Java laks so much a good source of information (well except theserverside maybe). But when I come here I expect to see what the bunch of dumb fucks out there has been doing and get my feet on the ground. Who the fuck brainwashed you ?
November 17th, 2004 at 5:29 am
Your article is just total nonsense! Do you really think closed source projects are of a better quality?! In my experience, it is the opposite. Sure, there’s a lot of really bad programmed/ managed OSS projects out there, but the majority of the closed source projects (like all the home bred frameworks I have seen implemented by customers, or – for example – one of the major commercial workflow engines I happened to see some of the sources from) are a mess as well. At least in OSS, programmers are motivated to perform better, or they’ll be biled down. In closed source, it’s often just all about the short term (budget/ risc/ politics of the day) and programmers generally are awarded for having their software working in time for the next deadline, instead of being awarded for delivering high quality code.
And about Wikipedia. I’ve been able to find usefull and correct info (e.g. on roman emperors) several times allready. This info sometimes was more elaborate and accurate than the info I found on others sites. I am really amazed that Wikipedia is this good allready!
November 17th, 2004 at 7:42 am
As far as the JCP election goes I think it really sucks that there are not more individuals on the EC. Individuals exhibit (or at least possibly exhibit) less bias and as a result the quality of the specs increases. Companies like Google, etc. have their own agendas.
November 17th, 2004 at 10:12 am
Your capacity to state the bleeding obvious exceeds even Sybil Fawlty
November 17th, 2004 at 12:26 pm
Surely a major difference between commercial and open source developers is that the OSS guys do it out of interest and will only do it while they remain interested. This is a double-edged sword, sure enough (how many half-finished, unmaintained OSS projects are there? how long is a piece of string), but at least it means they’re giving it their all at the time. Commercial developers are often badly trained, badly motivated and fundamentally uninterested in what they’re doing. A lot of people get into IT because they think there’s a buck to be made, get jobs because HR departments don’t technically screen candidates, get on because they’re the same MBA fodder fucktards as the management who make promotion and assignment decisions and just clutter up projects contributing nothing but path of least resistance solutions to problems. Add to that project managers telling people not to do things thoroughly because of time/budget constraints – “no, don’t bother updating those unit tests we need the changes urgently” – and you end up with a mess every bit as bad as some ill-conceived OSS project done by bedroom coders.
I’m not saying OSS is always good and commercial software always bad, clearly neither is the case. I just think there’s something simplistic in Hani’s analysis of the reward structures.
November 17th, 2004 at 4:17 pm
Buckled Wheel:
”
Commercial developers are often badly trained, badly motivated and fundamentally uninterested in what they’re doing. A lot of people get into IT because they think there’s a buck to be made, get jobs because HR departments don’t technically screen candidates, get on because they’re the same MBA fodder fucktards …”
Not to mention that most “closed” projects are “managed” by fucktards – whose software experience resume has “professional photographer for 25 years” or “manager in Kmart for 15 years” etc
November 17th, 2004 at 6:08 pm
What a dreadful industry .. where we sit around and argue about who sucks worse .. quality should be the goal of both open source and commercial projects.
November 17th, 2004 at 7:24 pm
Open source is necessary to stop reinventing the wheel. Many closed-source developers are forced to reinvent more basic functions, since each company is forced to write them. If we use open source solutions for these basic functions, then we can move past them more quickly and create something of more value with less cost. Open source is the natural evolution of software development. It’s amazing it took so long to finally get a free operating system. It just amazes me that so many morons still run windows servers. I can’t for the life of me understand why.
November 17th, 2004 at 7:26 pm
Open source is necessary to stop reinventing the wheel. Many closed-source developers are forced to reinvent more basic functions, since each company is forced to write them. If we use open source solutions for these basic functions, then we can move past them more quickly and create something of more value with less cost. Open source is the natural evolution of software development. It’s amazing it took so long to finally get a free operating system. It just amazes me that so many morons still run windows servers. I can’t for the life of me understand why.
November 18th, 2004 at 6:19 am
WHy reinvent the wheel:
well aren’t you a dumbass. Is open source code by and for open source developers only? Since I’m employed, I can’t use open source tools/libraries?
You fuckbags need to stop finding differences between open and closed source. One case means you get to see the code, the other doesn’t. They both have:
- License agreements regarding what you may and/or may not do with the code.
- One or more owners
- Control/management (typically very poor with open source projects)
Now, you could argue that closed source development is driven by customer demand (even anticipated demand), but that really doesn’t have anything to do with the openess of the code as such. Orion could publish the source code and invite programmers to join the effort if they wanted to, and still be driven by customer demand and spec compliance.
Pure open source efforts are not driven by customer demand on the other hand. They can procolaim they are, but they’re not. What goes into the linux kernel has nothing to do with a thought customer opting to buy a copy if and only if their particular feature gets added. That is not the case.
November 18th, 2004 at 7:31 am
Buckled Wheel …
“Surely a major difference between commercial and open source developers is that the OSS guys do it out of interest”
but there are some OSS devs who seem to do it so they can get their bits tickled by other OSS developers … AltRMI anyone ?
November 18th, 2004 at 9:43 am
If someone submits mediocre code to some OSS project, then.. so what?
It’s as if the only point of your rambling was to imply that you’re in a position to judge what code is poor and what’s not.
No one is forcing you to use any open source software, and no one is forcing anyone to make it.
So if you’ve got a problem with someone’s code, either use all of your willpower to refrain yourself from using it, or submit something so dazzlingly ingenious and elegant that the vastly inferior code will get replaced by yours.
Some people are good at programming, and some are not. Yet, strangely, life goes on.
(No, I haven’t participated in any OSS project)
November 18th, 2004 at 11:44 am
Who was your ghost writer? ;-)
Good article, but like others have said before me commerical software can blow chunks too.
November 18th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
strong gatekeeper = are you refering to bob the despot? I know you love codehaus.
November 19th, 2004 at 4:42 am
Slashdot is the gate to the lands of mediocrity.
November 19th, 2004 at 11:23 am
Congratulations: you have discovered the “90% of everything is crap” rule. It applies to commercial software just as much as to free software. The development model is irrelevant to the suckitude of the result.
November 22nd, 2004 at 2:38 pm
“Your capacity to state the bleeding obvious exceeds even Sybil Fawlty”
I couldn’t agree more.
November 23rd, 2004 at 10:44 am
“Your capacity to state the bleeding obvious exceeds even Sybil Fawlty”
I couldn’t agree more.
Funny then, how this “obvious” statements elude most OSS supporters, including frequent commenters here.
Seems the obvious is not so obvious.
Fucktards.
November 23rd, 2004 at 6:40 pm
Funny then, how this “obvious” statements elude most OSS supporters, including frequent commenters here.
Seems the obvious is not so obvious.
Fucktards.
It would seem that you’re missing a rather obvious reference to British television history.
Nevermind.
November 24th, 2004 at 12:32 pm
It would seem that you’re missing a rather obvious reference to British television history.
Nevermind.
Probably because I’m not british.
November 24th, 2004 at 4:07 pm
Hum, I wonder which pieces of Idea you deem a waste of time in 4.0, and I must admit there are a few. Though I think the case you make about OSS and CS still stands in that community. Not everyone is a dumfuck nitwit, but that percentage is probably fairly close to the one you refer to in your article (weird to call it that, but it is, and well written to boot! thanks)
R
November 28th, 2004 at 8:23 pm
just to repeat, exactly how is wikipedia un-useful? focus hani, an argument built on a falacy is no argument at all.
November 29th, 2004 at 8:16 am
It would seem that you’re missing a rather obvious reference to British television history.
Nevermind.
Probably because I’m not british.
November 29th, 2004 at 4:00 pm
Long time no bile!
November 30th, 2004 at 4:39 am
Settle daown!
November 30th, 2004 at 7:57 am
You have have nightmares about your small penis being pointed at every night?
You seem to mention it a lot.
December 6th, 2004 at 4:35 pm
Hopefully YOU are so clever, you’ll save the world…
September 4th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
You are all faggots/queers/lesbos/straights/or perhaps green with tentacles…
this site is lame, and you are all fucktards, and miss whiplash gives bad head…. and your coffee DOES taste like shit….
you are all a sad pack of rectum rangers!
September 4th, 2005 at 10:58 pm
and the fact that noone has posted in a year says something, pull your head out of each others asses and read your loser forum…
…
…
…
fucktards!
and the math question is EASY!!!!!