One virtue I’ve seen in the programming world is a preference not to re-invent code that’s already doing a fine job.
Doc’s old friend, I mean former long time, not “old” as in decrepit because god knows I have a few years on both those boomer boys, but here’s my point… Doc’s colleague and Cluetrain co-author Chris Locke has been spreading this message himself for quite a while now in his role with Ken Krugler’s and Steve Larsen’s company, the vertical search leader Krugle. SearchInsider says that Krugle claims,
…developers spend 20 to 25 percent of their time looking for code and technical information…. Krugle crawls source code, whether in open repositories or within source code control systems.
Question:
Since Doc is one of the media heavyweights in open source, and open source is about code (source CODE, geddit?), why has he been so silent on the functionality, the utility, the need for a tool like Krugle? I can only find one reference that Doc made to Krugle last month in IT Garage (after an admittedly quick Google search). The product has launched, and during the beta period over 35,000 people, most of them developers, some of them — like me — simple souls in reckless pursuit of knowledge and understanding, have downloaded and used it and provided feedback. Unlike your perpetual beta web-too-oh! ad hockery, this tool was professionally designed, developed and released. It had a four month beta period and now it’s ready for prime time. So what do you think of it, Doc? What do the Linux folks have to say?
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Doc Searls 08.26.06 at 6:47
One simple reason. I’m an advisor to the company. I don’t like to blog, or write, about companies that pay me, or otherwise reward me. Some, like Technorati, are unavoidable. Most others are avoidable.
That said, with disclosures, I’ll write about Krugle in Linux Journal soon.
Frank Paynter 08.26.06 at 6:53
hooray! and good on ya for the disclosure. (p.s. I’m not an advisor to the company and I think the search product is freaking amazing!)
Frank Paynter 08.26.06 at 6:56
..and I diddn’t mean “former” I meant “long time”…