BUSINESS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB:

where "word of keystroke" begins

March 18, 1999 -- Business implications of the Linux development model

Transcript of the live chat session that took place Thursday, March 18, 1999. These sessions are normally scheduled for 12 noon-1 PM Eastern Time every Thursday. Please note that the US is now on Standard Time. So in international terms, we are on at GMT -5.

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Since the chat itself happens at a rapid pace, it's often difficult to note interesting facts in particular URLs as they appear on-line. Here's a place to take a more leisurely look. I've rearranged some of the pieces to try to capture the various threads of discussion (which sometimes get lost in the rush of live chat).

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Threads (reconstructed after the fact):

• Today's participants
• Introductions
• "Scratching a developer's itch" -- how to begin a Linux-style development effort
• The Simple Society -- applications for social utopianism
• Applications for publishing
• Applications for distance education/training
• Does the "bazaar" have to be the whole world? or just a large organization
• Parallels with architecture (building buildings)
• How do you know you are done?
• What should be proprietary? Who owns the intellectual property?
• "Whole brain" theory
• How to control the chaos of the Bazaar?
• Finding new problems
• Wrapup

Today's Participants

• Anthony Alvarez (Home Page)
• Alberino
• Tom Blinn
• Bob Fleischer (Home Page)
• moose
• Nacim
• Sophie Parker
• Tom Quin
• Barbara Seltzer (Home Page)
• Richard Seltzer (Home Page)
• Sue
• Jacques Trepanier
• John Watkins (Home Page)
• Yvette (Home Page)
• BobZwick (Home Page)
• Kathleen Gilroy (Home Page)

Introductions

Kathleen Gilroy -- Hi Tom, Glad you could make it to the chat.

Richard Seltzer -- Welcome Kathleen and Tom Quin and Sophie Parker and John Watkins. Looks like we have a good group assembled right at the starting bell. Just for starters -- how many of you have had a chance to read Eric Raymond's article "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"? http://www.kde.burken.nu/food/cathedral/cathedral-paper.html#toc1

Sophie Parker -- I read the article.

Richard Seltzer -- For those who have not read the article, the contrast is between software which is developed like a cathedral by a group working in isolation and only releasing the code when it is "totally finished"; vs. the open "great babbling bazaar" which is how Linux development is described.

Richard Seltzer -- Welcome Sue, Jacque Trepanieer, Barbara, and Bob Fleischer. Please introduce yourselves and let us know your interests. It looks like we have a very good group and the numbers are growing fast. Please just dive in and ask and answer and comment as you see fit. I probably won't be able to type fast enough to respond to everyone; but I'm sure others can and will jump into the breech.

Barbara -- Hi! I'm here. I'm just an onlooker, interested in learning.

Bob Fleischer -- Bob Fleischer, Compaq Services, signing in. I especially appreciated reading the Cathedral and the Bazaar article. A pointer to the most recently updated version of the article can be found at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ .

I was glad to be reminded of two books that Eric Raymond cites which I read early in my career -- Mythical Man-Month by Brooks and Psychology of Computer Programming by Weinberg-- that impressed me most. (There was a third book, Notes on the Synthesis of Form by Alexander, that was equally impressive.)

Tom Blinn -- Tom Blinn signing on. Interested in the Linux model for software development, just because I'm naturally nosy and tend to jump in to interesting stuff invited or not ..

Anthony Alvarez -- Hi Richard, this is Anthony from Acunet

Richard Seltzer -- Welcome Anthony, from Acunet. The word "bazaar" must have a particular ring to you -- since an earlier incarnation of Acunet's on-line store service was called Cyberbazaars.

Anthony Alvarez -- Yes, the current name is Acushop. Acushop is currently in negotiations w/ Red Hat to sell their copy of Linux on the net.

Richard Seltzer -- Anthony -- Interesting. I'll have to take a look at the new version. What's the URL?

Anthony Alvarez -- Its still under wraps but i will let U guys know ASAP.

Sue -- Hi! I'm a corporate trainer and located this chat on TRDEV-L - just "listening".

Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- please feel free to dive in at any moment. We're all learning from one another. This chat itself is "bazaar-style."

Nacim -- Hi there Nacim Joining in.

Alberino -- Hi. I'm here for learn.

Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Alberino, please dive in when the mood strikes you. 

"Scratching a developer's itch" -- how to begin a Linux-style development effort

Richard Seltzer -- Kathleen -- Very interesting point. What could constitute a "developer's itch" in a realm other than software development? How might one deliberately try to start such a project? Does one need to develop a community first? Or does the community evolve in response to the "itch"?

Jacques Trepanier -- Does the Linux model work for all types of development or just for things that everyone needs (Operating Systems, Browsers, etc.) With these things it's easier to have no limits and no ownership.

Kathleen Gilroy -- I don't know whether the problem needs to be "universal" to make Linux development work. Maybe just large enough to attract a group big enough to solve it. 

The Simple Society -- applications for social utopianism

Kathleen Gilroy -- John, What, in particular, interested you about this topic vis-a-vis the Simple Society?

John Watkins -- Kathleen, My belief is that the bazaar model is very much like our effort to be a grass roots think tank. We've established some principles to guide the work of others and intend to form just as many cells as possible to work on further development. We call the cells "Simple Solutions Teams" and hope eventually to have one or more in every zip code in the country.

Richard Seltzer -- John -- Yes, I believe that "bazaar style" could work like a think tank. But then we need to probe a bit and figure out what kinds of think-tank topics would work well. And also does this only take off is there is action to come out at the end of it -- not just an endless conversation about what would be good, but developing plans online and then implementing.

Kathleen Gilroy -- John, can you please give us an example of a principle and how it relates to the Linux model?
John Watkins -- Kathleen, I'm not sure this is what you want. One of our principles is "In all human relationships, seek the greatest degree of fairness, not advantage." How does that apply to government, to education, to interpersonal relationships, to the penal system, etc. If I understand the Linus system, once the basics have been published, a multitude of people are free to embellish, perfect, alter, develop new applications, etc. That's what we intend to do.

John Watkins -- Richard, One of our major problems today is how much people are willing to talk about public problems and then talk some more. Our mission statement says we'll construct a model of Utopia, if you will, and then do everything possible to get it adopted. We have something of an action plan for that stage.

Richard Seltzer -- John -- I'd suspect that when dealing with utopian social matters the biggest challenge would be to move from the realm of discussion to the realm of action. I suspect that the "itch" will only really get going once you choose one project, however small, and begin implementing it, and then improving it, and replicating it, and growing it.

John Watkins -- Richard, the traditional wisdom is to start small. But there has to be an overall vision that guides the smaller steps. A quote which I like is: ". . . incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy"
Nicholas Negroponte (founder of MIT Media Lab, MIT, Cambridge)

Jacques Trepanier -- But John, incrementalism makes money!

Richard Seltzer -- John -- I see this model -- with regard to social issues -- very much as a matter of scattering seeds (like the parables in the Bible). I don't think it's possible to arrive at a broad, all-encompassing understanding of human needs and opportunities. I think that we come up with many seed ideas and spread them around, and some fall on fertile ground. Some seed ideas just happen to produce the "itch" that makes many want to get involved -- if the set up is such as to spread the word and let many get involved.

John Watkins -- Richard, of course you're right. But I'm talking about a model of relationships which amongst other things includes two other priniciples -- We all benefit from motivating and empowering others to give us their best AND We all benefit from encouraging a positive creative environment.

Bob Fleischer -- It's interesting that the one point that I remember most from that book by Alexander is that traditional architecture is based upon incremental improvements, evolution, with one result being a very good fit for the environment. Of course, Alexander wasn't arguing that all development be incremental, but that incremental development does tend to avoid the introduction of major dysfunction to a design -- but obviously radical improvement is unlikely, as well.
Richard Seltzer -- John -- picking up on what I just saw posted by Tom Blinn and Anthony Alvarez -- Linux apparently developed as a series of small reusable tools. While the basic seed ideas had within them the ability for expansion, modular style, there was no overarching plan, no super-intelligent vision. The seeds were good. The right people got the itch. the Internet was there to facilitate communication among those with the itch. It happened. Committees could take hundreds of years and never arrive at a plan. But in this mode, under the ideal circumstances, the project simply grows.

John Watkins -- Some incrementalism is only clear with the advantage of hindsight. In increment of improvement may, in fact, be the furthest possible step forward at the time. Should we be prudent when recommending change? Absolutely! Should we be cowardly? Absolutely not. 

Applications for publishing

Richard Seltzer -- I see applications of this model for publishing, as well as distance learning, as well as social utopian projects. In publishing, today we're going through a transition from paper -- which by nature was static -- to electronic -- which has the potential for being dynamic, constantly changing and improving. For now, most "electronic publishers" are simply putting static words into electronic form, for purposes of inexpensive reproduction and distribution. But electronic text could change how a "book" is written and edited and updated, change how we define what a "book" is.

Kathleen Gilroy -- I recently read an interesting definition of the "E-book" as a pyramid with a summary text on top (maybe published as a paperback). Underneath would be layers of research, related text, course syllabi, discussion groups. It's a wonderful image -- book as pyramind, with the pyramid as the digital archive. But who "owns" it? How does one pay for its creation?

Richard Seltzer -- Kathleen -- with regard to publishing, I can't help but think of the book I just finished writing for Macmillan -- Shop Online the Lazy Way. I proposed that I post the text at my site and thereby generate interest in the book and also generate feedback, and that I keep the online version continuously updated. Then when they were ready for another print edition, the work would basically be done. And I would benefit from the suggestions and advice of hundreds or thousands of people over the Internet. In fact, the second edition would be a collaboration with readers. But the publishing house was horrified at the idea. It just didn't match their static notion of a "book" and also they were very uncomfortable about anything that might dilute their notion of ownership of intellectual property.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Richard, This definition for an "E-book" was made by an academic with an eye on publishing academic monographs (where the economics are so disadvantageou). Some people are talking about a buying a book as buying a printed version of what's online. Publishers will shift when they see that they can still make money. Or can they?

Richard Seltzer -- Kathleen -- I think that the models for how to make money from electronic text should evolve from the medium and out experience with it. But many others are taking the approach that the static text is the "property" and are doing back-flips with special gadgets and encryption to try to make electronic texts into static objects like paper books that they can manage in traditional ways. Of course, that approach would eliminate the possibility of the enormous benefits that can come from bazaar style.

Jacques Trepanier -- The technology for browsing electronic books hasn't caught up with the convenience of books yet, but once it does the economic model should sort itself out.

Richard Seltzer -- Jacques -- I've been participating in some interesting email discussions about ebooks and where they are headed and the economic models. And there seem to be two totally opposed viewpoints -- those who want to perpetuate static book models, and those who want to explore the new opportunities opened by electronic media. It isn't really a dialogue at this point -- more a shouting match between two groups with very entrenched positions.

John Watkins -- Richard, I suspect there will be two modes of publishing. One will be the traditional static system although the delivery system will be electronic. The other will be interactive and the nature of the "author" will be one determinant of which mode is used. I suspect that some "books" will start interactive and then become more static, if not completely static. Self-publishing is facilitate by the web and that will play a role in the balance between static and interactive.

Richard Seltzer -- John -- I believe you are right on target with regard to two modes of publishing. I went through this kind of transition back when I was at Digital, writing an in-house newsletter. First we were print only. Then print mimicked in electronic form as a supplement to the print edition. Then we started making continuous updates to the electronic version. And soon the print/static version diminished in value and interest for those folks who were online. But there was always a large number of managers who didn't even do their own electronic mail, who had secretaries print everything out for them. Strange world. All types of people.

Anthony Alvarez -- Has anyone spoken about creating eBooks for PDA's like Palm Pilot or other handheld device ? Has anyone tried it?

BobZwick -- Franklin has a whole library of e-books available for their products.

BobZwick -- Palm Pilot's and Franklin devices are similar to physical books. If e-text (books) are written correctly, i.e. anchors on every page, topic and sub-topic, all we need is to be able to access them on the web and bookmark where we left off (fold the corner) or go to the topic we whis to.

Richard Seltzer -- Anthony -- the problem with PalmPilots for etext is the size of the screen. But there are plenty of plain-text etexts available that you could read with any word processor on any PC. And there are some neat special ebook devices now, which apparently make it much easier on the eye; but unfortunately those are locked into closed encrypted publishing models.

Jacques Trepanier -- Richard: I Agree on the ebook point. Although I prefer reading from a book it's only because the interface is so convenient. Once LCD panels improve I'll probably switch completely. I've had a lot of discussions with people who can't see books being replaced. I think there were people in the middle ages saying similar things before Gutenberg came around.

Jacques Trepanier -- Microsoft has recently developed a technology that has significantly increased resolution on LCD panels by taking advantage of the fact that LCD's use three points of colored light to make each pixel. There should be some new tools taking advantage of this in the next 18 months that will make palmtop tools more usable for reading.

John Watkins -- Anthony, for twenty years in publishing, I've been suggesting that books be presented in something essentially resembling the Palm Pilot format--although the screen would necessarily have to be larger approaching the size of a printed book page. The technology for downloading, indexing, searching, scanning, etc. has essentially been developed and so has the technology for e-commerce that will make it possible to charge for use.

Anthony Alvarez -- Could you elaborate on your statement: "and so has the technology for e-commerce that will make it possible to charge for use" Isnt it true that etext has *absolutely NO* copy protection at all ?

Anthony Alvarez -- BTW, where can we find more detail about etext software and content on the Internet?

Richard Seltzer -- Anthony -- I prefer the variety of etex that has no protections -- that is open to the widest discussion and participation. But there are numerous techniques available today to prevent copying at all levels. (I just did some consulting for an outfit in Missouri, Ion Systems, that seems to be able to do this very well indeed.)

Kathleen Gilroy -- But if you are collaboratively authoring this material, from whom should it be protected? Perhaps access is the key. Once you have made a contribution, your access to the material is free or at a reduced rate.

John Watkins -- Anthony, I wish it was possible to elaborate. As one of the computer special interest groups I belonged to, they brought in a specialist in E-commerce who talked about the various ways of paying for "things" electronically, including the use of tokens as small as a tenth of a cent which could be moved from account to account automatically. It would require an advance warning by the purveyor that the charge would be automatic. But, to access the information, you'd have to pay unless you had access to a pirated version. That's illegal in most cases. Richard, you may know the person I'm thinking of. He also spoke to the NHISIG.

Richard Seltzer -- John Watkins -- what you are describing sounds like micropayments and in particular Digital's Millicent. Check www.millicent.digital.com

BobZwick -- It would also be nice if every book had an Appendix (link) to a BBS style forum where the readers and author can add comments.

Richard Seltzer -- bob zwick -- I'd like to see that appendix link too for books. (Good idea. I might propose that to Macmillan as a compromise.) 

Applications for distance education/training

Jacques Trepanier -- Although the content must be original, there are only a certain number of ways to cover it. You can build a series of CBT's and use that in conjunction with a development methodology to allow a developer who is not necessarily familiar with teaching techniques or the technology to follow the dotted lines and transfer their knowledge to others.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Richard, can the community that was built out of the course be self-managed? I am about to attend my 20th (yikes!) college reunion this year and it is a well organized effort to re-connect me back to the community (and, I'm sure, to open my purse strings). How do these communities stay vital? Who manages them?

Richard Seltzer -- Kathleen -- From my experience, it seems that out of hundreds of graduates there might be half a dozen with the inclination and the time to devote to putting together a reunion. Given a large enough body of people, there are probably some few with an inclination toward almost any kind of "itch" (where an itch is a self-motivated desire to do something with no tangible reward in site). One of the reasons for opening up development processes to the masses is to make it possible for there to be enough talented and itchy people available to make it happen.

Jacques Trepanier -- Richard: Doesn't the course end at some point anyway? I agree that there is usually a need to interface with the other participants, experts, etc. for a period after the training but for many students once they become semi-expert (especially in software tool training courses) they don't need further contact. Some topics (soft skills training) can use a continuous learning tool, but from what I've experienced there may only be 1 student in 10 who wants continuous learning.

Kathleen Gilroy -- I do think Jacques has made an interesting distinction between "soft" and "hard" skills. Do these open principles apply to an engineering course as well as one on leadership?

Sophie Parker -- at the core of the problem soving process is the ability to communicate well to many different people. Software, and other projects like it, fit well into this process because all the terms and goals are well defined. I wish there was a way to tranfer this idea to designing learning environments, First I think we would have to get our shared language established.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Sophie, What kind of common language do you have in mind? Terms/interface?

Does the "bazaar" have to be the whole world? or just a large organization

That raises a question: does the "bazaar" have to be the whole world, or can it be the interior of a sufficiently large and varied organization? The Psychology of Computer Programming is given as one inspiration; that book assumes that organizations can and should set themselves up to operate egolessly internally. Of course they rarely do that.

Richard Seltzer -- Bob Fleischer -- good point about Microsoft. I think that applied for Digital at its heyday. I think it's a matter of critical mass -- that you need enough people able to interact in an open environment before the interesting stuff starts to happen. Few companies are big enough and well-wired enough for that to happen. 

Parallels with architecture (building buildings)

Nacim -- Another example of collaborative design process you may all want to look at is work by Nicholas Habraken a Deutch architect who developed a system called "Supports" (book by the same title). The system is geared towards involving the eventual users of public housing units in the design process of the units thay will later inhabit. He argues that they do not need to be provided with finished housing units but simply "opportunities" for housing where thay can then mold the space to their particular needs at the time of design/conception and later adapt the design to their evolving needs. Several projects build using Supports have been biult in England and Holland and have been very successful housing projetcs. He further argues that the traditional relationship between humans and their dwellings has over time been disturbed to the point of removing the eventual user for the design process (public housing). Supports tries to reestablish that thraditional relationship between the product and user.

The relationship use to be: man-dwelling, it evolved into man-builder-dwelling, then man-architect-builder-dwelling, then man-housing authority-architect-builder-dwelling and so on. In the world of software we may have the opposite process where with time the relationship between user and product will get more and more personal as opposed to more and more distant as it is still the case for public housing today.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Nacim, I love this analogy! Do you have the book?

Nacim -- KG, I have the book.

How do you know you are done?

What should be proprietary? Who owns the intellectual property?

Richard Seltzer -- Another way of looking at the cathedral vs. the bazaar is to ask the question, when do you gain by keeping information proprietary and closed? And when would you benefit more by making it open with contributions and changes and testing and critiques from the many.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Tom, This is a great question. What is/should be proprietary? In the Linux model, nothing is proprietary--except for the support services around the code. There is a new start up called Red Hat (well funded) that exists to support the users of the software. But who should benefit and how?

Richard Seltzer -- Tom Quinn -- Yes, if there is to be action -- a product or an event -- there will probably be some kind of ownership of that end state. Who will own it? And how does that relate to the motivation necessary to get everyone involved? Do you have to get everyone involved? or is there a matter of recruiting the right set of people, enough for critical mass, but not so monstrous as to be totally out of control? I'm sure there are some who would welcome no limits and no ownership. But there's certainly room for looking for compromise ground; and what's best may well differ widely from one kind of project to another.

Kathleen Gilroy -- In our work with universities and customers, we are constantly trying to find the fairness/advantage line. The "authors" want and need intellectual property rights in their material (if only to compensate themselves for the R&D. The users/practioners are more stimulated and engaged when they feel they have co-created the material. How do you balance these competing rights?

Richard Seltzer -- Reading the article I couldn't help but be reminded of the old Notes-file culture inside Digital in its heyday. There were thousands of engineers all openly collaborating, but the collaboration was taking place on a proprietary network. The VAXnotes software itself, I believe was developed, tested, improved etc., as a grassroots effort, somewhat bazaar style; but once again all on a proprietary network, so ownership was never an issue.

Tom Blinn -- Richard, yes, there has been much collaboration inside the old Digital facilitated by the Easynet. Of course, in the "outside world", the USENET newsgroups provided a similar environment, but I think what has REALLY made open source work has been the Web with the tools it provides to allow much higher bandwidth sharing. (Mail is still the killer app, of course, but mail doesn't work really well for doing collaborative development.)

Bob Fleischer -- Regarding "What is/should be proprietary?", I think one emerging understanding is that there are costs and disadvantages to keeping an intellectual effort proprietary, and not just benefits. I especially can see increasing numbers of individuals deciding that keeping code (or other work product) to oneself costs them just too much. I'm not sure how many organizations will come to this realization, especially existing organizations not in the throes of desperation as I believe Netscape was.

Bob Fleischer -- In a way it's too bad that Ted Nelson couldn't implement his ideas for hypertext. One notion was that ownership was tracked for even the smallest element of a hypertext. Instead of thinking of "open source" meaning nobody owns anything, "open source" could mean everybody owns exactly what they contribute, and since ownership is always tracked, you don't mind allowing others to use your work in whole or in part, in fact you'd encourage it. (No, I don't know how to make this happen.)

Tom Blinn -- Ted Nelson was a remarkable visionary. 

"Whole brain" theory

TOM QUIN -- WHOLE BRAIN THEORY SAYS FOR CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT, CULTURE, AND ACHIEVEMENT YOU SHOULD AIME IN CREATING A TEAM THAT ENCOMPASSES ALL THE TALENTS THAT A WHOLE BRAIN CAN BRING. AS AN ACCOUNTANT MY PREFERRED MODE OF THINKING IS LEFT BRAINED SEQUENTIAL ORDERED ETC. USUALY LEFT BRAINERS WOULDDNT BE VISIONARIES ETC. AS I UNDERSTAND THIS CONCEPT OF BAZAAR WE BRING TOGETHER A GREATER POSSIBILITY OF ACHIEVING A TOTAL BRAIN. UNFORTUNATELY LIKE THE REAL BRAIN CHAOS CAN ERUPT WITH SO MUCH FREE THOUGHT. CONTROL PERHAPS LIMITS AS SUGGESTED EARLIER HAVE TO BE ESTABLISHED, WHICH GETS ME BACK TO THE FIRST QUESTION I ASKED ABOUT SECURITY.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Tom, What do you mean by security?

Kathleen Gilroy -- You are more likely to find the whole brain here, but is that enough? What does that mean for leadership? Which part of the whole brain is best at that? 

How to control the chaos of the Bazaar?

Anthony Alvarez -- Controling the Chaos is an important. How was that issued handled in the Linux case ?

Richard Seltzer -- Anthony -- At the heart of chaos was Linus Torvald for Linux and for the smaller project that Eric Raymond describes, it was Eric. You need someone with unique personality traits at the heart of such a project, and Eric tries to describe those traits.

Kathleen Gilroy -- re: chaos. There does seem to be the need for a centrally organizing body that issues the new releases, keeps everybody informed. Who should be in charge of that part of the process?

Tom Blinn -- One might well ask "why is it important to control chaos?" when in reality little useful invention happens when things are tightly controlled (spoken as someone not into being a control freak)

Kathleen Gilroy -- Tom, The challenge is getting others to move out of a tightly controlled environment, especially when it has served them very well.

Jacques Trepanier -- I agree with Tom. By all definitions the weather is chaotic, but it seems to organize itself into somewhat predictable cycles and throws in some very pleasant surprises (as well as some nasty ones) but chaos can average out nicely. If it were on its way to averaging out horribly, the participants could bail.

BobZwick -- There is a difference between "control" and FOCUS. There are 1000 correct ways to solve a problem. Do we try each and every one ?

Richard Seltzer -- With Linux and the related sub-projects, a sort of consensus seems to have reigned. Only certain people have the personality and inclination to be at the center of such activities -- to dole out praise and make recommendations and to referee when necessary -- a bit like the moderators in the old Digital notes files. The person at the center isn't necessarily the most eloquent or the most creative. It takes a different kind of personality -- to do what needs to be done in ways that don't let egos get in the way, in ways that freely recognizes the contributions that others are making, so those others are motivated to get more such praise without the development community.

Jacques Trepanier -- By the way, isn't Linus the one who developed the managing ideas behind Linux? Don't we need a high priest to step out of the cathedral into the bazaar to give us all something to talk about (work with?) 

Finding new problems

TOM QUIN -- KATHLEEN YOUR "EACH EXPERIENCES NEW PROBLEMS" IS AT THE HEART OF THE HBDI STUFF I TOLD YOU ABOUT. WE ALL THINK AND PROCESS INFORMATION DIFFERENTLY. IT TAKES A TOTAL BRAIN TO COME UP WITH SEVERAL WORKABLE SOLUTIONS. AS I UNDERSTAND THIS LINUX, WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO BRING IN THE EQUIVALENT OF A WHOLE BRAIN TEAM -- ONLY MUCH BIGGER THAN IS POSSIBLE THAN SAY JUST YOU SOPHIE, NACIM AND MYSELF. PERHAPS SUE WITH HER TRAINING BACKGROUND WOULD APPRECIATE THE VALUE OF TOTAL BRAIN ON PROJECTS.

Jacques Trepanier -- If you develop with strong structures and design in flexibility you may not have to throw so much of it away. I think by "throwing away" the author might be suggesting that we lower expected returns from the first solution.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Jacques, What kinds of "strong structures" do you have in mind?

Tom Blinn -- The UNIX model has tended toward small reusable tools, and LINUX certainly incorporates that model. Many of the older proprietary systems have been ponderous beasts that can not be readily adapted or extended.

Anthony Alvarez -- The basic tools that actually facilite the LINUX model of development are: telnet, mail, ftp, and usenet. Because we these service make collaborative development possible. I dont include WWW because I think of the web as a more recent development. Are there any others U would like to add ?

Anthony Alvarez -- I also believe networked services on the internet that facilitate collaboration are really gonna change the way the culture because they offer a lot of potential. The LINUX development model is only one of its success stories

Jacques Trepanier -- Kathleen: Using flexible RAD tools (developing in languages that make it easier to translate from problem to solution). When you design a language, database, etc. you can leave room for future enhancements as well as designing flexibility. We've recently started building computer-based training tools. Learning more about the concepts of object oriented programming has helped using design a skeleton course that we can reuse for many different topics.

Anthony Alvarez -- Please explain RAD tools and Object design. I thought unix was based on C language. Plz advise

Jacques Trepanier -- Sorry Anthony, I was agreeing with the "Throw the first one out" statement, but expanding on it, by saying with the proper choice of tools and some well thought out design you may not have to throw the whole thing out.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Jacques, I'm not sure what you mean by "skeleton course" but I'd be very interested in talking further about this with you. While the templates may be standardized, the content--to be really interesting--must always be original. 

Wrapup

Barbara -- Wow, there is a lot of information flowing. I'm afraid I have to log off and go to a meeting. Thanks for an interesting chat.

Alberino -- Thanks for the interesting chat. I will Return.

Richard Seltzer -- All -- before you sign off, please post here your name and email and URL so we can keep in touch (don't count on the software to have captured that. And also, please feel free to send me followup email for inclusion with the transcript and also suggestions for future topics. seltzer@samizdat.com

Jacques Trepanier -- Jacques Trepanier, jacques_trepanier@markham.longview.ca Thanks for the chat!

Anthony Alvarez -- Great discusstion, C'ya. I can be reached at: Anthony Alvarez 

John Watkins -- John Watkins, The Simple Society, http://simsoc.org , johnw@simsoc.org

Bob Fleischer -- Bob Fleischer, robert.fleischer@compaq.com, rjf@tiac.net
http://www.tiac.net/users/rjf/

Richard Seltzer -- Thanks again to all. I'm looking forward to editing this one -- it will give me a chance to read through all the items that flew by too fast for me to digest in realtime.
Remember to check Kathleen's forums at www.ottergroup.com/forums.
And thanks again, very much, to Kathleen Gilroy for having suggested this topic.

Kathleen Gilroy -- Thanks Richard, It was a very provocative and interesting discussion.

Jacques Trepanier -- Richard: Could I suggest a topic? How do we go about building this bazaar?

Nacim -- I second Jacques' suggetsion about how to build the baazar for next week's topic

Richard Seltzer -- See you next week. seltzer@samizdat.com

Previous transcripts and schedule of upcoming chats -- www.samizdat.com/chat.html

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The full text of Richard Seltzer's books The Social Web, Take Charge of Your Web Site, Shop Online the Lazy Way, and The Way of the Web, plus more than a hundred related articles are available on CD ROM My Internet: a Personal View of Internet Business Opportunities.

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