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Rating System for Open Source Software 207
prostoalex writes "Carnegie Mellon University, Intel and SpikeSource are launching a rating system for open source software, New York Times says. OpenBRR 'is being proposed as a new standard model for rating open source software. It is intended to enable the entire community (enterprise adopters and developers) to rate software in an open and standardized way.'"
Oh No! (Score:5, Funny)
Think of the children!
Re:Oh No! (Score:2)
But how are you going to reward the creators? How are they going to feed?
This rating system could be one step in the right direction.
Rating could determine donation-worthiness of software - say there was a universal tax levied, or universal donation fund by businesses and foundations, and then the money could distributed by professionals who know where to spend the buck most efficiently, which developpers are about to die of hunger,
Re:Oh No! - PC track and Field Competition. (Score:2)
We need to put up high curtains between the lanes and have individual finishing areas. This way not child will be made to feel inferior when they realise that they cannot run as fast as other children.
I know this will be a damper for the spectators, but what can we do? Think of the children.
all the best,
drew
Re:Oh No! (Score:2)
Re:Oh No! (Score:2)
FUD from the NYT (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire article is about open source software, not all software. His statement is valid.
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:3)
I don't blame the NYT, but I'd love to hear the rationalization for limiting the rating system to OSS. I know I'd love to rate a few of the commercial applications I've used. Some shareware sites do have ratin
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
I don't buy it.. but, then again, I use FOSS software all the time. So I'm confused why these big megabucks corps are confused. Didn't their exec go to highschool?
Software can be confusing and costly, if you're a moron.
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
No it's not. The same can be said about commercial software too. Moreover, commercial software would also need such a rating system, since you'd better know what you pay for before it's too late.
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
How empowering IBM's Software is.
How much we can get done using Microsoft software.
How well Oracle scales
And all thanks to their advertising. I mean, it's as if we already know EVERYTHING without even having to do any silly reading. When was the last time you had to actually install Microsoft software to know how good it was?
Thank goodness for TV.
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Reading reviews of you're favorite Windows Antivirus software or researching an enterprise class database package will turn up a wealth of infomation (of course you still need to dig into it and make the final decision, but some things simply can't be helped:).
OSS software is comparably a total mess, with only certain major projects (and not surpisingly usually projects with some sort commercial support, i.e. apache, mysql, sendmail, etc, but the water gets pretty muddy quickly).
And aside from all those mainly concrete (maybe to you and I anyway) worries there are other concerns when reviewing OSS software for deployment in a business/production environment: support, boss appeal; someone has to sign off even if the software is free, that the software is mature/will meet or exceed your needs and that (if you decide to leave the company) its reasonably well supported (so someone that comes in and doesn't know the particular software has a reasonably good chance of configuring and maintaining it).
Those crazy business people.
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:2)
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:2)
And of course they miss out on the stuctured feedback that kind of review provides.
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The truth is that some of it is and some of it isn't. And a good number of the "reviews" are done by hacks who are getting paid by the developers for it.
Reading reviews of you're favorite Windows Antivirus software or researching an enterprise class database package will turn up a wealth of infomation
To the contrary. I can type the name of almost any OSS project into
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:2)
A) there is no free, free costs money in support or special training, but more importantly free might cost PHB's (or more likely the tech person who was responsible for deploying it) their JOBs.
B) Support, support, support. If you're going to deploy something on a business critical production system the rules of the game change a little bit more as little issues like: is it well documented (no, forums only count for the poor sap trouble shooting it, you and I may have
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:3, Insightful)
There are two aspects to support; actually getting support, so that your problems are fixed quickly and efficiently is one of them. The other, and often just as important to some people, is being able to point the finger at someone else.
It's arse-covering - being able to say "Yes, there's a problem, yes, I recommended the software, but it's not our fault, the support firm is dicking us about - we've paid
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:2)
Oh come on. Please tell us, how many of such reviews have you read. And please tell us, hwo many of those read reviews were actually good, and not written by some fake ignorant "pro" with too much spare time and nothing else to do (yes that goes for quite many "professional" sites also, you'd be surprised).
Most of such
A different take on this... (Score:2)
You are the ultimate reviewer because you can download it for free, test it on your hardware, see if it really meets the needs of your organization without the pressures of trial software or of a vendor looking over your shoulder.
The age of organic IT has arrived, which is the age of real IT. In five years time, people will not buy into the marketing drivel that often promises the earth with very little in situ quantifiable ev
Regurgitated (Score:2)
The idiom "anyone can support it" cuts right down to the problem with the OSS idealist. Do businesses really want to have to support it? But more importantly, do they want to bet their short, long or mid-term strategies on it?
This is exactly why Redhat does so well. In a year, they'll be here.
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:2)
(Laugh, it's funny! Well, maybe...)
Re:I can see how you might feel that way.. (Score:2)
(*cough* bite me *cough)
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
Good point, it's a problem with all software, and even moreso with proprietary software, I would argue. Open Source has the advantage that you can try/evaluate it indefinitely, inspect the source code yourself, and it rarely comes with a spiel from some idiot salesman that has never coded a day in his life yet says it can do everything you ask if it can do, even when it can't.
Thi
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
Surely, Captain Kirk, wrote that, article.
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
Re:Please stop calling everything FUD (Score:2)
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
So if I shove a CD in a box and charge money for it, the bits automatically become proven? Or are you deliberately missing the point you were replying too?
Try not being a knee-jerk fanboi for just one second.
Says the anonymous coward.
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
You mean like disclaiming any liability and not guaranteeing fitness for any purpose, like most commercial software does?
> Willingness to properly stand behind your product goes a long way towards my confidence
I think you need to watch fewer TV commercials and read more Microsoft (et al) license agreements, etc. They don't stand behind their product either, except that they give a 900 number
Re:FUD from the NYT (Score:2)
You mean the way EULAs prohibit the purchaser from benchmarking the product? Or the way they state that there's no warranty against loss or damage? Have you even read a software license agreement for a commercial product recently? Basically, by agreeing to their license, you're indemnifying them from everything under the sun. The really high-class co
About freakin' time. (Score:5, Funny)
I applaud this rating system and wish it well.
Re:About freakin' time. (Score:2, Funny)
I would pay money not to see that.
My eyes! The burning!
Re:About freakin' time. (Score:2)
*shudder*
(I kid! I kid!)
Re:About freakin' time. (Score:2)
You think you've got trouble? I bought this goddamn O'Reilly book [oreilly.com], and right there in Bob-damned Chapter 15 if it ain't instructions on how to get Hot Coffee!
Rather ironic... (Score:2)
ed
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Frankly I prefer a review system based on raw numbers such as how FreshMeat.net [freshmeat.net] handles ratings. How many downloads does a
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Obviously, popularity doesn't mean anything or we would still be using Windows. Downloads don't tell you anything about how good a project is. Downloads from repeat "customers" might, but Freshmeat doesn't tell you that. Clickthrus to the website don't tell you anything about how good a project is. It only tells you how enticing the project description is.
I want to discount their "vitality" st
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
I'd definitely disagree here. A high vitality mark just means that the project is continually making progress. It doesn't mean that it's instable. It means that the developers are actively moving forward with the project. I do agree that this isn't exactly a useful benchmark. Look at Sendmail's vitality. Ha! I'd consider it to be the best MTA and it from Freshmeat's number is looks like an abandoned project. :-)
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
Re:Rather ironic... (Score:2)
hear, all ye good people, hear what this brilliant and eloquent speaker has to say!
I think that'll go over real well around here.
Re:Rather ironic... touching several topics here.. (Score:2)
"Please do NOT send your resume as an attachment; rather, please send as text, in the body of the message."
Some don't even want
Good idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
On the flip side, there has always been an inherent and objective rating system for the quality of non-free software -- At what price will enough people purchase it to make it worth producing?
Re:Good idea... (Score:2)
Re:Good idea... (Score:2)
I'd say the opposite is closer to the truth! In my experience, expensive software tends to be niche software with only a few customers, and plenty of rough edges. The cheap, workaday software (say, WinZip) is polished. Price has more to do with the dynamics of the competitive environment - value is just the upper
Most people are stupid, this will not work... (Score:2)
I would also like to ask what software being OpenSourced (as opposed to Closed or Free source) has to do with a rating system? Also what value is there is a 'stan
Re:Most people are stupid, this will not work... (Score:2)
Re:Most people are stupid, this will not work... (Score:2)
Gloating about OSS software maxed out my karma!
Moderating.... (Score:2, Funny)
Each category is to be rated -1 to 5.
There will also be filtering tools so a potential corporate user can specify its most important considerations.
When You Thought It Was Safe To Program... (Score:2)
Re:When You Thought It Was Safe To Program... (Score:2)
Re:When You Thought It Was Safe To Program... (Score:2)
Re:When You Thought It Was Safe To Program... (Score:2)
Re:When You Thought It Was Safe To Program... (Score:2)
Popularity ? (Score:2)
Re:Popularity ? (Score:2)
Re:Popularity ? (Score:2)
Re:Popularity ? (Score:2)
Information aquisition costs regarding software are insane, too, compared to the price of a book. Cost of determining Harry Potter #6 was definately a good read: $23 and 8 hours of reading. Cost of de
Might be good to include ALL OS's (Score:2)
I guess an analogy might be buying a new type of car. I only have my current car to judge the new one by, and I know my old car pretty well... so how does it stack up to my old car, and what are these new models they are offering.
The problem with rating software... (Score:2)
Re:The problem with rating software... (Score:2)
Re:The problem with rating software... (Score:2, Insightful)
I absolutely agree if we change it to "If all users can't figure out how to do X" but saying "a user" leaves no room for a learning curve. I think it's completely valid to expect that some software will be written that is not necessarily meant for the novice user.
As good as CMM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't they also give us the "Capability Maturity Model"? I've seen organizations race to get to CMM-3 or CMM-4, and it's all been a joke.
A bunch of highly paid consultants tell everyone a new way to count beans ("under CMM, we group the beans starting from the right, not the left....").
Promises are made about code auditing, but once the CMM level has been awarded (usually by highly paid consultants who just happen to work with the highly paid consults who "mentored" the company's CMM training), all tat's actually done is that the people doing the real work of writing software are regularly distracted by a clown with a check-list and a clipboard.
Carnegie-Mellon continues to have a fetish for quantifying and for creating check-lists, and middle management continues to have a fetish for anything that allows them to quantify (even spuriously), because it takes the risk and bother out of their jobs.
Middle Manager: "The WordPerfect Project only got a 3 on the Carnegie Mellon software score, but the Clippy Project got a 5! So, it's perfectly safe for me to decide that to disband the WordPerfect Project and devote its resources to the Clippy Project. (And if it turns out later that was a bad decision, they can't fire me, because I relied on hard numbers generated by a known process!"
Re:As good as CMM? (Score:2)
Re:As good as CMM? (Score:2)
Re:As good as CMM? (Score:2)
I think you underestimate my experience in software development.
I belive your bad experiences are due to a common mistake many bussiness make, ie: CMM being enfored from "on high" using a few contractors to "mentor" under-qualified people as the "quality assurance" people, ie: The PHB's want to tack quality on at the end of a project, the rest of the staff can keep churning out code. To you it seems a waste of time because some "quality" person
Re:As good as CMM? (Score:2)
Re:As good as CMM? (Score:2)
I've worked at a CMM-3 company before. It looks like the CMM has actually been superseded by something else so Its not easy to get the list of qualities for each level, but they are something like 1) random monkeys writing code 2) random monkeys writing more than one program 3) random monkeys writing code "repeatedly" with a content management system (CVS or similar) 4 a
Re:As good as CMM? (Score:2)
CMMI.
so Its not easy to get the list of qualities for each level, but they are something like 1) random monkeys writing code 2) random monkeys writing more than one program 3) random monkeys writing code "repeatedly" with a content management system (CVS or similar) 4 and 5 I don't remember, but its not anything remarkable beyond what you like about quality software.
Yep; they aren't even trainin
Re:As good as CMM? (Score:2)
Didn't they also give us the "Capability Maturity Model"?
FYI, CMM came from Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute, an affiliated but wholly separate spinoff. This rating system comes from Carnegie Mellon West, a new spinoff campus in Silicon Valley (on the other side of the country from their main campus in Pittsburgh). Neither of these systems come from CMU's main School of Computer Science. Plus, I believe Carnegie Me
offtopic but don't know where else to ask (Score:2)
Re:offtopic but don't know where else to ask (Score:2)
Re:offtopic but don't know where else to ask (Score:2)
Gentoo (Score:2)
Gentoo has been given an OpenBRR of "1" for "1337 haxorz only."
Great! PHBs now have another reason to avoid OSS (Score:2)
I'm certain the boys in the Redmond boardroom are all nodding their heads in delighted approval.
Perhaps members of the OSS community should turn the tables ? I suggest we create a set of metrics to rate the business users of OSS, e.g.,
A good idea... (Score:2)
mod parent up (Score:2)
1 to 10 (Score:4, Funny)
10: barely usable, requires constant tweaking, stuck at version 0.9.3, crashes occasionally, and requires three new libraries each upgrade which break other applications.
Re:1 to 10 (Score:2)
You can't get away from subjective (Score:2)
Another thing: The evaluation often has to do with what you're using the software for. What would you rate better? A saw or a hammer? Depends on the situation right?
Re:You can't get away from subjective (Score:2)
open source rating system (Score:2)
The website would have two modes: consumer, and reviewer. The consumer mode would provide a tree-like interface where you could click choices on what you want to do. A couple of examples would be:
draw->raster->most powerful
draw-
freshmeat (Score:2)
I personally use the slug.org.au rating system, ask at the next meeting how to do something and listen to the responses.
NO MORE SIMPLE SCALAR DICTATORSHIPS! (Score:2)
Why, in a modern day and age, do we have to still have people like this, like freshmeat, and so forth, *still* rating software based on a simple, global, scalar metric?
One of the *best* things that computers can do versus noninteractive tables of ratings is to produce a customized rating!
So, if we have a big "web" of entries, and I rate foo better than baz, and baz better than bar, then someone else can come along and if *they* tend to rate things
Codified Fanboyism (Score:2)
I mean, if you look at the discussion boards, you see a lot of partisanship along the lines of "Linux Sucks" and "BSD is teh fuxx0r." I see more energy spent surrounding certain software packages in the slamming of competing projects than actual development and improvements. It's not universal, but I see more of it than I'd like.
Also, who do you trust to rate a project? It's authors? Its users? Rabid fanboys of a competing project?
The same problem e
finaly, we will know the truth (Score:2)
Missing Category . . . (Score:2)
Ben
XML or RDF could make this much more useful (Score:2)
As it stands, The BRR system will work wonders for private consultants who would rather produce reports one customer invoice at a time. However, if it was easy to publish the document in a standard format, then you could use google to find out whose ratings of a particular program are most reliable and filter out the flames and over-exuberant raves fr
Appropriate by whose standards? (Score:2)
For example, I maintain a project [citadel.org] that often competes directly with software produced by Carnegie Mellon University. How could it possibly get a good rating?
Ok, ok, RTFA and you'll see that everyone contributes, you say. Yes, but then you have the groupthink effect. Slashdot is the perfect example of this, where the level of groupthink and popularity contests are surpassed only by hig
Re:.. so i could give them four thumbs down! (Score:2)
Re:.. so i could give them four thumbs down! (Score:2)
Re:And Windows get a .... (Score:2)
Re:YAY! (Score:2)
It doesn't have to be one or the other. It can be both, which is why OSS is so great.
A vignette for illustration... (Score:3, Interesting)
EW: Boss, I think I've found a great little open source perl script to solve our database reporting issue...
PHB (turns to PC and begins typing): That was "p-e-a-r-l", right ? Sorry, SpikeSource(TM) doesn't report a BRR for it...
EW confused look: Er, no, "p-e-r-l"...
PHB looks anxious, types some more: OK...Perl is OK, but whats the module ?
EW: "Super::Califragilistic"
PHB typ
Re:Already been done. Capitalism go home. (Score:2)