IPv6 Assignment Tracking Software

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

On 4/12/2011 4:12 PM, Paul Timmins wrote:
> On 04/12/2011 06:58 PM, Doug Barton wrote:
>> FWIW, as someone who develops open source software that is sometimes
>> used by large companies, I always thought that was a perfectly
>> reasonable perspective on the part of the IPPlan author. I certainly
>> don't see anything "anti-IPv6" about it.
>
> As someone who uses open source software, large companies often don't
> feel like subsidizing a feature that will ultimately be used by everyone
> else.

That isn't really true.

With a great many of these packages if Large Co. were to throw $500
or $1000 to the developer for a missing feature it would be a quarter of 
the cost of a commercial package that did the same thing.

Most (competent) large company managers are perfectly aware of this.

The problem comes down to support, as it always does with Open Source.

 From a manager's perspective in Large Co their fear is they could throw 
the $1K to the software developer and get the feature added - and then 6 
months later they find a showstopper bug and the developer isn't 
interested in fixing it - even if money is waved in front of him.

The God's honest truth of it is that it is entirely in how the software
developer presents the package, and how he presents himself or herself
to the users.  There are MANY software devs out there who make a nice 
living out of customizing their open source package.  For example
the ticketing system RT (Request Tracker) comes to mind.  It's obvious
that the people at Best Practical are very proud of their baby and
as a manager I wouldn't have any second thoughts at throwing them some
money to add something, because the way that they present themselves
engenders trust.

But, I wouldn't trust the developer of ipplan with any amount of money 
to add IPv6 support because of his presentation.  While I don't know
him personally and don't know his actual IRL attitude, he does not 
present ipplan as though he wants ipplan to be the best dang IP tracking 
system out there bar none.  Instead it is that this is my program and it 
does what I want, and I'm happy with it and if you are also that's 
great, but if you aren't then talk to the hand.

He has the perfect right to do this, as it IS his software.  I don't
begrudge him that.  But at the same time I will approach his software
exactly the way he wants me to - which is that if it exactly meets 
everything that I want, then I'll use it, but if there's a single thing
I don't like about it, then I'll pitch it over the shoulder without
a second thought.

> There's a hundred different ways the author could have gone about
> it (take up a collection with a financial goal, publish a fixed price
> that wasn't dependent on the size of the asker) but instead shut out the
> very people who have the resources to say "screw it, if I have to pay,
> I'm just going to use my own developers for it, and with that attitude,
> I'm not submitting patches back".
>
> So it's "anti-companies-large-enough-to-afford-helping" not wanting to
> be taken advantage of. I'd be shocked if the price that it would take
> didn't depend entirely on the perceived size of the asker's pockets.
>

Well get used to that, that is very common in many other industries.  If
you go out to buy a used car and you wear your best clothes to go 
shopping for one then trust me your going to end up paying more for
it than the guy who looks like he can barely scrape together enough to
afford the bus ticket.  Business purchasing isn't like going to the
grocery store.

It is also important to keep in mind with Open Source is that those
people out there who have a lot of free time but not a lot of money tend 
to use it, because they don't have anywhere else to go.  This is not to 
say that the well-off don't use Open Source, many of them do,
but they have other options that the poor don't.  Many of the ipplan
users couldn't afford pay the developer for the software if it was
commercial, and they wouldn't even be using it if that was the case.

Ted

> -Paul