I agree with Malte and Lars that dotWRK is more about enhancing OpenACS for work teams etc. than creating yet another layer of packages with dependencies.
Malte, I envision building a program (ie. large scaled project) cost estimating, scheduling, charting, and coordinating capabilities (call it "dotSystem") into OpenACS for manufacturing/development cycles, operations management, and building construction starting with top-down metasystems modeling and methodology. You're right that these are long term goals.
Adding a statistics package will be a critical component. [I was going to suggest adding a statistics package for dotWRK on a previous post but really think it should wait until dotLRN is folded back into OpenACS with the dotWRK goals currently outlined --to save duplication of efforts. Also, I wanted to refer to the postgres statistics package that a couple of OpenACSers are playing with... but can't find the forum reference about it right now.]
On another point, there seems to be a behavioral pattern within the OpenACS community to wait until funding before starting on such a long-term endeavor. Doesn't this assume that MBAs etc. will seek such a solution from OpenACS, or that OpenACSers will be able to sell it to them before making it?
I have great confidence in this community. Still, isn't the MBA culture much different than opensource's gift culture? I think the efforts needed to sell (compete) would be enormous. [Yes, there are MBAs who do not follow the MBA cultural values as implied and generalized here, and who would choose OpenACS. One of my best friends is one. I don't mean to offend anyone, just be matter of fact about the cultural values in general for purposes of discussion.]
One MBA rule implicitly states that paying for development work is generally much more risky than paying heaps for an existing (therefore predictable) solution --ie. the Oracles and SAP's will "win" on these terms for all large projects because they already have solutions.
Yet, I believe these terms ignore the potential of the open source culture to create effective solutions for meeting the demands for dotSystem capability outside of the enterprise business environment (as well as in it).
As long as long-term goals do not impinge on short-term, similarly aligned objectives, I see no reason to wait.
