Sales is part of the capitalism layer that sits atop the actual work. Same as CEOs and finance. None of them do useful work, only decide what useful work gets done. In communism you couldn't sell software without a Party representative - that doesn't mean he's useful.
I think the development team's work in this scenario is more akin to basic research. There is still some chance they may discover something unexpected.
It’s not basic research in the vast, vast majority of business cases you’re describing. They aren’t Bell Labs doing novel work, they’re usually doing busy work on mundane apps. I’m not going to move our understanding of financial physics forward playing around with a social media or CRUD app. Hell, most work isn’t even testing a hypothesis other than “I hope this change doesn’t break shit”
It comes across as “everyone else’s work is trivial and low value but my, MY, work is difficult and important”. We shouldn’t be so precious.
I took “basic research” to mean “fundamental research”. Sqlite is not fundamental research. It’s an exception that proves the rule. It was literally designed for a solving a specific problem. Somewhat ironically, it also comes from the industry that originated the term “self-licking ice cream cone”. An occasional useful offshoot doesn’t justify massive amounts of otherwise less useful busywork
Basic research is research done without an obvious application. In the same way, development can be done without an obvious application. All those mathematicians studying prime numbers in the 1600s-1800s came in useful later when we invented good cryptography.
Right. As you said, sqlite was developed to fill a specific need, therefore it’s applied research and not basic research. (I wouldn’t even consider it research, but more development, but I’m trying to be generous to the discussion)
