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On the Subject of Ximian and Eazel
Isldeur writes: "Dennis Powell has a very interesting
article on GNOME, Eazel, and the control thereof.
However, while it is very thought provoking, it might inspire some heat. Still, I think these things are manifestly important to the ideal of Free Software to figure out!" A very well written article that says a lot of truth. I tend to think that some points are over beaten (lack of binaries for example. So what? Anyone can compile and distribute their own). Especially interesting is the point about Eazel and Paypal, and the comparison to OS/2. The difference, of course, is that this is Free Software in the speech sense, so it's a little more important than OS/2 IMHO. But there's some spicy words in here, and it's worth thought for those with objective minds.
And to be quite honest, you're dead-on there. The rest of the article was in the same tone: half-truths wrapped in a goofy rant. God, I wish I could get paid to write garbage like that.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I stopped reading here. I see where this is going. Trollsville USA!
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
Companies don't spend $13 million on a file browser. If you think that's all Eazel was doing, you're wrong. Now, they were definitely over-extravagant in their spending. However, let's take a look at what they might have spent it on:
$2000-$3000/month on Internet access - for one year that's $36,000
$200,000 for their infrastructure - backups, routers, gateways, plus licenses (this could actually have been more. You can really spend up to $2 million easily to make a scalable infrastructure - like if you use Oracle Apps to manage all your stuff).
Let's say they had 10 programmers (I don't know how many they had) on Nautilus - for good programmers, that's about a million per year.
Let's say they had another 10 programmers working on Eazel services, including their packaging and online disk storage, we've got another million there.
Then you have to pay the execs. I'm not going to guess at a figure. Then you've got another twenty to thirty people doing all sorts of marketing/reception/etc.
On top of this, you have office space. If they went for their own building, this could be a few million.
Then you have computers for everyone, and that can get expensive real fast.
So, as you see, $13 million can go pretty fast, especially if you're trying to start-up fast. Most of the dot-coms failed trying to start-up fast. Most companies do. Venture capital makes you think you can do anything because you have all that money, but then you end up wasting it buying the high-end of everything. The thing is that with $13 million, if the investors were willing to wait a little while, _could_ have been spread out over a decade, with the programmers all sitting in a basement, a 28.8 line to the 'net, and not bothered to even hire the marketing guys until the product was out the door and at revision #2. However, most VC places probably don't like that idea, so they try to get a full company in swing before a product is released, which, as you can see, really drains money.
So, of course a file manager doesn't cost that much money, but a company does. The problem is that they formed the company before it was ready, and thus the company drained them of their money. However, they probably wouldn't have gotten VC money doing that. The whole company infrastructure is a bigger drain than any or all projects put together.
Engineering and the Ultimate
CmdrTaco wrote:
, then we're doing pretty well.
I tend to think that some points are over beaten (lack of binaries for example. So what? Anyone can compile and distribute their own).
Remember that one of the points of Ximian Gnome is to make Linux less frightening to our mothers. I don't know about you, but telling my mother that she just needs to "uncompress the tarball, configure, make, and make install" won't really get us very far. OTOH, if I can e-mail her a single command (ie, rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.ximian.com/directory/to/rpm/distro.rpm)
Why wait for the Red Hats of the world to provide binaries? Instead of stopping the simplification process after the UI design, they should follow through, IMHO.
-Waldo
...is because it's flamebait, of course. Some choice examples:
Yes, let's gloss right over the very real licensing issues, shall we? Because we all know RMS is a total nut-job with no basis in reality, right?
That's funny, since I just built Gnome myself last night. I don't recall asking either company's permission.
Of course, one is a publicly-traded company! A private foundation is just that, private. It's not surprising when the mainstream press gets confused and makes the jump from "free software" to "all information wants to be free", but it's surprising to see a Linux publication making such a leap, especially since that's never been the FSF's position. If they didn't believe in privacy, they wouldn't distribute GPG
Wow, I thought we were past this kind of juvenile name-calling years ago. In case you hadn't noticed, Gnome does have apps, and in fact you can even use KDE apps on Gnome without any problems. Have you ever used Linux?
I'll be the first to admit that Ximian and Eazel, along with a zillion other .com companies, made some very poor financial decisions
(or at least made decisions which didn't produce good results when coupled with the .com collapse). I'm not sure if I would have given
them any money if I were a VC, and I probably won't send them money via PayPal. If those were the points the author wanted to
make, then I would have no problems agreeing with him.
But these baseless accusations against the FSF and the Gnome organization, combined with the total disregard for the facts and his old-style "KDE r0x, Gnome sux!" attitude (I mean, come on - is this guy still in elementary school or something?) make it impossible for me to really get to the point of the article. If this were a post, it would have been "-1, Flamebait" for sure.
obFullDisclosure: I use Gnome with mostly Gnome but some KDE apps at home, mostly because my KDE1.1->2.0 upgrade didn't go so well. Also I've submitted reasonable patches for both desktops' apps (in all cases including an explanation of what the patch would fix), and the Gnome folk have accepted them while the KDE folks have not (and have not provided a good explanation why not, either). So when it comes down to it, I'm more likely to use a desktop that is willing to accept my input, because I can identify with it considerably more. But that doesn't mean that KDE doesn't look nice, have solid code, and some nifty apps as well.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I just used go-gnome last night to uprade to Ximian from Helix. Very smooth, very slick. The biggest nit I have to pick with the installation was that I was limited to Ximian's "categories." I could have a minimal install, an install with productivity apps, an install w/productivity and Internet apps, or a full install including the "development files." (Did I leave any choices out?) There was no obvious way to do a "Custom" install, a la $BIG_MICROSOFT_PACKAGE. Since I wanted the "Internet" apps, I got all the "Productivity" apps that I don't use, and will have to uninstall them tonight.
To sum up, the installer was nice and easy to navigate through, but it was draconian in limiting me to the categories that Ximian felt I needed. Tying this together, I mention Microsoft installs for a reason. Windows 95, 98, NT4, NT5, and Office 95, 97 and 2000 have given the option of a "Custom" install, letting me pull out many things I don't need. Ximian seems to be much more controlling than Microsoft, and Ximian is supposed to be Free.
Yes, I know I could do the manual install of the packages, and not use go-gnome/Red Carpet/Helix/whatever the offical name is, but isn't that the main focus of Ximian/Helix, to make it easy to get what you want and need from Gnome installed, without the manual install?
--
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Even though the article has some valid points about the likelyhood of Ximian and Eazel not bringing a good return on their investor's investment, any credibility this article had was lost in trollsville. I should apply for a job writing part time for Linux Today. I would have no trouble proving everyone in the linux community was an idiot if I was allowed the simple freedom of changing the meaning of what people say. All of this guy's arguments about the FSF are based on the idea that no rational person would use the word "free" the way the FSF does in that context, and therfore the FSF can't mean what they say either. The FSF sells products and services for money as well as providing softeare in the "free beer" sense, and they are not lying about which meaning of the word "Free" they intend; you can do whatever you want with it. It is unfortunate that real thing this guy is looking for is a handout.
Some linux compaines out there are of the opinion that community awareness is the most important thing for a linux company, so they spend millions on marketing to the linux community. In reality the average user in the linux community isn't willing to pay for something that they can either get for free or write themselves, so the community awareness doesn't end up helping the bottom line. Everyone in the community has heard of Eazel, and that's where their money must have gone. I say save it, and market to IT managers at large companies (people outside the community) because they are the people who have money to spend, and they don't care or know that every linux geek and their brother has gotten a free t-shirt from a particular company.
This article was in the vein of CNN's crossfire: calculated to be polemical, provocative, and irrational, so as to incite discussion and readership.
For example, here is a quote about the FSF:
He [RMS] was aware of the phenomenon codified by Abraham Maslow: there are lots of people who will sign on to just about any movement in exchange for the sense of belongingness that being the proud member of a group imparts. Fair enough. Nothing wrong with that. As long as you live it.
This kind of unsupported pop psychoanalysis could be levelled against any group or organization. In this case, the evidence weighs heavily against it: whatever RMS' faults, he almost certainly believes in what he preaches. I doubt very much that RMS started the FSF to acquire needy followers, and I doubt very much that people join for a sense of belongingness. Writing code in your basement for a compiler with other people you've never met is not a sure a path to belongingness. Anyone looking for a sense of beloning could far more easily find it in a church.
The other claims are similarly weak:
Gnome is controlled -- c'mon, don't kid yourself -- by two companies
The parenthetical clause ("c'mon, don't kid yourself") is the only support offered for this statement. The statement implies that RMS is a corporate lackey, which I seriously doubt.
It's tragic that this kind of talk-show commentary has eclipsed real argumentation.
1. Factual errors
2. KDE ranting where it doesn't belong.
Miguel formed Ximian (Helix back then) because he thought that it was the right thing to do to keep Gnome growing, and get commercial acceptance. Given HP and Sun's moves, I agree.
Gnome is still just as free as Mozilla (even though, like Mozilla many of the developers work for a commercial entity).
If you don't like where Gnome is going, feel free to fork it. I think you'll have a little trouble just keeping up with the updates, but hey, that shouldn't stop you from trying! Then again, you could contribute....
This was yet another "but, if they're trying to make money it's not free, right?" articles that you see from time to time. It's always done by someone who a) just saw free software for the first time or b) has an axe to grind because they like another project more.
He likes KDE. Cool, let 'im. He don't need to piss on our playground because he's got a pet desktop.
Articles like this tend to be popular, simply because they make people either really mad, or elated. As I am a pretty big GNOME and FSF supporter, it made me mad. But, I was mad not because I discovered that these two organizations have been embarking on a sinister plot to ruin the "community," but because I was shocked at the lack of journalistic integrity demonstrated in the article. But hey, it drives a lot of traffic.
First, the notion that the FSF's financial details are not available. That is plain false. Anyone can request them (politeness probably helps) - simply as them or the IRS for their tax forms. Others have stated in other forums that they have had no problems getting such reports.
Second, the whole PayPal thing. This really bothers me. It was suggested on slashdot a little while ago by various members of this very forum that perhaps Eazel should accept donations somehow from grateful users, to show their support for the company. Eazel, being an *extremely* community-oriented company, complied. Bart Decrem even went so far as to suggest to people who just wanted to support Free Software in general to make donations to the FSF, since if Eazel goes under, they would be legally obligated to give funds to creditors. Eazel has, in many ways, made every attempt to encourage community feedback and involvement in all of its projects. Yet the supposed "community" that slashdot apparently represents essentially slaps them across the face with unwarranted accusations of unethical practices.
As for Ximian and Eazel fighting for control of GNOME, and arguing over base libraries, this is really contrived. Yes, members of both companies have argued technical merits of various bits of software. Sometimes arguments get heated, especially when everyone is under a deadline (thanks to the demanding slashdot crowd who quickly complains about any slippage in schedule, then as soon as a product comes out on time, finds a fault and blames evil marketing machines for forcing products out early). But, as anyone can read by looking at the public mailing list archives, disputes are resolved, and the framework is improved in the end. This happens in any project. It just happens that in the Free Software world, these discussions are made public.
Corporate control of GNOME is pretty much wrong in every way. The GNOME Foundation doesn't grant corporate entities voting rights. It is also against the GNOME Foundation's charter for more than 3 people from the same company to be on the Board at once. And all board members are elected by the general GNOME Foundation membership. It is true that a number of employees at Eazel and Ximian (as well as other companies) are actively involved in core parts of GNOME. But, they have been in that capacity for a while, long before these companies existed. They saw an opportunity to do what they loved doing full time, and get paid for it. Shouldn't this be lauded, rather than attacked? These people are making really excellent Free Software. Instead of thanking them, this supposed community alternately slams them for not producing more for free, or for having a "flawed business model." Make up your mind.
I am feeling a growing disgust for the "masses" of the slashdot crowd, and the Free Software community at large. It used to be a real community - people actively exchanging ideas in a postive manner, everyone happy to see Linux in the news for some reason, and people actually working on projects to contribute back to the community. That doesn't really happen so much anymore. We have a few dedicated people that work harder than ever to further the causes so many people here pretend to care about, but at the end of the day, people just bitch at them for not making it exactly the way they wanted. But, of course, they can't be troubled to do anything like helping out. Because to people, it is selfishness that matters, not freedom. People attack people like RMS or Miguel or others, whether they be individuals or companies, while it is these people that have gotten Free Software to where it is today. But what do you all do? Attack them. Freedom comes at a price. Responsibility. I hope that some people eventually realize their responsibility and live up to it. But that is probably too much to hope for.
because that article is definite -1 Flamebait!
Heh. That sort of takes some of the wind out of the FSF financial conspiracy theory.
Yes, that was my blackjack winnings.
John Carmack
Gnome is controlled -- c'mon, don't kid yourself -- by two companies.
Ximian and Eazel have exactly as much control over GNOME as IBM used to have over the PC market.
There was a day, years ago, where IBM was the undisputed leader in the PC market. PCs were called "IBM PC compatibles" or "IBM clones". Everyone waited for IBM to come out with a new PC, and then carefully copied it in their own PCs.
All that changed when IBM did two things: 0) they tried to get everyone to buy in on a platform completely controlled by IBM (the Microchannel Architecture or MCA; IBM had patents giving it full ownership of MCA) and 1) they delayed months without releasing a PC based on the Intel 386. Another company (Compaq) took the bold step of releasing a 386-based PC before IBM did, and the rest is history: IBM never got the leadership position back. These days IBM is just another vendor in the PC market.
The situation with GNOME is similar. Ximian and Eazel can lead, and everyone will follow. But if the day ever comes that these companies try to lock people in to a proprietary solution, or if they stop releasing new stuff, then they will lose their leadership position. Others will pick up the development and run with it.
In the case of PCs, it was free-market competition that prevented IBM from forcing the industry to follow its lead. In the case of GNOME, it is the GNU public license and the public release of the source code that prevents Ximian and Eazel from forcing the free software community to follow their lead. The free software license is important, even if Mr. Powell doesn't seem to understand it.
Ximian and Eazel have control of GNOME for exactly as long as they deserve it. We can and will take it away from them if we ever need to.
And that is why his article is ultimately pointless. Eazel and Ximian and the FSF and RMS could all be abducted by aliens tomorrow, and GNOME will still survive and prosper. Mr. Powell can sling his gossip and innuendo, but he's kidding himself if he thinks any of it really matters.
P.S. I am somewhat on the same page with him about the cash donations. The idea of trying to donate cash in a way that keeps the money from going to creditors seems odd, perhaps even immoral. And what good will it do to contribute money to the Eazel company if it will go bankrupt for not paying its creditors?
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Go to http://www.guidestar.org (which provides info on nonprofits), and search for "Free Software" to bring up the FSF info.
There some interesting stuff there, esp. in the Form 990's:
- No one seems to draw a salary
- In '97, id software donated about $19K to the FSF, which was over $3K more than Red Hat did. (Is that the year Carmack won big at gambling & donated the proceeds?)
All in all, seems like it's a pretty low budget organization.
The project intends to provide binaries for most platforms so that you don't have to compile them yourself. Its binaries will also be un-branded--there will be no Eazel or Ximian logos, features, etc.
Also, just because someone can compile GNOME himself, it doesn't mean that he wants to. In fact, on moderate hardware it will take about two days to compile this. Experienced power users don't necessarily have time to waste on this.
From the article: ..where information wants to be free so long as it's other people's information.
Do people who believe this agree with it when their personal information is free?
Got friends?
Second, yeah, this is raw flamebait. But the RMS apologists always justify him by saying, "Sure, he's a vindictive nut. But we need people like that!" This is kind of a counterweight.
Third, the "..the monkey chased the Eazel" stuff did make me laugh.
Fourth (I only planned first and second when I started this), it really is remarkable how Eazel managed to blow through $13 million on a file browser. All of KDE 1 and 2, even including Qt, didn't cost that much or require that many paid developers. By comparison, Konqueror has one paid developer, David Faure. (Who admittedly is really, really good.) Yes, there are some TrollTech people working on khtml, but since Nautilus uses Gecko, they don't count for this comparison.
Fifth,the reasoning by which the FSF gets dragged into this is pretty shaky. There's no real reason to think they're getting involved with Eazel. On the other hand, Powell is right that the Gnome leaders have committed to having companies drive their project and they'll have to live with the results.
I'll throw in a sixth and preemptively point out to the people who always invoke the Kompany here that the role of the Kompany in KDE is completely unlike what Eazel and Ximian do in Gnome. The Kompany is not involved at all in core KDE development or planning and does not attempt to rebrand the desktop.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Now that I'm not trying to get a post early and make it end up sounding like an idiot on steroids wrote it, I'll address this.
You're right, the FSF does have a "holier-than-thou attitude", to that I say: So what if they do? Does it make them any more correct or incorrect? Let me let you in on a little secret I learned years ago: everybody has a "holier-than-thou attitude", everybody does. I do, when I say the FSF is full of shit, I mean exactly that, they are full of shit. I don't like their made up definition of free, I don't like how Stallman comes off sounding like an asshole whenever someone says Open Source near him, I don't like how they view closed source with the same level of dogma that a Religious Fanatic would view an infidel. That my friend, is whats called a holier than thout attitude. It's also called being sure of your opinions. Big deal. If you want to attack the FSF, attack them for concrete things, like disputing their definition of free and giving an alternative definition. That's called a dialog.
You're also right, it is "offensive (that) anyone (pissed) away $13 million", especially since the average life span of a person in Africa is now 40 years due to famine and HIV. But it isn't my money. I wasn't the idiot who gave it too them, and hopefully neither were you. Hopefully the Investment Capitalist who gave them that money have learned their lesson and will spend it wisely next time.
Burn Hollywood Burn
And the author's comment but it's no goofier than seven or eight years ago, when people who called themselves "Team OS/2" gave up evenings and weekends in unpaid volunteer support to be especially curious. Isn't this what open-source software is about ? Isn't this what we do when we post an answer to a question on Usenet, or on a bulletin board ? Isn't it what we do when we discuss things here ? The actions of Team OS/2 are no less "goofy" then open-sourcing software.
As always, your illustrious commentary sheds light on the dark recesses of complex issues, and makes me ponder extensively. If you were to only post the headline, I would not have that opportunity. Thank you.
I've had the same problems. Apparantly Slashdot has been Slashdotted. Perhaps you should Ask Slashdot about this.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Eazel has burned through at least $13-million in venture capital
I guess ferraris must be standard programming equipment nowadays. Otherwise I can't figure out how they would spend 13 million on making a file manager.