Why Start an FMF Blog?

The Free Model Foundry was incorporated in August 1995. This month we mark our 11th aniverserary. During that time we have posted models (with full timing) covering more than 10,000 orderable partnumbers from 45 vendors. Engineers have downloaded models millions of times. Yet communications are sparse.

I would like to hear more from users and would be users. Once and a while someone sends an email saying “thank you, your models have made my job easier”. A little more often someone will send in a bug report, frequently accompanied by a proposed fix, an advantage of opensource. Most often an email will ask for help using the models, running a simulator or compiler, or finding a required package. But weeks usually go by without any of the above.

Friends in IT tell me this is a good sign. People only write to communicate problems. I don’t believe it. FMF users are engineers. Engineers tend to be borderline autistics who would rather spend a day working around a problem than spend 10 minutes telling someone else about it so it can be fixed. I know our models are not bug free, our scripts are not fool proof, and our documentation is not perfect.

So my purpose in starting a blog is to make two way communication as easy, and hopefully as interesting, as possible. You are invited to respond to my meager postings and to each other, bring up new topics and rehash old ones. Tell me and your fellow engineers what works, what doesn’t and just whats on your mind. You don’t have to be politically correct, but it never hurts to be polite.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Rick Munden

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *