When I laid out my commitments for the current fiscal year, I included “Ship RIA Services Source Code” as a stretch goal.  Pulling this off will require a ton of effort.  I’ll have to work with management up several levels, with our legal department, and with dozens of others to pull it off.  There will also be a very significant amount of engineering required to make it happen too.  So I’m trying to figure out how valuable this would be to our customers.

Please go rate the value here: http://twtpoll.com/zfln78

I’d also like to hear comments backing up your ratings, so please fire away on this post.  I’d love to see discussion break out on this, so don’t hold back – let me have it.

  • Why is it or is it not valuable to put effort into getting the source code shipped?
  • What kind of licensing would you expect if the source code was released?
  • How would you use the source code?
  • Do you consider shipping source code to be a significant feature for a product?
  • Would you sacrifice other features to allow this to happen?

Even if I get 50,000 votes begging to make this happen, I can’t make any promises.  If I pursue this, it’s quite possible that I won’t succeed.  That’s why it’s called a “stretch goal.”  But before I dive into it, I thought I’d make sure it’s worth my (over)time and others’.

Thanks as always for the feedback!