Actually, no. Plenty of SSL/HTTPS servers run non-open sourced software. Plenty of open source foundations have closed decision making processes. Being open source is neither necessary nor sufficient to being trustworthy.
The genius idea of bitcoin, afaik, is that Satoshi created a brilliant incentive scheme, which was the reason why the nodes decided to join the network. Without this factor it would have been impossible for bitcoin to grow this far.
Forget about Flappy Bird, I have a few showcases to +1 this article
- http://re***d.com (which was posted here on HN when it launched as well)
- http://joomlarts.com : The most popular Joomla sites
- Android Tank app
And many other enterprise software which I don't think is appropriate to mention here were completed by an outsourcing company in Vietnam. I personally know the companies that implemented the software, from A to Z, that is now operated by US companies. It does work.
I keep on telling my friends who have never been to Vietnam that the fact that Vietnam is a one-party country does not absolutely affect the software business at all. And people in Vietnam love to work with foreigners, 99,99% of the population do not give a about the past Vietnam war. What is ahead is more important, and that is business opportunities. It's fact.
I really encourage small/medium sized software companies give Vietnam a shot, it's a good chance. I've personally seen it myself, trust me.
Edit: removed a website's name. I think probably the owner of the site doesn't want to be listed.
#4:"global education"
I agree with you completely that KA is far from a "global" player. It's interesting you mentioned Vietnam there because I have actually been building a kind of KA clone here in Vietnam for the last ~2 years or so. And here's my analysis when I started it.
- A very large percentage of Vietnamese students wouldn't be able to understand KA's videos because of their English proficiency.
- Even if the content was translated & subtitled, the videos' topics were in a way "foreign" to most of the students, especially the K1-K12's videos
- Other players like Udacity, Coursera ,... mainly focused on specific topics and that will be more relevant to Vietnamese students/workers, say software developers. But again, it's only relevant to those students with pretty good understanding of their field's terminologies in English. Those students are the minority.
- Say, if I were to start a trello's clone, I would have little chance against trello because most of Vietnamese would be able to use trello with out any problems, so yeah, they might prefer trello.
So starting a KA clone would be "safer". And on top of that, I've always been passionate about software & education & English language, so I started it. I started with English courses, which I thought were what the Vietnamese students would need most in their career later in life.
So in case anyone thinking of making a KA clone like me, please read on. It's not an easy journey at all, especially when your resources are limited. Building the platform AND the content at the same time is real tough. It's not easy to convince good (English) teachers to go online and give lessons. Giving lessons offline is still fairly lucrative for good English teachers. Or they are shy acting in front of the camera and going to be seen by "everyone". Or they are not passionate enough a teacher. Or they simply didn't believe in us.
I haven't been successful yet, still struggling but the journey's been great and I'm really proud of what we've built: a stable platform (has most of the features from KA or udacity), found 2 young passionate English teachers and together we've built a few English courses.
So yes, that's my startup journey so far. The final results? 2015 will tell, right now we're running a little short of cash but I'm hopeful. Sometimes I just wish I was Salman Khan and met "that" investor, Bill Gates. Gates' note on online education is exactly what I've been thinking as well: It is still at an early stage and improvising for maybe 10 years to come.
Hi i am a long time web dev and otoh looking for a biz/product partner. Interested? Maybe HN is the place to find a cofounder. I tried on cofounders lab but to much spam there
I am open to exploring a venture with you. Not sure how people connect through HN, but my profile is listed and has several ways to get in touch. Just mention this post.
Cant agree more. These days, I lead and train a dev team here at codersquare in Vietnam. For recruitment, English skills, esp reaing + writing are weighed as much as technical skills. And I provide English lessons on a regular basis as well.
Can't really emphasize enough the importance of English in software. I've had bad experience with devs with weak English skills.
1. Can't google for the right terms so normally finding a solution takes 3 times longer than a dev with proficient E skills.
2. Can't name functions/classes or comment properly thus producing bad qualiry code.
3. Misunderstand requirements sometimes. This one can be very costly.
4. Takes much longer time to study new stuff.
I'd love to so had Bootstro.js been a follow-up of intro.js. But it is not.
I already said so in the demo that I had this idea & implementation before intro.js was released , I even asked around #css & #jquery for some help on how to highlight the div and I also expressed my idea there in the channel [1]
Apart from trying to show the authenticity of Bootstro.js so that you & others don't take me wrong, I'd like to thank you for releasing intro.js and triggering HN's love of the idea which made me excited to try modularizing Bootstro.js & release. Being on HN's front page is a lot more "sexy".
I made it as part of SandPHP's JS suite and SandPHP is still a private repo.
OTOH, I've just checked your first intro.js commit is Mar 10, 2013 and I asked around IRC on the 9th and you're asking for a DMCA takedown sigh...
