trisweb.com

My dad told one of his coworkers about zenphoto and how I’m developing it—in an open transparent process, on the blog, encouraging user feedback and comments (and I do! keep on commenting!)—and I was surprised that this guy thought it was a revolutionary way to develop software.

I read Michael Heilemann’s post about how blogs are revolutionizing the world, and it didn’t really make sense to me until today. I thought, “Gee, this really is different.” I mean, how else would you—a complete stranger, the proverbial and mythical “user” proprietary developers talk about—actually have a direct link to the developer of the software you might use someday.

I think this is revolutionary. Tell me I’m wrong.

Okay, I know it’s probably been done before me, I’m not that self centered, but I think the idea is something new to the software world. It’s a different angle into the “blogging phenomenon,” which is so abstract it just has to be put in quotes. I like Steven Garrity’s analogy:

Imagine a child who grows up in an environment where television is the primary medium. They are unlikely to ever be involved in the production of any television, or even to have a venue to provide input into what is broadcast beyond their commercial buying habits. Those involved with the production of television are distant and inaccessible celebrities.

Contrast this with a child who grows up where the web is the primary medium. They have a weblog, they read the weblogs, emails, and instant messages as much as any commercial media. They have access to the producers of much of the media they consume. In many cases the word consume is inadequate to describe the activity and participate may be a better term.

It used to be that way with software. We bought software from giant corporations, with no say into how it was made, or even what it did. We depended on the market, driving bad software down and good software up. It was an indirect and inefficient process.

Today, the internet has given developers an incredible gift: the users of any software are on the web (and chances are, some of them are bloggers). I hear (and see) too often that software is not developed with the user in mind (see Christopher Baus’s post), or that developers need to hear exactly what users need, or that shareware and open-source apps have horrible user-interfaces. Why does it happen? Because users have no say in most software development. They’re a very important part of it, but like the television media, proprietary software creation is indirect and market driven.

This is different. It started from the concept to the specs to a working product guided by user input and feedback at every step. Yes, open-source can be like this too, and no, I’m not the first. But I like it. It’s not just open source, it’s open development, powered by you.

Plus it’s a really awesome acronym. I’m going to OD on every open source app I work on!