On Monday 03 January 2005 18:00, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 16:54:01 +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves
lawgon@thenilgiris.com wrote:
On Monday 03 January 2005 04:19 pm, you wrote: i think that the key word is 'self-taught'. ppl who have taught themselves are more likely to contribute - but the majority of
Programmers can collaborate with people from other professions and write software for them. It is a well established fact that FOSS does not work well in most niche areas unless some experts from that field write software for themselves or collaborate with programmers. examples include complex software for astronomy, medical imaging, software that controls particle accelators, biomechanics etc.
There are ample areas where FOSS contributes in niche markets. In fact that is exactly where the BIG opportunity lies. U have all the tools and building blocks in place to build a killer app. Morover the apps indicated above are used by organisations with plenty of moolah (very often taxpayers money). U will require the expert though. That is where contacts come in. Also in a natgeo programme related to astro physics I clearly remember that the scientist's pc had a gnome desktop on which he displayed various stuff. So astronomy apps are available on GNU/Linux.
since this segment typically uses pirated M$, they are not dissatisfied enough to look for an alternative as happens abroad.
Are u referring to the scientific community in India?. Most are Government funded and NASSCOM would have already paid a courtesy visit. If they havent it's your opportunity staring at u. Novell / RH are u tuned in here.
FOSS doesn't offer many alternatives for "niche areas". FOSS thrives when there is a huge userbase and active people giving feedback. FOSS stutters where there is a small and very specialised userbase. There are notable exceptions to this though.
Most projects start with a small dedicated user and programmer base. Very often the initial code is horrible and the design worse. But it starts to solve a needling problem. By the time it is even partly ready pogrammers from other foss projects (pieces of which are being used in the new project ) start giving useful inputs and recieving new insights. These projects are barely known outside their community. Eg. BBC's (yes The BBC) DIRAC video codec which has far greater potential than the current media hyped MPEG4. Or Xorp which promises to better CISCO's ios. Or linuxbios which can ..... and rule the world.
If the project solves a problem it does not stutter.
rgds jtd