| > Regardless of "but who's going to maintain it", the benefits should be clear here. Are they clear? Or is this the "Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System" all over again? aka the gigantic disaster that somehow spawned the Extreme Programming "experts" and implemented the easy 80% while missing the really hard 80% (yes, that totals to 160% intentionally). It's really easy to produce something that majority like but doesn't get even basic use cases. For example, let's start with some simple stuff: - Does it meet GDPR guidelines? - Does it meet accessibility guidelines? - Does it meet security guidelines for protection of personal information of minors? (Apparently the original government software completely blew this off. As always.) As I have pointed out previously on HN, that adds a bunch of cost to government software that MUST be paid if the software is part of government functionality. I can whip out a single page app in a hurry. Ask me to comply with those issues and I'm going to have to spend a lot more time on things. Don't get me wrong. Big IT projects like these always become boondoggles. However, everybody always simply gives the open source project the benefit of the doubt at being "better" when it probably just blows off a lot of functionality. Government CRUD applications have to be able to handle the majority while still allowing the 0.1% to be handled. |
Yes they are. The benefits are clear, because apparently a whole bunch of users got together a spent a bunch of effort building something that solve real problems that they themselves were having.
> everybody always simply gives the open source project the benefit of the doubt at being "better" when it probably just blows off a lot of functionality.
If people are using it, and spent a bunch of time and effort to solve their problems, then almost by definition, it is solving a problem that they were having.
So yes, we can just assume that it is better in some ways. If a bunch of people are using it, then almost by definition, it is providing value to some people.