RE: Open Source Developer Exchange

>
> On Saturday, Mar 1, 2003, at 16:44 America/Los_Angeles, Ron Lancaster
> wrote:
> > This is a very insightful piece by Tom. He has described one of the
> > problems with a feature exchange: that it forces the consumer to,
> > "think
> > too hard in order to use the service". I believe this is one reason why
> > proprietary models work so well - they do the thinking on behalf of the
> > consumer. And in the cases where the consumer wants choice, they offer
> > few (such as "lite" and "enterprise").
> >
> > Any suggestions on how to reduce the thinking the consumer has to do?
>
> Offer "lite" and "enterprise" versions.  It's a tried-and-true approach
> in the FSB world too.

Offer solutions, not software. Ask the client what it is they want in plain
English, bridge this into a real requirement. A technical specification is
then
written up on the exchange, from which it goes out to tender.

An analogy would be using a stock broker as the intermediary between
yourself
and the stock exchange. A stock broker is a value add service, and liaising
between
client requirements and an exchange of software developers is the
equivalent.

As part of being the intermediary, you can identify overlap with existing
solutions and incorporate that (save development by not reinventing the
wheel - only possible with Open Source).

Nik