Re: Reasons *not* to open source WebObjects?

Small world. Almost parallel discussion is going on on the wocoa 
mailing list. So I will just copy and paste what I wrote there, and of 
course apologize to those who are on both lists...

On Mar 31, 2005, at 3:30 AM, Denis Stanton wrote:

> I was considering responding to Cliff's post, but I couldn't come up 
> with a polite and constructive way of saying that while Apple may 
> offer a consultancy service they do not appear to be a serious player. 
>  Pitching WebObjects to senior management is always futile because the 
> decision makers won't buy something they haven't heard of already and 
> WebObjects is effectively invisible (or should that be inaudible?).  
> The secrecy model that generates so much buzz in the consumer 
> electronics world is totally inappropriate to the market where 
> WebObjects could be sold.  Business managers abhor secrecy and 
> uncertainty from suppliers and can't be expected to risk their jobs on 
> a product that has no future.

To similar claim I answered:
"Almost every time I go to WoCoa or any other WO related gathering I 
meet people complaining about this very subject. This is plainly 
untrue!

Why a hell anyone should sell technologies? Who gives a sh..t about if 
one uses Wo, Java, whatever! People need solutions, not technologies. 
We run a quarter of all dutch credit card statements, and have top 
international banks and mobile operators as our clients, and even 
government organizations (NL, Germany, UK, and US). No one asked about 
technology for the last 3-4 years. The times where smart-ass CTOs were 
checking the solution for compliance with every buzzword are over 
(luckily). People need to make money with our software, and we need to 
write our software fast in order to make money too. WO fits in this 
picture very nicely, and we all should stop complaining and do 
something more useful."

Being a WO developers makes my team more competitive compared to our 
competition. Luckily so few of our competitors know about WO. Otherwise 
we could never keep up with the big boys :-) Many of our clients think 
we do wonders... we just do some very boring WO :-)

Georg Tuparev
Tuparev Technologies
Klipper 13
1186 VR Amstelveen
The Netherlands
Mobile: +31-6-55798196