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Though Miguel talked about the history of the software he works on, the main point I took from his talk was the position of the Federal Government on software usage. Miguel explained that the Federal Government takes a 'balanced approach' to the software it uses. Which I understand as "we use what is the most practical for us." (I feel skeptical of that because of [http://cdneducation.blogspot.com/2007/10/so-is-microsoft-dictating-what-is-used.html education scandles]). Though I feel skeptical of the government about all things most of the time, METRo is a proof that there is a push towards the open source model in our Canadian Politics.
Miguel has received contributions from about 4 or 5 people after releasing METRo as open source. METRo still has a very small community. I received a strong feeling that the Federal Government could no longer support this project and wanted to open source it hopes that some other group may find the software useful. There are currently less than 10 'customers' of METRo, and the government isn't interested in cultivating a larger audience.
=== Talk Two - Ross Chevalier ===
''end of example''
XEN is a very large project, and I assume hundreds of developers have contributed to various internal projects contained within its boundaries. Ross explained how Novell was working hand in hand with Microsoft to provide fully supported XEN Linux->Windows solutions. Ross' view on open source seemed to be that the XEN project is a wonderful way for large corporations to collaborate on virtualization projects. The XEN project receives official technical support from Microsoft, when Windows is running in a Novell provided XEN implementation, thus ensuring that Novell can provide SuSE as somewhat of an officially supported virtualization distribution by Microsoft. Using Microsoft as a market penetration method, Novell can market SuSE linux, and SuSE linux support to far more customers than companies to distributions that do not have Microsoft backing.
=== Comparison ===
If Google could get behind something like this and display road conditions on gMaps, I would use it. A third party using METRo output to host several on-board driving advisory car devices might be very lucrative.
The important thing to consider with METRo is that it is small in terms of project size. With only one dedicated developer (who is admittedly spends very little time on the project) there is a lot of room to become a 'player' in this project. The problem with the small project size is the maintenance/upgrade demand for this software needs to be marketed and cultivated before it can sustain any dedicated developers. If I , or someone like me, were to dedicated a few months of my time towards METRo, I they could very well become one of only 5 experts on this code base; if any work were to be commissioned on it, my their name would be considered for the commission. This commission idea is a very big if though. Is a large company anyone really going to start demanding maintenance and upgrades to this code-base?
Everything about the METRo project contrasts starkly to XEN and the work Novell and Microsoft are doing.
XEN is huge, comprises multiple sub-projects, has lots of developers working professionally on the project. Virtualization is a big and growing marketplace, and XEN has managed to carve itself a nice chunk of market-share. As a huge project XEN is much more difficult to get into than METRo. Really strong technical programmers are already 'on duty' and playing catchup to all of them will be very difficult. The caveat to the difficulty of entrance is that if someone like me were to get their foot in the door and become technically strong enough with XEN to be useful, employment is virtually guaranteed. Employment from familiarity with XEN doesn't necessarily have to take the form of development however. Huge solutions like this need to employ all sorts of people such as QA testers, marketing managers, and will boost a resume for any company that uses XEN virtualization in its business. An enterprising individual might be able to find employment at Novell providing support to XEN while exploring the code base as a side project, hoping to one day 'graduate' into a developer position.
== Conclusion ==
