Ego Ware

EgoWare is software developed primarily to generate kudos for its authors. Often whilst it is superficially very useful, and can be sold as product, EgoWare is usually impossible to understand and use except by those with a masters degree in computer science. Often EgoWare uses the latest radical techniques, for example aspect-oriented, multi-dimensional meta-programming. (See BuzzwordBingo.)

EgoWare developers usually give themselves (and the EgoWare) a pretentious title.

For example, you might want to amend your job title to

EgoWare is most often badged as a SoftwareFramework.

EricRaymond argues (among many other things) in his essays TheCathedralAndTheBazaar and HomesteadingTheNoosphere? that much OpenSource software development is motivated by the ego boost that contributors get from the kudos of the hacker community. Assuming that's true, many big projects like LinuxOperatingSystem would be EgoWare as defined by this page. Are there additional criteria that would narrow this definition?

I agree. Some EgoWare is actually useful and doesn't require 'great credentials' to use. Some examples include key generators, which typically include flamboyant credits to whomever created that application, including koodos to whomever the creator is associated with. That would place quite a lot of applications in the realm of EgoWare.'

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