Expand open source reach

A software solution developed by SQLFusion, the first AJAX based online site building software, branded "Drag drop Site Builder" offered to web hosting companies is getting media coverage in the WHIR (Web Host Industry Review), the Web hosting's premiere daily news provider, a reference for the web hosting industry.

Here is a excerpt of the article:

"SQLFusion's product, Drag Drop Site Creator (dragdropsitecreator.com), uses PHP and Ajax technology to display page and database components in a Web browser for creation and modification." (click here for the full article)

I was reading a few articles lately which gave me some inspiration for this post. They all come to a conclusion which seems to be pure common sense, but which is way more difficult to apply than we might think.

Whatever we create a software, a painting, a book,etc. this is aimed at one thing: satisfy somebody else. With that said, the best would be to listen the person who will enjoy our product and try to match all this person says she wants to read, see or do.

But if you are the creator and you try to bring novelty, most of the time you first need to come up with something and only after that can you ask "how can I improve my work?". Where it is feasible for a book - that's why writers love their editors don't they ;) - and eventually possible for a painter - see how many versions of a painting exists behind "chefs d'oeuvre" when you look at it with X-rays - the task looks much more difficult with a software. See for instance this excerpt of Marc Benioff interview by Phil Wainewright of ZDnet:

"Once we had the API really working well, then customers really started to hammer me on customization. They would say, 'Why can't I change this tab name, why can't I change this field name, I want to be able to do this, and I want to be able to that.' Well, [we would say] the problem is that the tab name is through the whole documentation. It's in the singular, it's in the plural. It's not just in one language, it's in twelve. And then customers would say, 'Yeah. So what?'

Indeed, "yeah, so what". People who use our software are king and always right. This is what we found out while developing Drag drop site creator, and now Open Source Fusion. We might have some good guesses while developing our software at first, but most of the improvements we bring are results of our customers and software user feedback. We make a rule not only to listen to them but implement systematically their suggestions. And the most exciting is that it works. Ultimately all the hard work spent listening to advises, suggestions and feedback of any kind pays off. Support costs go down, customer satisfaction goes up and you build up the quality of your software.

In conclusion, because this process is at the core of any Open Source project, I believe that Open Source has the key element for delivering higher quality software in the long run.

So who would dare to say that Open Source cannot bring the best quality software in those conditions? :)