Re: Seeking advice to fix an app that I have no control over

So my question is this. Can I somehow, without stepping on toes, advise the creators on what is wrong, so that it may be fixed?

Assuming you're speaking of this WebCT, the answer is most likely No. As far as I know WebCT is proprietary software (please inform me if I am incorrect), and attempting to fix their buggy software for them wouldn't be the best approach.

Instead, my recommendation is to start an open source project which provides the same functionality. Easier said than done I know, but if you're willing to put work in to improve it, this would be the way to go. Chances are there are many other people dissatisfied with WebCT that would be willing to contribute to the project.

There is also a project on Sourceforge aimed at creating open source tools and utilities for WebCT that may be of interest (and a source of assistance).

Best of luck :)

Comment on Re: Seeking advice to fix an app that I have no control over

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Re (tilly) 2: Seeking advice to fix an app that I have no control over by tilly (Archbishop) on Feb 22, 2002 at 04:14 UTC
This reminds me of the sad story of the old discussion forums I was on at Infoworld. It had, shall we say, a few problems. Sight unseen I was able to figure out the likely causes of their race conditions, forum corruption, etc. One day after a server move they had a permissions problem where part of their source was downloadable by anyone. I took the liberty of downloading it, and posting patches that removed sad race condition, made the corrupted forums mostly readable, etc, etc. The powers that be at Infoworld were not amused, never applied said patches, and kept on blathering on about rolling out an "enterprise solution" for the upcoming Y2K problems. (I offered to do a Y2K port of the existing system to Apache on Linux for them for nominal cost. This was ignored. As was my flat-out statement that I would never use their replacement forum system. As was an internal reimplementation, an offer of a rewrite to run on OS/2, and so on and so forth.) The long and short of it was that no amount of good will on my part was sufficient to get through the layers of CYA. As a result InfoWorld Electric (ie IWE) wound up rolling out a PoS set of forums as a Y2K solution. After I (and others) decided never to post there, the community that they had developed renamed itself IWETHEY, and moved. (The latest incarnation resides at zIWETHEY.) And what happened to Infoworld? Well they survived, their "enterprise" forum system fell apart, their current forums are far worse than what they had (or what multiple people were willing to give them), and after several rounds of layoffs, the PhBs who originally screwed things up are no longer there. So yes, their stupidity cost them. But, aside from my learning a lot of cynicism about what it means when PhBs want an "enterprise system", all of my energy trying to get them to use something better was just wasted. If the "powers that be" don't want to hear it, they aren't about to. And there isn't a lot you can do about it.	[reply]

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Re (tilly) 2: Seeking advice to fix an app that I have no control over
by tilly (Archbishop) on Feb 22, 2002 at 04:14 UTC

One day after a server move they had a permissions problem where part of their source was downloadable by anyone. I took the liberty of downloading it, and posting patches that removed sad race condition, made the corrupted forums mostly readable, etc, etc. The powers that be at Infoworld were not amused, never applied said patches, and kept on blathering on about rolling out an "enterprise solution" for the upcoming Y2K problems. (I offered to do a Y2K port of the existing system to Apache on Linux for them for nominal cost. This was ignored. As was my flat-out statement that I would never use their replacement forum system. As was an internal reimplementation, an offer of a rewrite to run on OS/2, and so on and so forth.)

The long and short of it was that no amount of good will on my part was sufficient to get through the layers of CYA. As a result InfoWorld Electric (ie IWE) wound up rolling out a PoS set of forums as a Y2K solution. After I (and others) decided never to post there, the community that they had developed renamed itself IWETHEY, and moved. (The latest incarnation resides at zIWETHEY.)

And what happened to Infoworld? Well they survived, their "enterprise" forum system fell apart, their current forums are far worse than what they had (or what multiple people were willing to give them), and after several rounds of layoffs, the PhBs who originally screwed things up are no longer there. So yes, their stupidity cost them.

But, aside from my learning a lot of cynicism about what it means when PhBs want an "enterprise system", all of my energy trying to get them to use something better was just wasted. If the "powers that be" don't want to hear it, they aren't about to. And there isn't a lot you can do about it.

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