| Since we're on the subject of Tracy not going away, what would Tracy think about open sourcing the code and hardware designs? My thoughts are varied on how Tracy might go away (sorry Tracy, not planning your demise, but you know.. Sh*t happens) and how the rest of the community keeps operating in his absence. While I'm not a customer yet (haven't been able to convince the wife that we really need an airplane right now), the EC-2 is in my design plans. I'd really hate to have to relearn everything that Tracy has already learned and implemented in the EC designs. The thing is, I'm pretty much sold on the rotary design and I would try to duplicate the effort if the EC products weren't available anymore to be able to use the rotary. I'd be at a tremendous disadvantage though. If open sourcing is not appealing, how about some kind of trust?
My father flew Lears for various corporations and in the late 70's decided to start a computer company writing software to manage aircraft scheduling and maintenance, crew scheduling, passenger manifests, spares inventory, and the like. He continued flying up through the early 90's and continued running his programming business up through his death in late 99. His business was mostly a one person shop. One of the questions that always came up when he was trying to sell a system to a flight operations department was, "What do we do when you get hit by a bus?". He never did have a good answer for that question, at least that I heard, but the same concern applies here. Just what does the rotary community do if Tracy gets hit by a bus? Is there sufficient experience and interest in the group to offer to keep things going?
Regards,
Ryan Wilkins
On Mar 16, 2010, at 11:37 AM, Chris Barber wrote: Agreed. My concern is that Tracy is my projects greatest "single point of failure" should he decide to put all this nonsense and our silliness behind him and just call it quits and actually retire. Tracy, thanks for the continued thoughtful support and hanging in there. Your knowledge and support is appreciated more than I/we can express. Kinda funny as my "ex" made fun of me when I first met you at Pecan Plantation at the cold Texas rotary round-up a few years a go...she thought it was so funny that I was "meeting my hero". Well, she was kinda right. ;-) Thanks. All the best, Chris Barber
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