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Bruce Perens Becomes CEO of VC 194

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Bruce Perens writes "In August, I accepted the president's position at Linux Capital Group, a business incubator and venture capital firm specializing in Linux. This is explained in my open letter to the free software community on the group's web site. My firm has announced its first investment, in Progeny Linux, a company headed by Debian Founder Ian Murdock, which will produce a commercial version of Debian in cooperation with the Debian developers. We will be starting and funding several other Linux companies. We now intend to show other businesses by example how to succeed while being a good citizen of the free software community."
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Bruce Perens Becomes CEO of VC More

Bruce Perens Becomes CEO of VC

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  • This is in response to the 12 year old posting all of the stupid things at the bottom. I don't want to talk to him, because he's just some loser with nothing better to do than bother everyone else.

    Up until now, all these stupid things have always been from anonymous cowards, so the score they had was 0, and I could filter them out. But now, it seems people are getting accounts to post anonymously, so there score goes up to 1. I want to read comments with a score of 1, but I don't want to bother with this crap. Is there something we can do about idiots like this? Rob?

  • What anti-capitalist stance? I just see an anti government intervention in software stance.

    Remember, copyright is enforced by violence.

  • As long as it remains open, that's all that matters. The point was never that software must be free as in speach, free as in beer, but never in stores. As Bruce said, if there's an oppertunity to actually *make* a living off of this, one would have to be a fool to deny it. Not only would one get to do what they love, but they'd prove to the world the validity of their software and the license behind it.

    -- Mr. Gus, who has a file in the FreeBSD dist he didn't know about 'till now...
  • I have already discussed this with Richard (months ago). At the moment I don't have money to contribute, but that will change. Meanwhile, Richard called me this morning and asked me to put a link on the VC firm's home page, and I did that. If there's anything else I can do for FSF, I will.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • I suspect that the investment is calculated to pay him out $30K/year. Gee, you're really nasty.

  • there are some things RPM does better too. For example, it allows multiple patches per package, which is crucial for organizing a derivative (either for public or local use) distribution.

    BZZZT. Thank you for playing.

    For examples of Debian packages that contain multiple patches, and apply them at run time, see the Debian source packages of the GNU Compiler Collection, the GNU C Library, and XFree86.

    What Debian doesn't do is make you cram all package-system-specific data into a .spec file.

    It's not fair -- or responsible -- to make blanket statements like yours without justification.

    It's not fair -- or responsible -- to make blatantly wrong statements like yours.

  • I am happy to hear there now is a VC firm specializing in Linux/Open Source companies, especially since it is headed by people who are already directly involved in the Linux/Open Source movement. I think this will be good for Linux and the computer industry. And congratulations to you for finding one of the coolest jobs around.

    After reading some of the other posts and as a potential investor, I have a few questions:

    1) Is every company LCG invests in expected to be profitable within a reasonable amount of time and provide an exit strategy for LCG to recover their investment (eg. IPO or buyout)? ie. will LCG look at every company in terms of commercial viability or will it also consider investing in non-profitable projects/ventures?

    2) The main value of a VC to a startup is usually not the money but the experience and contacts the VC's have in the particular domain. It appears that LCG will have very good experience and contacts within the Linux domain. I expect that LCG can give excellent help to startups in meshing into the Linux community, licensing, finding talented employees, etc. Do you feel LCG has the experience and contacts to help find CEO's and management, connect startups with clients outside of the Linux domain, and give advise on all the nuts and bolts of starting a new company and making it profitable?

    Thanks and Best of Luck,

    Dan
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Is every company LCG invests in expected to be profitable within a reasonable amount of time

    Every company, but not every project. In general an Open Source company might have software development as a cost center and support as a profit center. That means one costs money and the other makes money, and both are essential to your business.

    Do you feel LCG has the experience and contacts to help find CEO's and management, connect startups with clients outside of the Linux domain, and give advise on all the nuts and bolts of starting a new company and making it profitable?

    A lot of this is what Randall and Bern bring to the table. The both have a lot of experience in negociations between businesses, running businesses, etc. And of course we're looking for more people to help with this.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Sun tried diskless workstations more than a decade ago, back when disks were expensive. What you need is a local disk cache of a filesystem elsewhere.

    Ian has been working on distributed filesystem stuff at U. Arizona for the past few years. I think he has something that might be better than Coda.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • From the Executive Summary on the Linux Capital Group web site:

    VCs can make tremendous profits. For example Sequoia Capital invested in Red Hat at $3, before their IPO, and now that Red Hat has hit $300, Sequoia would
    multiply its investment 100 times by selling at that price. In contrast, the typical investor was first able to buy Red Hat stock at $43, and would still make a handsome
    profit but nothing near that of the VC. So you can see that the conventional paradigm of venture capital is structured so that only those who have a lot to invest can
    play the game. Linux Capital Group will give this opportunity to everyone who can afford a share.

    Q: Would this be a share before or after you go public?

    After the post IPO success of RedHat, and now VA Linux's record breaking IPO, it seems pretty apparent that Wall Street is more than willing to pay up front for Linux gains they anticipate down the road. If LPG expects to achive a 100-to-1 return on capital, then it seems reasonable (in the current market, at least) that any LPG IPO would open way up, therefore denying any open market investors that ground floor VC type rate of return.

    If you truly want to allow others in on the financial success of Linux, then the only real way to do it would be to accept pre-IPO investments on a much broader scale (i.e. from the open source/Linux community). How exactly you would qualify such people, and avoid the Wall Street sharks is a tricky problem, although perhaps limiting investments to (say) $1000 would probably go a long way towards that.
  • Did he only learn this last week about the conflict of interest?

    This is the perfect moment to quote legendary VC John Doerr: "No conflict, no interest".

    --Tom

  • Andover is public now (just this week i think) it wasn't a rocket like VA though. Check it out [bigcharts.com]

    Its at 67 1/2 right now, down from 83 5/8
    Market Cap is about a billion. The question is... How many shares did Rob get? I would assume that everyone involved made enough tho.

    There is nothing wrong with capitalism. So far its seemed to work for America. And so what if corporations are being founded to make money off of Linux. ITS STILL OPEN SOURCE!!! Which means no matter what they do, you benefit as the user.

    How is making money not exacly what Linux is about. FREEDOM! the freedom to do what you want! Including making a profit... and other people profit too! The commercialization of Linux can only be beneficial to the community.
  • Sure, it was not my intention to make wrong assumptions.

    (notice, I'm entering dangerous waters here, it's not my intention to start a flamewar).
    The point is not the "Christian" part, but the message we get from there. If you think about it, the basic Christian precept ("Do not do unto others what you wish not be done to you" - I might have got the words wrong) is, stripped from its religious concepts, one of the very few (moral, ethic, choose your word) principles that can keep a society as a whole cohesive, expressed in amazing clarity and brevity. And the same applies to many other "precepts", INCLUDING charity.
    I chose to use the name "Christian Charity" because it's something that's generally well-known, but there should be similar concepts in Islam, Induism, Buddhism and just every major religion in the world.

    My point was: "The assumption everybody who freely shares what he has is a communist is broken at the root, let's not fall into that trap." The idea of freely sharing has probably been around since mankind exists, and has been formalized as religious concepts at least two millenia ago.

    So ok, maybe "Christian Charity" is not a fully representative expression, and "Charity" by itself has too much of "pity" sound to it. But then, it is just as wrong as "Communist". Let's just call it "Free Sharing" and leave the politics out of this...

    These, of course, are just my opinions. Feel free to disagree :-)

    Cheers

  • This is a great idea.

    It would be great if there was a way to direct at least a proportion of the prizes to those who need it most, ie, without corporate backing.

    The increasing number of commercial open source projects around is great, but we still need the grass-roots type projects, and contests could be a great way of supporting these.

    The contest rules should dictate a particualar licence (or at least dual licencing) to a single licence (I'd prefer GPL or LGPL).

    If specific prizes were offered ("$5000 for the best XML reporting tool", say) then after the contest period was finished, the authors (or a third party) could (hopefully) merge the best parts of all the entries.

    I guess this would be a little like the SourceXchange.com thing, but less formal.

    Another, unrelated idea is some kind of Open Source research fund where potential authors can apply for funding for their project - lots of programmers can almost afford to quit their jobs and write open source stuff, but $10,000 for six months would make it a lot easier.

  • isn't so much what they have done, it is the way they have done it.

    Corel have done a good job in their early support of Linux. However, Linux isn't a marketplace, it is a community. When was the last time you saw a Corel person on Slashdot - or on a Linux mailing list for that matter, explaining what they were doing with our baby? (Maybe I hang out on the wrong mailing lists, though)

    Then there were the licencing fiascoes - first the "Closed" beta program, and then the "Over 18 only" thing, and now the "not for use in Europe" thing.

    Maybe they are trying but why? Is it just to try and dispose Microsoft and to raise their stock price? I fear so. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with that in itself, but that is not what Linux is about, and so there is bound to be some friction - and it is going to get worse (not necisarily against Corel).

  • Glasnost : the ideological toe-hold that preceded the invasion of the USSR by the Capitalist mafias. Is that really what you want to compare it to?
  • I think it's called Christian Charity.
    And it is just a couple of years older than Communism.
  • Two things: a) thanks for not expounding this post to several dull, smug paragraphs, then submitting it as a story to Slashdot (I think we understand each other ;-) ) and b) Pixar-- kewl, I just watched A Bug's Life! What did you help 'em with?
  • The above posting was me, by the way. (Forgot to log in.) By the way, while I think software collections will outpace local storage in the long run (although both are growing like crazy); the real issue is saving effort on software collection distribution and maintenance for a lan.
  • Given that Richard has dedicated his entire life to free software since 1984, I think that FSF and the rest of us got the benefit of the money.

    The fact that he did arrange for the money to take care of his future because he knew that he'd be spending that future on political action for free software and not on having some sort of programmer job.

    We're asking people to make free software, not starve.

    Bruce

  • Fuck you.

    (Temporary score of 1, just for your viewing pleasure).

    -cow
  • That wasn't what I was driving at - money changes things. It changes people, it changes countries, it changes many things. Like Midas' touch.

    I'm worried that as geeks move up the social/economic ladder they're leaving behind some well-earned lessons about the price of being different. We're the stars now of our society - financially well off, we can satisfy our material wants, we work what most people consider to be ideal jobs, and we're the envy of most of the country if not the world. Can you believe, even for a moment, that this isn't having an impact?

    I'm wondering what's going to happen to this group of social outcasts whom I happen to belong to - will they embrace society, or use their power to change it (thus taking the risk of losing the aforementioned economic gains)? This question is far more important than the monentary concerns voiced so far, IMO. Geeks now have both the economic power and intellectual prowness to encourage dramatic social changes. Will they take advantage of this, or trade that for financial security?

  • That would be extremely unfair to those who have dial-up accounts and will have the same IP # as an AC that posted somewhere, and may still be going a bit far even for people with static IP's.

    We have moderation for this. You can argue about what gets moderated up, but most of the stuff that gets moderated down is for a good reason. It's probably best to just put higher-scored articles first (or kill -1's alltogether).
  • Excellent. I think one of the biggest mistakes in user-friendliness is assuming that the user has the I.Q. of a houseplant. I want complete control of my desktop with the access to that control arranged in a very logical (user-friendly) way. I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

  • Perfect. (Score:1)

    by oblom ( 105 )
    This is a great news. Linux is becoming popular these days. Big time businesses are already paying
    attention to Linux companies. You should have seen the attention VA Linux's IPO received in one stock
    trading company I've been setting up network at. ;-)

    At the same time, the ideological reason of open software doesn't always get as much attention. Many
    people who heard about and even used, RedHat, Caldera and SuSe don't know anything about Debian. My
    boss, who is extensively using SuSe 6.2, had no idea what I was talking about, when I mentioned that I run
    Debian.

    While Debian is a wonderful product, that strictly follows open source guidelines, it should make more
    efforts in PR field. Commercial version of Debian is a perfect opportunity to put the entire project into a
    spotlight. Plus, it might bring financial resources to support Debian non-commercial.

    Great job guys. Good luck to you.
  • Sometime yesterday, I was thinking Would RMS have started the GNU project if he'd known it would come to this? I'll see him on Tuesday and discuss it. But I'm pretty sure he would have. RMS envisioned a world of free software. He never eschewed making a living from it, in fact he consulted for Intel, making money by writing free software (enhancements to GCC) long ago. Thus, I think things are going pretty much as RMS wanted them to go in the large, but not in the small. I'm sure he would have preferred that everyone use the GPL (I would too), but he's accepted that the Open Source Definition is a definition of Free Software.

    I tried to get RMS on my board, but of course he doesn't want his name used for marketing. I still expect to be talking with him regularly about my company's operations, and I plan to help out FSF in whatever way possible, with money if I can, software and other services otherwise.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Corel certainly has made some mistakes with their heavy-handed licenses however they have been a coporate contributor to the Linux community long before it was fashionable or profitable to do so. Most of the /. readers haven't been around Linux long enough to remember that you could run Wordperfect 5.1 (text mode, blue and yellow screen) under Linux years and years ago.

    When they make a mistake and upset hardcore open-source developers they should be criticized but Corel is participating in this community rather than preying on it.

    As someone who has been using Linux in a business context since 1994, I can say that Corel was one of the visionaries (not the only one and not the best one) that gave Linux legitmacy early on. The biggest mistake Corel has made is not being nearly as succesful as they promised they'd be in the Linux world.

  • I have never felt that Linux is a community though there are many communities formed around supporting it. I've been using Linux since Kernel 0.99pl13 in 1993. "/." on the other hand is a community and it wouldn't hurt for a manager-type at Corel to informally participate here. I'm 100% certain that Corel developers read and participate in the /. community already though they may not have acheived celebrity status like other developers have.

    There is a marketplace for Linux, and Corel has been in that marketplace long before it was fashionable or profitable to do so. Corel deserves applause for their long-standing support of applications on the Linux platform, constructive critizisms of their failures and successes, and sharp jab when they anger core members of the open-source community.

  • huh? (Score:2)

    by mattdm ( 1931 )
    I looked at those packages, and they certainly all seem to have one big patch file that contains all patches. You care to explain what you mean further?

    If the patches you're talking about are in the .orig.tar.gz, that's an even more severe problem -- no pristine source.

    From the Debian Packaging manual:


    As it exists on the FTP site, a Debian source package consists of three
    related files. You must have the right versions of all three to be able to use
    them.


    Those three files are: the source, the dsc (control) file, and the patch file, if any.

    Note that there's only ONE patch file.

    --

  • You obviously didn't bother to unarchive the source package.

    dpkg-source -x *.dsc

    For the XFree86 source package, take a look in debian/patches and tell me what you think those are.

    And please don't troll. Red Hat doesn't keep their multiple patch files separate from the source archive. You have to open up the SRPM to get to them. Likewise with Debian source packages.

    Not that anyone will read this now...since the article has fallen off the front page. Score one more point for Red Hat FUD.

  • I do work the press - it's an essential skill for business and the kind of advocacy I've been doing for years. But this page is going to end up being 99.6% your comments and 0.4% my posting, so I think the system tends to converge on some sort of objectivity.

    Do not misunderstand me. I'm not critizing you. I'm critizing slashdot for posting this, AND for posting the ESR posting yesterday. The point is, slashdot should not be the equivalent of the norwegian magazine "Se and hør" (see and hear, a weekly tabloid magazine with interviews and articles about known-persons lives).

    Slashdot has a history of posting technical and geek-engaging articles. But the last two days, they've posted one article written BY *ESR*, *about* ESR, and in addition, today, they posted this article with a link to YOUR open letter, without any comments.

    Of course, we readers will make a lot of comments. The point is that slashdot SHOULD NOT (imho) post these articles. Slashdot ain't a tabloid press.

    I'm still a fan of ESR, even though his star DID fall (for me) yesterday, after the posting. And, I'm still a fan of you. But. .. ohwell .

    About the posting/comment percentage. Yes, comments does out-space the article, but nobody read 300 comment, or however may there are. They read the score 5 comments, and no more. And, too few have moderator-abilities. I used to have them, but last time I got an oportunity to moderate was 3 weeks ago. And before that? A couple of months. More people should be able to moderate, so that good articles which is 'recently posted' got moderated up, if they were any good.

    The last ramble there, in the last paragraph, is because articles have a tendency to get modreated down, if they are 'critizing'. As 'trolls'.

    If anyone wants to interview me and write an objective article, my email's up there in the header.

    I would've loved to speak with you IRL, asking you all sorts of questions, but I'm no journalist. I'm sure PING at the University of Oslo would love to get a speech from you if you accidentally go to norway, but well, I guess that won't happen ;(

    In all cases, I was not critizing you. I was critizing slashdot for posting this kind of "tabloid-coverage".


  • Needless to say I agree with you 100% but too bad this discussion is taking place in a dead thread. I wonder how we can get it discussed by a wider audience. I think it needs to be done.
  • Oh - it won't be overt - just a little back room deal "Hey andover, think I can get to talk a little bit about this new startup company we decided to fund? Oh - by the way, do you want a part of their IPO?"

    Sorry, I don't find that comment to my original post remotely funny.
  • Hehe... perhaps Slashdot should post the IP addresses of Anonymous Coward posters from now on? Sure, that won't help with imposters who create accounts, but I can imagine the IP address posting rules can change over time to accomodate adaptative patterns in our fellow Portman/Berrymore fetished freaks.
  • Corel is trying becuase it recognized the value of Linux long before any other corporation did. Now that the bandwagon is rolling and every tom dick and harry is jumping on it is easy to overlook this fact.

    As to why corel is trying I think the answer is simple. It is just about impossible to compete with M$ in the windows marketplace and corel sees Linux as an opportunity to sell their software without competing with M$. They are corporation and this is a wise and prudent thing for them to do. In fact Corel saw this before everyone else did.

    If linux is a community then you ought to treat members of your community better. If they make a mistake (especially if it was an honest one) you correct them gently. If they deserve critisicm then you critisize constructively. Instead we seem to want to beat the crap out of them at every opportunity.

    Sure Corel ought to participate in slashdot (actually does any other corporation do so regularly?) but let's be honest they shouldn't Have to. Also I think it might be little naive to say that slashdot is the open source community. Open source is bigger then slashdot.
  • I tried to get RMS on my board, but of course he doesn't want his name used for marketing.

    And that, is a good thing. RMS is a figure respected for his "free" stance. If he got involved with a corp - he would lose a lot of faith.


  • Oh, that's good. That way I'll still be able to see the 'Natalie P0rtman' categories. :/
    ----
  • It's interesting that you call slashdot a community. I agree with your statement. I had a running argument with someone (Signal 11 perhaps?) who disagreed. He seemed to think that slashdot was just a website. I'm glad to see that there others who agree with me.
  • Please be charitable and remember that some of us are not Christians. We're still charitable. Thus, I think that name doesn't work either.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • I would like to have a cup of coffee with you and Richard Stallman. My heroes used to be sports stars and actors but I believe you guys are making a true difference. And you guys are cool too. Not like that mean Tom Christiansen :(
  • It's after Linux Capital Group goes public, but before any of its partner companies go public.

    Essentially, when a partner company goes public it is treated as a spin-off, and the Linux Capital Group stockholders get shares of the new company. They still have their Linux Capital Group shares, too. And when the next partner goes public, they get its shares, too, ad infinitum. Linux Capital Group gets some cash from selling stock after each partner IPO, and uses that to refuel the process. So I can do exactly what you want with every partner company, including Progeny Linux, once Linux Capital Group goes public, but not before. Sorry.

    I don't think I can get away with taking small investments before the Linux Capital Group IPO. I'm not happy about it, but I'm not sure we have a choice. Securities law makes running a public VC firm quite complicated, we have already expended some legal services looking into that, and plan to expend a lot more.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • You're right; I don't have access to a Debian system right now. (It's on my laptop, but the screen is having issues.) I can look tomorrow. Sorry, there's nothing I can do about that.

    But I did look at the source tree on the ftp site, and XFree86 just has the three files referenced in the documentation. One .orig.tar.gz, one .diff.gz, and one .dsc. If there are other patches, where are they? In the .orig.tar.gz file? Like I said, that's even worse -- preserving pristine sources is important. But actually, they don't seem to be there either. I'll look at this tomorrow and see if they are created somewhere along the way if you use dpkg-source.

    This isn't FUD, by the way -- FUD the original comment may have been, because it made an unsubstantiated derogatory comment. I'm not saying that debian's packaging system is bad in any way -- it certainly handles dependencies better than RPM. But it's not fair to say that RPM is bad without having a particular reason why, especially when there are things that RPM does do very nicely that dpkg apparently doesn't.

    You're also using the word "troll" in a weird way. There's nothing in my message that's a troll in any way. And I didn't say that you didn't have to open the SRPM to get at the patches -- just that when you do, they're clearly differentiated and in seperate files, which is nice when you're making local changes. How would you go about doing this on Debian?

    (It's possible that you're right, although I can't find any information to correlate what you're saying. Even though there _is_ good documentation on making debian packages, it doesn't really seem to talk about this issue.)

    --

  • Propeitary software is a means to an end. It is just, and it produces innovative software. Though I realize this is hotly contested on slashdot, Open Source software isn't exactly a hot bed of innovation. In fact, one has to struggle damn hard to find "innovations" in, so called, "free software". When I say innovation, I don't mean mere invention. I mean, getting an idea on how to create or fundamentally improve something, and really hustling and expending countless hours/dollars to make it work.

    Open source software only addresses the needs and wants of geeks, not that of the common user, and has only had limited success at that. Propietary software allows for an incentive program (which also helps organize development), that Open source software does not. This is particularly true for the boring parts of development (e.g., support, help systems, idiot proofing, and generally bringing it into fruition).

    Some will say that RedHat is proof of Open Source viability in the commercial world, that "support" dollars are sufficient. This has not been proven, and is, in fact, very questionable. RedHat is not yet profitable. They haven't exactly developed a great deal of software (with the exception of, perhaps, gnome and rpm. Nothing on scale with what Sun, Apple, Microsoft, expend on it). Most all of their revenues come from SELLING the CD. If, and when, Redhat does climb to popularity, companies will begin selling byte for byte copies for half the cost, with equal convience. The only reason to buy their CD is for packaged support. This too is questionable. As another company could dedicate themselves to soley supporting RedHat (being open source this is very easy), with a higher percentage of their revenues going back into support operations (e.g., no R&D like RedHat must). I really would like to see RedHat succeed, and I'm not saying they absolutely can't (they'll atleast grow in popularity amongst geeks), but it should not be used as "proof". Nor do I see any other companies which do [expend big bucks on open source development, and make big returns].

  • Understood. I think that Rob is having some problems resolving how to handle the S/N ratio without being in some way unfair or unethical by blocking people. You may have noticed I run my own weblog [technocrat.net] that is an alternative to Slashdot if you want less noise. People tell me that the two weblogs compliment each other because they fulfill different goals.

    I had a great time speaking in Iceland and would love to go to Norway. If there's a conference there, tell me about the call for papers.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Is it just me, or has linux started absorbing (at an absolutely incredible rate) all the qualities it's supporters initially dismissed as both irrelevant and/or evil?

    Linux is supposed to be "free speech, not free beer"... yet here we are making money hand over fist. If you contributed an open source project *BLAMO!* you get The Letter and an opportunity to make alot of money.

    ESR made it big (as he should.. he's on the board of directors), Bruce Perens is off now with his vulture capital friends, and Rob of slashdot fame joined up with Andover.net, now going for IPO (or maybe they have already, I wasn't paying attention).

    We've been fighting all these spectres of Big Business Squashing the Little Guy, actively refuting the FUD companies throw against our cherished OS' (while replacing it with some of our own, admittedly), and essentially emulating all the behavior of the big businesses we're fighting against!

    Anyone else feel like Alice after falling down the rabbit hole here?

  • I urge slashdot to STOP posting self-promotioning articles, and start doing
    their own comments on things.

    I totally, completely, 100% agree with this - except.. There are all of two people who post articles on /. with any sort of objectivity or even cohesion. They are Michael and Justin, and they rarely post. The most likely scenario is that you'd get Roblimo tacking on some really, really poorly thought-out comment, or a 'hear hear!' from Taco or Hemos.

    These guys have proven that they can write well, and are generally much more interesting than the average posting. I would suggest perhaps making them all posted as 'features,' or some other mechanism by which those of us uninterested in long opinion peices can just whack em at the perl level.

    Thanks!

    BTW, last time I posted this exact same sentiment, I ended up moderated at "0 - Troll." Do these people even know what a troll IS? READ YOUR DAMNED MODERATOR GUIDELINES OR CHOOSE 'I don't want to moderate' IN YOUR PREFERENCES. Danke.

    --
    blue
  • From BP open letter:

    ..... Non-Open-Source software, if we ever deal with any, will be represented honestly. I won't claim that something is Open Source when it's not.

    IMHO

    Bruce plans to "embrace and extend" the existing code base of open source, with proprietary software. Nobody can obtain a CEO title without entertaining the thought of protecting the trust that other investors put into the VC brand.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Kill files. Tell rob you want kill files.
  • And you know what? This is isn't any different than the completely false impression that politicians attempt to portray when making comments like, "I'm only in for three terms." Yeah, right. Once they get a taste of the 170K/year salary and all the butt-kissers and other perks that go along with it, they'll do or say ANYTHING to stay in office.

    Money and influence don't mean much to someone who has neither. But turn the tables, and they're singing an entirely different song.

  • FYI, dpkg will soon officially supported multiple patches files and even source dependencies. That's it, apt-get -b source your_package will download all needed files, download and install needed development libraries and tools and compile and install everything, making pgcc distribution or new arch ports (with buildd) a mostly automated task.

    However, making source-dependencies is not as easy as it seems and some makefile can be quite difficult to trace out. We hope to have soon a way to rebuild the entire distribution automatically before releasing it out, if it's feasible (400 & + packages is quite big, so may be we just do it for the base and standard packages).

  • I'm sorry, but I object to this. Pervasive big-brotherism is *not* what I want to see the Internet grow into. So I will continue to operate my proxys, which keep no logs. The techniques you describe will only result in a lot of hassling *me*, free-speech advocate, when the IPs you see start coming through proxy servers like mine. The same technological limitations apply: I would probably limit access to my proxy server if there were a reliable technological means of doing that properly, but there isn't, so I won't.

    Think twice and *care* about your rights some, people. Sure, the guy yelling on the street corner may annoy you a bit, but wouldn't a ban on public speech annoy be worse?

  • the people who make the best and contribute the most deserve the most. this must be specifically applied to linux as it is a pretty new phenomenon and some guidelines should have been set already before it started.
  • With a commercial flavor of Debian being head by it's founder, the potential for forking is very great. Debian has been very slow in releasing new editions of their distro - this slowness is unacceptable with a commercial distro. What are you and Ian going to do to prevent this?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • My congratulations to you and Valerie. Best wishes and good luck!

    Oh yeah, and good luck with the business thing, too. :)
  • What I heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, Bruce, is that the success of the open source movement had less to do with software development and more to do with the model they used. Take and substitute software development with putting a space station in orbit, or putting people on Mars. It'd be best if done by an open method, with peer review, and everyone contributing their little ingenious ideas on how something should work.

    So the fact that people were developing software wasn't the important part, it was how people were developing the software.

    --Rae
  • But this page is going to end up being 99.6% your comments and 0.4% my posting, so I think the system tends to converge on some sort of objectivity.
    Yes, yes, but in that "system" it has already been decided upon that your business affiliations, ESR's newfound wealth, and whatever else are worthy of discussion.

    People will post here, both supporting and defending your decision to take a job without asking themselves why they care at all. You will be accused of shameless self-promotion by people whose very discussion of you only serves to promote you more.

    The media is powerful, and people can be very stupid, indeed.

  • Isn't this the same damn thing that happened to Wired magazine? When I first starting reading it years ago, it was cutting edge, it was a little edgy, it was pretty cool. They still send me the magazine today (for free) but it's basically worthless to me. It reads like Fortune Magazine: so-and-so made $300 million from a technology developed for free in academia -- aren't they wonderful?
    Plus, I saw an $11,000 necklace advertised in the January '00 issue! The demographic is changing for a lot of this stuff, presumably this will include Slashdot as well (it already happened to www.codeguru.com) -- it's been changing since McDonald's opened in Red Square (do I liken open-source to communism? maybe...how does that bode for open-source?)
  • I don't want to start a war here, but this comment seems unfounded: Its packaging system is just so far and away superior to Redhat's at the moment, that it borders on ridiculous. Debian's packaging system has some nice advantages (and more so as the apt front-end tools get more developed), but there are some things RPM does better too. For example, it allows multiple patches per package, which is crucial for organizing a derivative (either for public or local use) distribution. It's not fair -- or responsible -- to make blanket statements like yours without justification.

    --

  • Understood. I think that Rob is having some problems resolving how to handle the S/N ratio without being in some way unfair or unethical by blocking people.

    Well, most suggested articles get rejected. I guess its an 1-100 ratio for the posted vs the non-posted articles. Which is a good thing.

    Actually, I've only been disappointed (really disappointed) with slashdot the last two days. The ESR article, and then this article.

    If it gets "back to normal" with no more "direct advertisements" articles, then my view on slashdot will recover allright. But if these two days show a trend, then .. ohwell, we'll see :-)

    You may have noticed I run my own weblog that is an alternative to Slashdot if you want less noise. People tell me that the two weblogs compliment each other because they fulfill different goals.

    Ohyes, I'm a "regular reader". If you take a look at the comments, you will see that I've already posted a couple. I try to get around whenever I remember to. Its like, I read slashdot and userfriendly and a couple of other sites everyday. When I remember, I try to go through freshmeat and technocrat too :)

    I had a great time speaking in Iceland and would love to go to Norway. If there's a conference there, tell me about the call for papers.

    I'll try to remember that. I'll inform you if I see something, but I'll first notice when the conference is 'ongoing' and not when they are planning it, so ohwell :-)

  • Urg, that'll teach me to not use the preview button. Try this:

    I don't want to start a war here, but this comment seems unfounded: Its packaging system is just so far and away superior to Redhat's at the moment, that it borders on ridiculous. Debian's packaging system has some nice advantages (and more so as the apt front-end tools get more developed), but there are some things RPM does better too. For example, it allows multiple patches per package, which is crucial for organizing a derivative (either for public or local use) distribution.

    It's not fair -- or responsible -- to make blanket statements like yours without justification.


    --

  • They IPOed wednesday last, aren't you glad they told us? :)

    CBC had a story that mentionned it.

  • Re:down the rabbit hole (Score:3)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Saturday December 11, 1999 @06:23AM (#1469553)
    Is it just me, or has linux started absorbing (at an absolutely incredible rate) all the qualities it's supporters initially dismissed as both irrelevant and/or evil?

    Such as? Shrink Wrap Licenses? Nope. Hidden NSA keys? Nope. Undocumented APIs? Nope. Unavailable source code? Nope. DOJ Anti-trust lawsuits? Nope. Undocumented proprietary standards? Nope. Upgrade treadmills? Nope. Slow response to bug reports? Nope.

    Linux is supposed to be "free speech, not free beer"...

    Think about what you just wrote. "Free speech, not free beer" directly implies making money from something that is freely distributed.

    Any group of people will have a collection of views on the topic that are varied. However I think that most of the leaders of the open source movement have always wanted to put forth business models that allowed both the freedom of having open software and the ability to make money from that software. Even some of the most adamant, like Richard Stallman have put forth ideas on how to do this, and have put it into action. The Free Software Foundation does after all have expenses. Programmers have to eat and pay rent (although Richard Stallman did try to live in his office).

    The thing most people worry about is somebody trying to limit free speech in order to increase their cash flow. Open source or free software should not be against making money per se. Involvement in commercial activity is in fact needed to improve the quality of the software. Companies like RedHat, SGI, IBM, SuSe and so on are contributing tremendously to the advances in Linux.

    The important issue is to make sure free speech continues.

  • > You're right; I don't have access to a Debian system right now. (It's on my
    > laptop, but the screen is having issues.) I can look tomorrow. Sorry,
    > there's nothing I can do about that.

    And yet you continued to make irresponsible (and false) assertions about
    the limitations of the Debian source package format, when you weren't even
    in a position to properly investigate your claims.

    > But I did look at the source tree on the ftp site, and XFree86 just has the
    > three files referenced in the documentation. One .orig.tar.gz, one
    > .diff.gz, and one .dsc. If there are other patches, where are they? In the
    > .orig.tar.gz file? Like I said, that's even worse -- preserving pristine
    > sources is important. But actually, they don't seem to be there either.
    > I'll look at this tomorrow and see if they are created somewhere along the
    > way if you use dpkg-source.

    Well, let's see here. There are three files that comprise the source
    package in this case: the .dsc, the .orig.tar.gz, and the .diff.gz. If the
    patches aren't in .orig.tar.gz, you have two more places to look, don't
    you?

    > This isn't FUD, by the way -- FUD the original comment may have been,
    > because it made an unsubstantiated derogatory comment. I'm not saying that
    > debian's packaging system is bad in any way -- it certainly handles
    > dependencies better than RPM. But it's not fair to say that RPM is bad
    > without having a particular reason why, especially when there are things
    > that RPM does do very nicely that dpkg apparently doesn't.

    Nowhere did I say that RPM is bad; to imply that I did is to put words in
    my mouth. Again, irresponsible and false.

    > You're also using the word "troll" in a weird way. There's nothing in my
    > message that's a troll in any way.

    You at first stated and then implied that is was impossible to do with
    Debian source packages what I was claiming, when casual investigation on
    your part would prove that I was saying nothing untrue. That is FUD, and
    that is trolling. It is an attempt to impugn the quality of Debian's
    packaging system in contrast to RPM -- not on the grounds of actual
    limitations, but invented ones.

    > And I didn't say that you didn't have to
    > open the SRPM to get at the patches -- just that when you do, they're
    > clearly differentiated and in seperate files, which is nice when you're
    > making local changes. How would you go about doing this on Debian?

    I told you.

    dpkg-source *.dsc

    If you want to establish the truth of my assertion on a system that doesn't
    have the dpkg-source program available, I suggest running the diffstat
    program against the .diff.gz (after gunzipping it, of course), or simply
    reading the .diff.gz file.

    Again, not all Debian source packages do bother to separate out all their
    changes into separate patch files. But this true of SRPM's as well (you
    can have a .spec file that applies one huge .diff against many different
    files in the source tree).

    Both packaging systems *permit* the application of multiple patches to the
    source tree at build time, but neither mandate it.

    > (It's possible that you're right, although I can't find any information to
    > correlate what you're saying. Even though there _is_ good documentation on
    > making debian packages, it doesn't really seem to talk about this issue.)

    Perhaps you could refer me to the piece of documentation you referenced; it
    might be fruitful for me to suggest a change to appropriate maintainer
    that would make such things clearer.

    In the future, I think you should be less quick to make assertions without
    verifying their accuracy first. It is sound rhetorical practice in
    general, not just in packaging system debates on slashdot.
  • Thanks!

    Yes, that's the order in which I think of this stuff, too.

    Bruce

  • I'm not a political scholar, so if you want to call what the Soviets did something else that's fine.

    I believe the correct marxist term is "State Capitalism".
    --

  • But I accept your premise that actions speak louder than words. So, I request that you watch me. It'll take a while for you to get a read on my actions, but I think you'll like them.

    Promise? I'm sure I don't need to tell you what kind of political difference widespread-no, universal!-education and access to information will have in the world. Social change on such a scale that it can only be called revolution! The destruction or restructuring of the corporate hegemony that tramples the rigths of the individual, the creation of a true democratic successor to the international plutocracy we have no...you guys have so much potential! This is what the open source movemenbt represnets, the freedom of information. You told me that. Social change will ineitably follow (according to me, anyway).

    The thing is, in every other case that I can think of, as revolutionaries (which you are, whether you admit or not: Free software and the GPL represent a fundamental change in the way people view product distribution) have gained power, thay have indeed changed as their short-term economic interests have changed. They have ultimately done little but replace those who came before them. I do not want Red Hat to replace microsoft. I do not want the possibilities presented by the open source movement to disappear in the wake of paper success and mainstream acceptance.

    You Bruce, and people like you, are perhaps the best hope we have for affecting social change. You have a follwing, a stable foundation fomr whihc to work, and now you have the most direct form of social power: capital, and a lot of it. Hope this doesn't make you feel weird, but you have to understand the concern we have over your motives and future, even if they are not yet justified. If you, or if other prominent members/founders of the open source movement forget their roots and the cause of their success and embraces the wholesale pursuit of the dollar, what heroes will our generation of geeks have left? The entire movement might fail. Hence our concern. You are a hero to a lot of people...heroes have value to everbody, and it is in our own best interest to assure that they do not fall

    Promise to not get caught up in the money game, promise to not lose sight of your goals of social change (the ideas behind the founding of Technocrat.net!), promise to do your best to remember the value of cooperation and the ideals behind the establishment of the GPL, no matter how many lunch parties and jacuzzis they throw at you. I know this probably sounds condescending and moronic, but I cant help but make the appeal. I have known others as confident about who they were who have been changed greatly by sudden wealth/power or other circumstances. I am afraid. I think many of us are at least nervous.

    I will believe you if you promise, and I think the rest of us will be impelled by our hope to do so as well.

    -Matt, Almost an AC

  • Well, obviously I don't want to be in the position of mediating for Debian any longer, because there is a conflict of interest. I told them that. I also told Corel months ago that I was working on a VC firm, but not about Progeny Linux because although I have been soliciting Ian to be in my company for a few weeks, that agreement only came a few days ago.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Will money change us? Sure thing. I think however that I've been changed already. I made enough money from Pixar to live the way I want. I've a loving wife, a baby on the way, a nice home in a great place to live, the freedom to do what I want, and no debt. This before I made a cent from free software and all of the directed-shares plans. And it doesn't seem to have hurt my participation in free software so far.

    When I think of money, I think of making politicial change. You can get a hint of the changes I'm contemplating if you read my Upside interview [upside.com]. So, you might have a bunch of free-software philantrophists working for the ideals we share, with money to support that work. Can that be bad?

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • BTW, last time I posted this exact same sentiment, I ended up moderated at "0 - Troll." Do these people even know what a troll IS? READ YOUR DAMNED MODERATOR GUIDELINES OR CHOOSE 'I don't want to moderate' IN YOUR PREFERENCES. Danke.

    Well, it is OFFTOPIC, since it doesn't go 'straight for the article'. That's one thing slashdot is missing. It is missing a possibility for people to make comments about 'recent posts'. An external forum, dedicated to 'ideas' and 'comments'. We have the "per article" forum, but we need an 'external' forum at the same time, where one could discuss "everything", and it would be heard more than one day at a time.

  • Well, with all of those karma points I would have expected at least one share of Andover stock :-) I'm afraid they're worthless.

    Bruce

  • The problem is that the word communism has come to mean Soviet-style semi-totalitarian socialism. I'm not a political scholar, so if you want to call what the Soviets did something else that's fine.

    What we are doing here is closer to what the Soviets themselves called Glasnost, isn't it?

    The concept of a commons, and the concept of helping your neighbor, precede what we think of as communism by a few millenia. So, maybe we should call them something else.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • And they're right. There's no private property (intellectual or otherwise), and the code is, in effect, owned in common, available to all as needed (this came from WWWebster's).

    This argument has some merit, but overstates the issue. The people who call opensource people communists generally aren't interested in your definition, they are using the term as an insult, or implying that opensource people do not hold with the concept of private property in general.

    I have no problem with the concept of private property. However, I do think that companies shouldn't rely on government violence to enforce software copyrights, when there are other options available to them. Proprietary software companies take the easy option, and end up screwing everyone involved.

    Copyright law was not intended for software.

  • The biggest problem seems to me that this flamebait is sucking up all of the moderation points, so no worthwhile moderation is done.
    MODERATORS: Please give this post a "5".

    If any of you have any moderation points left, that is...

    Zontar The Mindless,

  • Actually, it's not in direct competition with Corel, and I was considering it but nothing was agreed. Remember that the comment, in a Debian mailing list, got rather blown out of proportion and put where I didn't intend it to be. Still, I should have been more circumspect. If you want to know if I screwed up and said something I should not have, yes, I screwed up and said something I should not have.

    That doesn't mean that I'm happy with the situation, though. They don't need that in their license, and it's an insult to all of the legal minors who wrote parts of their system.

    Bruce

  • In some sense it is laizzez faire (however its called). AFAIK, that means hands off economy without government intervention. If you s/economy/development and s/government/company then you understand how I can say this. It also means that people are motivated by self interest rather than altruism. I would like to say that free software developers are into it for their own benefit more than for charity. I know I would be programming right now if GNU never happened but it would probably be propietary and it would probably be shareware. Now there is a philosophy I beleive in that lets me contribute to the world.

    I think the references to communism spring up from thinking of software as a product rather than information. Now, which it is up to debate but I am inclined to think the latter. Also communism only happens when there is depression or human suffering. People don't advocate communism when everything is cheery.

  • Welcome To Fundage (Score:4)

    by Effugas ( 2378 ) on Saturday December 11, 1999 @06:32AM (#1469588) Homepage
    We now intend to show other businesses by example how to succeed while being a good citizen of the free software community.

    Ooh. Nice little swipe at Corel, there.

    (Bruce, unfortunately, has expended much effort converting them into an open source outfit...really, I think we need to start communicating with both *Marketing* and *Legal* at *EVERY* company that's doing something in Open Source. The former failed at Sun, and the latter failed at Corel.)

    That being said, I think there's some interesting impacts to be seen. Debian may have its annoyances, but lets not forget: Its packaging system is just so far and away superior to Redhat's at the moment, that it borders on ridiculous. Corel should be praised highly for showing that the traditionally least user-friendly Linux(ok, past Slack) has some amazing potential hidden inside.

    OK, so now that Linux has some money, here's the question: What do we wanna see come out of the fundage? Here's *my* candidates:

    1) Get some money flowing to a few critical projects. VNC, the any-to-any screen transfer system, needs a crew of crack developers! The ORL(now AT&T) guys have done an amazing job, but they don't have time to take VNC to where it really can be. Mindterm, by contrast, has probably the most unsung hero in the entire Open Source world toiling away, putting out revision after revision of a *world class* SSH client written in 100% Pure, Finally-Got-Its-Killer-App Java. This project is going exactly where it should be, and we ought to do what we can to keep it that way.

    2) Contests. A major currency of Open Source is recognition. Lets divide the year into seasons and create cash prizes for best Open Source releases. Two types--one, for individuals, with the obvious stuff(best newcomer, most useful, etc.). Another, for schools. Lets reward classes. Lets reward departments. Linux is much cheaper for the cash strapped to deploy, particularly if you consider that our development environments are free too. Some very exciting stuff has been done teaching kids Python; this is a model that deserves further research!

    More later. I'm interested in reactions.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • I do work the press - it's an essential skill for business and the kind of advocacy I've been doing for years. But this page is going to end up being 99.6% your comments and 0.4% my posting, so I think the system tends to converge on some sort of objectivity.

    If anyone wants to interview me and write an objective article, my email's up there in the header.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • This is an interesting story, let's not clutter it up with this discussion. That just furthers the aims of the abusers below.

    Come on over here [slashdot.org] and we can talk at length. :)
    ----

  • What I was thinking of there was porting. What if Intuit approached me with a project to port Quicken and TurboTax to run natively on Linux? Should I turn them away, or take on the port and help spread Linux? Now, porting Quicken doesn't mean that nobody will use GNOMoney, and I've argued before that TurboTax is a special case and probably won't be handled in Open Source. So this is a serious question.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • In many ways, people now being rich, having stock in Linux companies, is less worrying than the immediately previous situation, which was that many free software hackers were being employed by companies, without having much influence. Many people expressed concern about Alan Cox being employed by Red Hat, and I dread to think what the reactions would be nowadays if Linus Torvalds starting working for a Linux firm. But with independent means, they are less likely to be influenced by money-waving managers.

    I'm confused by your statement that the success of open source has little to do with software development, then you give as a reason for its success, the software development model (the Bazaar) that most open source projects use.

  • Debian is an excellent distribution. But go back and read the Wichert Akkerman interview a few days ago. He's the Debian project leader, and most of the questions that were directed to him were about problems in Debian that could be solved by a few salaried people working on the stuff that isn't getting done, or isn't getting done in time.

    Note also that Corel is a Debian derivative and that SGI/VA/O'Reilly are also doing something with Debian, and also Kachinka, I think, so this is not exactly a new idea. But our plans aren't the same as theirs and there is room for lots of ingredients in this stone soup we're cooking.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • I tried to get RMS on my board, but of course he doesn't want his name used for marketing

    Remember that scene in Pirates of Silicon Valley where the Woz decides to hand over some of his own shares to long-time Apple employees that somehow never shared in the wealth-generation of Apple's IPO? Well, with double handfuls of OS luminaries now vaulted into the range of of multi-millioniare and billionaire it's getting harder and harder to explain why the man who started it all has no, so far, gotten a share of the wealth.

    It's getting to the point where he should just be handed a chunk of the next Linux rocket, don't expect RMS to do the homework - we ought to know by now that he won't.

    This is getting kind of embarrassing - who is going to take care of RMS???

  • Re:down the rabbit hole (Score:5)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Saturday December 11, 1999 @05:57AM (#1469607) Homepage Journal
    Open Source never meant taking a vow of poverty. Having people be able to support themselves while making free software is an opportunity we should take advantage of to the utmost, because that way we will have more free software.

    The challenge is to embrace our success without losing the qualities that got us here. If I'm not meeting that challenge, I want to hear from you just how, with details, when that happens.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • I promise not to lose sight of my goals of social change and I'll remember the goals behind the GPL. I can't promise not to be caught up in the money game, many people would consider that by being a corporate CEO I am already caught up, and for me to make such a promise would simply not sound sincere. But I'm not looking for a Lear jet or to be admitted to the aristocracy, if that's what you are thinking of. I'd settle for sending Stanley to college and having a retirement fund for when we are old and sick.

    I've tried to make the point that money is power for political change, so maybe you'll grant that some good could come out of it.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Ian is starting with scientific and technical users. I'm extremely interested in user-friendliness, and I'd like to work on that, when it's possible for Ian's company to do so. I'd like to work on a kind of user-friendliness that won't drive away the clueful users. Do you really have to treat the user like an idiot to make the system easy to use? I doubt that.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • This is an e-mail I sent to Bruce Perens:

    -----------------------------------------------

    Congratulations on your new business effort. However, there is a point that I'd like to make. This effort will of course not hinder Debian development at all. Or will it? I didn't quite understand the "which will produce a commercial version of Debian in cooperation with the Debian developers" phrase about Progeny Linux in the /. article.

    I very much hope this will not damage the already stalled new maintainer process since I'd really like to be a Debian developer.

    Thanks for your attention,

    ------------------------------------------------
  • Yes, there's a +1 for longish posts, which I've always thought was an invitation to flooding. While I do find the occasional nonsensical spouting off from The Glorious Meept! or The Natalie Naked & Petrified Guy to be somewhat amusing, too_damned_much = too_damned_much.

    Perhaps (long) posts could be parsed for excessive repetition? (Couldn't CmdrTaco or somebody work a little RegExp magic to accomplish this?) Those showing it wouldn't receive the +1, or maybe even would get an automatic -1.

    Could something like this be implemented to be dissuade the l337 skr1p7 k1dd13z from turning a page with Hell, after spending 20 minutes scrolling down, I've even forgotten what this story was about already...

    -- Z.

    Zontar The Mindless,

  • I hope that people don't lose sight of why open source is successful, and how little it actually has to do with software development. It's about distributed collaboration, peer review, and the incredible accomplishments a group can make when they drop the barriers imposed on our daily lives.

    I just had to smile while reading this. I mean, you know that you're talking with an ex Debian project leader and the person who proposed the Debian Free Software Guidelines to reinforce the exact principles you're talking about. So just how much do I have to change to forget about all of that?

    But I accept your premise that actions speak louder than words. So, I request that you watch me. It'll take a while for you to get a read on my actions, but I think you'll like them.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • The "Officers" (Score:3)

    by gregbaker ( 22648 ) on Saturday December 11, 1999 @07:25AM (#1469628) Homepage
    The list of corporate officers [linuxvc.com] is interesting. Bruce (CEO), Ian Murdock (the "ian" in Debian) (CTO), and two guys with financial backgrounds as "Chairman and Business Development director" and CFO. Nobody has said much about Ian being there.

    Also interesting, Wichert Akkerman (current Debian leader) is on the Advisory board [linuxvc.com].

    At the moment, it looks like it's a Debian VC firm. I'm sure that will change, though. (Even if it doesn't, I'm all for more money in the Debian world.)

    Greg

  • Why criticize this? (Score:3)

    by _blueboy ( 88578 ) on Saturday December 11, 1999 @06:48AM (#1469629) Homepage
    It seems many people think this is a bad thing, that somehow we shouldn't be making money off free software. I see this as very similar to the independent music scene, where some people dislike a band simply because they "sold out". But if a band has greater freedom to produce the music they want to, then in the end everyone benefits. The situation is the same with free software.

    Think about it. Why should we care if companies are making money off free software? If the codebase is still open then it should make no difference to us. In fact, I would argue that this is not only not a negative move, but a positive move that will benefit the free software community.
    Three reasons: first, when money is on the line, companies are _forced_ to make a good product, or it won't sell (No M$ bashing, you must admit that their products are all good in one way or another). If the product doesn't sell, they will fix it.
    Second, when you are writing software for profit it gets done (usually). This means that instead of release dates like "version 0.2 will be out as soon as I get some time off from my hectic schedule" will become "version 2.0 -- out February 2000"
    Third, with more and more profit based companies contributing open source code (or vice versa, open sourcers making a profit), the big companies are becoming convinced that open source is a viable option. As this increases, we will see more and more proprietary code opened, which, no matter how you look at it, is a good thing.

    Feel free to suggest other reasons why this is a good thing. To Bruce, congratulations, and best of luck.
  • Well, with all of those karma points I would have expected at least one share of Andover stock :-) I'm afraid they're worthless.

    Ha. Seeing your gigantic Karma rating actually got me spending a good chunk of time posting on Slashdot. I know the feeling you describe rather well ;-)

    (Of course, you can't tell other users Karma anymore. I actually don't know if I like that or not.)

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com
  • Richard did get a McArthur foundation grant, which he did not donate to FSF. He invested it, and it is now enough so that he can live without having to have a job for the rest of his life even if FSF can't pay his salary.

    I also suspect that Richard is a beneficiary of some of the directed-shares programs, but is simply being tastefully quiet about it.

    But point taken. I also want to see Linus taken care of, but I'm sure he already is.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Unfortunately, a qualified investor is someone with a 6-digit amount of money to put in, and enough money that they are not investing so that if we fail it won't blow their whole wad. Everything I said about the small investor being able to get in does not apply until our IPO. At that time, you will be able to buy into all of the partner companies pre-IPO by purchasing stock in Linux Capital Group (this is not an offering).

    I'm not happy with the fact that I can't open it to the small investor yet, but I really don't want to run awry of securities law, etc.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • I thought you were with it.

    I sort of thought that might be how Coda works. But you don't expect me to know everything, do you? Ian is the network filesystem expert. Somewhere on the U. of Arizona web site you can find all of his distributed filesystem work. He can no doubt tell you all of the pros and cons of his project over Coda in great detail.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • No, it won't hinder Debian development. In cooperation with the Debian developers means we will submit patches back to them, communicate with maintainers of stuff we're working on, get their opinions on stuff, contribute services and hopefully money, and in general be good members of the community. We even put their current project leader on the investment company's advisory board - he's advising the company that owns Progeny Linux. But Debian is free to ignore us.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Yes, there are already opportunists. There's one company that filed their S-1, which is a xerox of Red Hat's S-1, before they did any real work, and keeps coming out with mock-up products (they scratched the word Red Hat off the CD and wrote the name of their company in crayon).

    The only thing we can do is put some quality people in quality companies. With my company, you know you're investing in a president who has been in Linux since 1994 and a CTO who has been in it since 1993, and they both have a solid grounding in free software, and some finance people who have really excellent qualifications. We have to promote that so that people will invest in us instead of the fly-by-nights.

    Thanks

    Bruce

  • Just think how far Linux would go if there was one of these!

    Apologies in advance.

    I didn't need excess karma anyways :)

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