Stephan Schwab

Tools are built using a model of the environment they are intended to work in. Waterfall’ish approaches assume that programmers write code, check it in and then changes are managed and controlled. The assumption is that all changes are inherently dangerous and need to be watched closely.

An agile developer works completely different. As agilists we create and change interfaces, classes and methods as we see fit while we refine our data model and the operations through constant refactoring. That sounds like a nightmare to a person used to change management – doesn’t it?

Currently I have to use Perforce SCM and I’m starting to get annoyed by the way it works. All the files are read-only by default and you have to tell Perforce when you want to edit a file. The plugin for Eclipse seems to be doing this in background for you, but it doesn’t always work. So you end up with files that stay read-only and the process of moving an interface or class to another package gets abruptly aborted. Then you have to spend some time fighting the tool until it allows you to move the compilation unit.

Tools should not get into a developers’ way. Change management of source code is the wrong approach. You can manage changes on configuration files (say the configuration of a Cisco router), but not code that’s actively being developed. So a developer should be allowed to edit, delete or move around any piece at any time. That’s the way it works with Subversion.

Yesterday night I attended a meeting of SDForum with a focus on Latin America. The meeting was held in Palo Alto, California, near Stanford University.

People talked about the opportunities for selling software based services to Latin American consumers and about providing outsourcing services from Latina America to US corporate customers.

Most attendees agreed that the protection of intelectual property is usually weak in Latin America, as it is in most developing countries including China. Unlike people in wealthier countries nobody wants to pay more than a months salary for the right to use software when it’s available on the street for the cost of a CD-ROM media. So selling copies of software was seen as a difficult venture. Instead attendees thought about selling software as a service via the Internet or even via cell phones. Some believe that the cell phone might be the better platform than the computer as it’s cheaper to purchase and maintain. Others remarked that in Latin America most computer users are actually using them in Internet Cafes for the cost of about USD 0.50 per 30 minutes.

What seems to work well is the business of providing outsourcing services to US companies. There is no problem protecting intelectual property, because the outsourcing company will respect its client’s rights in order to stay in business. And most of Latin American countries have laws in place that protect IP. Theoretically a company can get sued and shut down. The same laws apply to consumers as well, but probably noone will try to enforce such rules against poor people.

My personal impression is that most attendees have very weak knowledge about what the situation in Latin America really is. They have some vage ideas about the level of education and the economic realities. Most think of beautiful landscapes. But they are interested and are looking for places closer to home (for North Americans) to purchase services. It seems that more and more people are realizing that the most prominent outsourcing destination India is not without difficulties. Latin America is mostly within US timezones and flights are reasonably cheap and travel time is only a couple of hours without jet lag.

Ever wondered why Windows is so dominant in developing countries? Have a look at this statement from Bill Gates himself:

CNN Money in How Microsoft conquered China – July 23, 2007:
Today Gates openly concedes that tolerating piracy turned out to be Microsoft’s best long-term strategy. That’s why Windows is used on an estimated 90% of China’s 120 million PCs. “It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not,” Gates says. [...] Indeed, in China’s back alleys, Linux often costs more than Windows because it requires more disks.

The same can be observed here in Panama. Everybody uses Windows and most of the times it’s a pirated copy. Linux users are not found easily. It should be just the contrary. Maybe in a future post I should elaborate a bit more on the opportunities that arise when people in developing countries use Free Software and Open Source software instead of committing crimes out of laziness.