Comments on: PostGIS gets Spherical

By: Paul Ramsey

Paul Ramsey — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:02:01 +0000

Har, har Ian. I’m not sure if that proves my point or negates it.

By: Ian Painter

Ian Painter — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:56:07 +0000

We’ll be wiring your new spherical stuff up to our GO Loader product ASAP as we’ve had customers waiting for ages for you to implement that

By: Peter Batty

Peter Batty — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:50:40 +0000

That new spherical functionality is cool !!

By: Paul Ramsey

Paul Ramsey — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:56:44 +0000

BTW, how about that new spherical functionality, hey?

By: Paul Ramsey

Paul Ramsey — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:40:35 +0000

Yes, it’s a mix of mentalities, as Peter says. Now, what do you think is the dominant mentality? Right now, Microsoft is running a series of clever adds where the amusing trope is the idea that (very) ordinary people made suggestions and Microsoft acted on them. “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea.”

By: Ian Painter

Ian Painter — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:39:34 +0000

Paul, I’m also talking about the customer. A customers’ mental model for getting a new function implemented is surely directly defined by how a company approaches product management and talks to its customers. Everything you’ve talked about is just good product management. Some companies have a closed approach, some very open, its irrelevant of whether you are an OSS or proprietary outfit.

By: Rollo

Rollo — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:53:54 +0000

Paul, I have been fascinated by this debate, but ultimately have to disagree with your description of customers of the ‘proprietary model’. We are a small (proprietary) GIS firm offering a (currently!) niche 3D based product. I could not characterise any of our clients as ‘waiting for the next release’ type as we are in constant dialogue with them trying to accommodate an ever-increasing list of feature demands. These guys know what they want. We’ve had to employ the normal prioritisation rules, but we also provide to our client user forum a bundle of ‘free development time’ to implement whatever they select (as a community). We find that this process engenders a better response from clients who move from the knee-jerk ‘we want this now’ perspective to ‘this is what will provide us real value’. All developments / enhancements are made available to all clients. To those that really are “outside the box” we offer an API. So I’m guessing that this has nothing to do with the ‘business model’ that we offer our software under, but everything to do with the relationship that we have with our clients (which hopefully they would describe as ‘open’).

By: steven feldman

steven feldman — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:41:02 +0000

I built and sold a business (GDC) on the basis of responding to customers’ feature requests. Our customers were our the principal source of our product roadmap and the feature that one customer requested (and contributed to the cost of) all other customers then received in the next release.
I wish that I could say the same for other software regardless of open-ness of source e.g several years of bugginess and memory leaks in a certain much loved browser. Apologies for that but I think maturity, complexity and conflicting requests inevitably mean that software developers (open or proprietary) slow down in their responsiveness.
Steven

By: Paul Ramsey

Paul Ramsey — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:53:20 +0000

Oh, and Peter’s point is taken on the customers, there’s certainly lots of pushy SOBs who’ll make sure you know what they want, regardless of whether they are dealing with OSS or proprietary. The population of customers is hardly uniform. But there’s lots of blushing violets too.

By: Paul Ramsey

Paul Ramsey — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:42:16 +0000

I’m sure your companies are all lovely, but I’m not talking about companies, I’m talking about customers. What is the customers’ mental model of the transaction process that causes new features to appear in a product? How do I get a new feature into Windows? How do I get a new feature into Linux? If my mental model of “new feature” is Windows-based, I’ll never arrive at the psychological place where I hire a company to add the new feature I need in Linux.