Question about value of a source licence

[Geoff Kratz]

In article <2439 at quacky.mips.COM>, dce at mips.COM (David Elliott) writes:
> You really haven't provided a lot of background.
...
> David Elliott		dce at mips.com  or  {ames,prls,pyramid,decwrl}!mips!dce

Sorry, you're right.  Our department (R&D) is primarily concerned with
developing new software systems.  We are currently working on a system
to scan a document (maps at the moment) using a high-res scanner (Scitex
laser scanner) and creating a boundary chain from the raster file.  We then
extract the medial axis from this file to produce the vector file.  This
is processed by people to add contour information (elevation and feature
codes) plus any other useful info (this is the data capture departments area).
The resulting file is converted to any number of formats (IGES, SIF) for
a client.  Included in this are a raster editor to clean the raster file
and extract the parts we need, and a vector editor to manipulate the vector
files.

Our main goal for getting the source is to gain some insight into the
system itself (the documentation enhancement you mentioned).  For me
specifically, that means actually see what happens in the low-level
windowing (the documentation seems to be sparse or missing in places).

A secondary goal is to make things easier for system admin internally (my
other job around here).  Our user-base (half technical, half non-technical)
always wants to know "why it isn't working" when things break, and our manager
is not always happy with vague answers to wierd problems. Pointing to a line
of code (even though he doesn't know what it means) and saying "there!" would
make things simpler for me and show them that I could (maybe) fix it, but
shouldn't because that would mean re-fixing each release until Sun fixed it
themselves (you also mentioned this regarding system hacks).  The source isn't
all that crucial for this aspect, but it sure would help.

But, as I said before, our management would like to see some "revenue"
created directly because of the licence (you know, money for money) and
our department's arguments alone aren't sufficient.
-- 
Geoff Kratz         Dataspan Technology Inc.         Ph:(403) 237-9313
                       400-540 5th Av SW               
                 Calgary Alberta Canada T2P 0M2      "Hey, no problem!"
...!{ubc-vision,mnetor}!alberta!calgary!dataspan!kratz