Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 11:43:02 -0700 From: Brian Behlendorf <brian@hyperreal.org> To: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>, Don Wilde <dwilde1@ibm.net> Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: branding Message-ID: <19980730185312.28151.qmail@hyperreal.org> In-Reply-To: <19980730044544.A16278@snark.thyrsus.com> References: <19980730065206.11785.qmail@hyperreal.org> <35BFEBEF.82BA6DC6@ibm.net> <35BF334C.5D5F40BD@ibm.net> <19980729104951.A14984@snark.thyrsus.com> <35BFEBEF.82BA6DC6@ibm.net> <19980730000430.E15941@snark.thyrsus.com> <19980730065206.11785.qmail@hyperreal.org>
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At 04:45 AM 7/30/98 -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote: >Brian Behlendorf <brian@hyperreal.org>: >> I would like to state that I think having the goal of the Open Source pages >> be all about convincing companies who sell software that they should >> open-source their software, is a mistake. > >Nevertheless, that is one of my major goals, and has been since Feb 5th. >Furthermore, we've racked up some successes. Jini from Sun is the latest. Don't let your goals cloud the reality of the situation, though, or you risk burning bridges you may need to cross later. >> FreeBSD is an example of a >> successful project, with many many commercial interests, but little >> commercial interest to "FreeBSD, Inc." What FreeBSD shows the world, and >> Apache to a lesser extent, is that no company has to be selling a >> "commercial version" of the open-source software in order for it to be a >> successful "open source project". > >True, but irrelevant if your goal is to persuade Mr. Businessperson in the >language that matters to *him* -- i.e. that he can make *money*. Not irrelevant at all - companies are just as interested in saving money as making money. The problem is your "goal" only applies to a small subset of the total base of people and companies who could benefit from using (and being convinced the value of) open-source software. We need to show that *use* of the software is commercially a smart thing, not just the *sale* of such software. This is critical to the health of open-source software, because when people are *using* rather than *selling*, there is no pressure to create proprietary, non-shared value, as there always is in the commercial software industry. >> So maybe a quicker way of summing this up is to suggest that non-commercial >> projects also be capable of being called "software that qualifies". > >They certainly do, yes. But the pages do not reflect this. >And I'm tired of the whole attitude that considers presentation and >spin and (gasp) *marketing* so far beneath us that we'll never do it, >even though that means that in the real world we're going to lose. Eric, I'm absolutely in favor of using marketing language to convince people to see the wisdom of using open-source software. I do more of this myself these days than I do actual programming - sad to say, but true. What I am against is trying to claim that there is one true way to make money at this game; that this only applies to software companies, and that this only applies if you're selling a product whose code comes from an open-source background. >The cold fact of the matter is that if you count by column-inches of >responsive press (which any PR guy will tell you is a pretty good >proxy for business-world mind-share) I am probably the person most >responsible for the current boom in interest in our culture -- and >that's even if you leave out "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". Sigh. I'm *really* not interested in debating who's had more column-inches in what magazines, or that it really makes a real difference. I was very close to the IBM decision to adopt Apache, and did a significant amount of work to make it happen (despite the fact that they could become a direct competitor to my own company's efforts) and I can say that if anything it was done *despite* the publicity around it all. It was done, above all, because it saved IBM money in the short and long term. I'm certainly not going to let your self-aggrandizement suggest that your pages or your concepts are beyond reproach. And if you look back on my statements and comments, they aren't a "slam" so much as a suggestion for clarification. My sneer at the term "propaganda" was because the term often suggests twisting the truth into a lie to serve one's dogmatic purposes. I don't think we need to do that to explain why open source software is a Good Thing, is all I'm saying. Please, by all means, put a pretty ribbon around the package, but don't discount several big, business reasons for using OS software. Brian --=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-- "Common sense is the collection of prejudices | brian@apache.org acquired by the age of eighteen." - Einstein | brian@hyperreal.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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