“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
Leonardo da Vinci.
l often speak about the urgency for simplification here on PAOSS and it has me wondering why it is such a challenge, for me included, within the realm of OSS.
I suspect the ambiguity of simplicity scares many people as it requires us to think in terms of reduction, in terms of what is most important. An example might be planning for 5 variables rather than 500. We know there’s another 495 variables that can be considered, which freaks us out. As Engineers we feel that we’ve produced an incomplete solution without the whole 500.
There are 495 more variables that we CAN include but this is the exact reason why so many OSS are drowning in complexity.
The power law suggests that variable 1-5 will have greater impact than variables 6-50, 51-200 or 201-500.
We give away a lot in terms of functionality but we gain a solution that is vastly more manageable.