Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 01:46:13 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: jcwells@u.washington.edu Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Good News! Commercial Backing For FreeBSD Message-ID: <199909150146.SAA09592@usr06.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9909130430300.11258-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu> from "Jason C. Wells" at Sep 13, 99 04:58:25 am
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This is a long response to some short posting, but I think this discussion needs some business perspective. > Brett isn't raising good points. Brett is raising Brett's points. Nearly > all of Brett's messages hail the impending doom of FreeBSD. Brett, being > an effective writer, demands the attention of others to bring perspective > to the discussion. People like Jordan end up spending time answering > Brett's criticisms regardless of their merit. I think you are mising the boat here. Brett wants increased commercial interest in FreeBSD. Forget what his motives are, and agree on the ends (I am not asking you to agree on the means). Brett is asking the same kind of questions that IBM asked Whistle during the due dilligence phase of acquisition; this is a corporate CYA technique necessary if you intend to engage in modern business. Whistle was able to laugh most of this off, since while the fact that Whistle uses FreeBSD is available for the FreeBSD community to point at (now they can point at "Whistle Communications, Inc., an I.B.M. Company"), Whistle does not shout this from the rooftops in advertising materials; neither does it deny it, if asked. Whistle specifies use of Open Source, and it puts the legal notices in its products UI (even though it doesn't have to), and on its Open Source web site. Brett wants a more active commercial advocacy than this. For this to be possible, he has to proclaim from the rooftops that his product uses FreeBSD (perhaps even that his putative product is a FreeBSD distribution: a "WhiteHat" to Linux's "RedHat"). And for that, he needs to be indemnified against anticompetitive practices. I think the risk of anticompetitive practices from Walnut Creek CDROM is next to NIL, even if Brett were able to push a FreeBSD based distribution Big Time(tm). But I am not one of Brett's backers (not that I've been asked and refused, mind you; I haven't been asked), and his backers will probably need a better "seperation of church and state" to be comfortable. It may not torpedo the deal, but it may skew their risk calculation to the point where Brett can't afford the cost of the money. Do you want to see FreeBSD mentions in advertisements for commercial products in print, radio, television, etc. advertising? Then you need to indemnify the people who are willing to pay for this, to alleviate their risk. I think that it would probably be adequate to get the trademark transferred over to "The FreeBSD Project, Inc.", as Jordan stated has always been the plan. I also think that it is beholden on Brett, to a degree, to aid this process, as possible, potentially including greasing the skids by volunteering effort in this regard, which Jordan has so far been unwilling to treat as a crisis. After all, it may in fact be a crisis from Brett's perspective, but he can hardly ask Jordan to treat it as Jordan's crisis. A written statement by the project as to some minimal guidelines for what constitutes acceptable use of the trademark, such that it will be well known if Brett oversteps the line, both for the benefit of Brett knowing where the line is, as well as for the general community to be able to agree if or when it has been crossed. > Can you imagine if everything Brett wrote made its way to slashdot? The > consequences would be terrible. It is bad enough that our competition is > antagonistic. Business people think remarkably alike. I believe that if this happened, then there will be business cases discussed. There are good business cases for contributing to free software projects, even if you are not required to do so. There are also good reasons why being required to do so is a Bad Thing(tm) from a business perspective. At worst, I believe that people would have to attentively engage in control of the discussion. No one really benefits by keeping the truth hidden, and from a business perspective, most of the concerns about FreeBSD raised by Brett, and others, have sound business resonas as for why they should be concerns. On the whole, I believe the pro-FreeBSD arguments outweigh the cons, and that open and honest communication, without giving people the sense that they are still waiting for the other shoe to drop, is more beneficial than harmful for the long term success of FreeBSD. > I say that Brett's discussion here does FreeBSD harm. Sorry Jason, I have to disagree. Brett has noted social issues, which I, and others, have noted as well. He has also noted business issues (which I have been largely silent upon, but which others have noted as well). This discussion has predominantly been centered on business issues. Issues are agnostic. They only have power in the mind of the person viewing them to be positive or negative. If you see these issues as negative, then _do_ something about them, so that you can easily and authoritatively dismiss them, rather than bemoaning the "harm" they do by the mere fact of them being raised. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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