Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

Re: Microsoft are having a PS2 moment

alt <spamtrap@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> My contention (Because I horribly worded my original post) is that their
> current pool of engineers cannot possibly hold up the entire company.

I know for a fact that Microsoft has some very talented 
developers; I've worked with a couple of them before they 
worked at MS. Unfortunately, they are only one small 
component in a huge, lumbering machine.  As with any
machine, it only takes one our two faulty components to
really drag things down.  To mix a metaphor, a chain is
only as strong as its weakest link.

In the closed source world of project deadlines and budget
approvals, many compromises are often made in the name of
hitting a market Window.  The technically better solution
will be passed over for the expedient.  Once it is in place
and working, it is difficult to justify the expenditure to
replace the subtle compromises with something better when 
new bullet-item features are given priority.  You will
almost never find a closed source company funding
multiple implementations of the same feature (that sort
of darwanistic competition happens in open source quite
often though).

Open Source is a meritocracy.  It self selects toward the
most motivated developers and accrues the best solutions over
the long haul (we are not afraid to throw out working code
for something marginally better).  With closed source
development, project quality often goes down as the project
team size increases.  With open source development, project 
quality actually improves as the size of the development 
team increases.  OSS development scales in a way that turns
'The Mythical Man Month' on its head.

Later,

Thad


[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index