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Bruce Perens Becomes CEO of VC
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."
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?
Got HTML? Want LaTeX? Try html2latex
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...
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I suspect that the investment is calculated to pay him out $30K/year. Gee, you're really nasty.
Bruce Perens.
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.
Address-collecting spam robots don't know how to crack ROT13. Do you?
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
I second everything you said. The IP tracing is what I've been saying all along. It would raise some eyebrows if an ISP began getting complaints from a large site like this about whoever was allocated xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx at xx:xxPM. I'd like to see the IP's posted with the message on posts like this (not automatically, by one of ./'s admins) so we could all voice our complaints to the the abuse@isp.net of the poster.
Of course, another obvious answer would be to implement a "cancel post" feature accessible to a few super-moderators that would effectively "kill" a post by setting its score to -2 or -infinity. That's an awful lot of power, though, and I think it would sit horribly with the Slashdot community at large.
I'd support that. Perhaps the stipulation is that there is a page where you could go to see these rejected posts, and the person who rejected them is listed also. This way, we could make sure that no legit posts are being "trashed".
Finkployd
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
Bruce Perens.
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.
This is the perfect moment to quote legendary VC John Doerr: "No conflict, no interest".
--Tom
Tom Geller
Andover is public now (just this week i think) it wasn't a rocket like VA though. Check it out
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.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
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.
WHAT? Stallman kept his entire MacArthur grant for himself? What about the starving FSF volunteers? Talk about being hypocritical.
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?
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Who said anything about diskless? With Coda, the client workstations can devote most of their local hard drive to cache for the distributed filesystem. I've seen this work extremely well with AFS with over a thousand (interchangeable!) unix boxes of various flavors, in academia. I set a smaller version up in my home lan about a year ago and it worked great. (My laptop had full access to a large software collection when attached to the network.) It is not unreasonable to want access to software collections which are larger than the local hard drive, and there are definitely niches who can use this sort of functionality. Both small companies I've worked for would have loved to have this ability.
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.
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.
Man, am I envious of you.
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.
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
Bruce Perens.
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.
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.
If the patches you're talking about are in the
From the Debian Packaging manual:
Those three files are: the source, the dsc (control) file, and the patch file, if any.
Note that there's only ONE patch file.
--
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.
.. ohwell .
;(
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.
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".
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
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.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
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.
the real at&t mix
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
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 :(
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
What the main difference between an eggplant and
a typical user?
a.) Fewer calls to the helpdesk.
Translation: GNOME, not KDE.
it's barrymore, dolt. if you don't like it, scroll down.
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].
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
Bruce Perens.
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
/. 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.
their own comments on things.
I totally, completely, 100% agree with this - except.. There are all of two people who post articles on
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
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Don't mind him; I just poured hot grits down his pants.
Probably better to either set to 1 (you'd miss a few legit AC posts that way) or 0 (you wouldn't see the spam posts for more than five minutes, usually).
:) Maybe if you stopped whining, no one would care enough to continue with the immature posts.
Because the dumbest shit gets moderated up. Even some of my posts were moderated up.
Or, as a final alternative, you can try not being such a pussy and tolerate the mean little posts.
-cow
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.
Money and influence don't mean much to someone who has neither. But turn the tables, and they're singing an entirely different song.
This idea has been suggested on Slashdot many times before but Slashdot's owners have not taken it up yet -- my post from 4th June 1999 comment:
There is nowhere permanent on Slashdot to post topical comments, suggestions or questions about Slashdot itself, e.g. how many people read Slashdot today, how best to use Slashdot via my firewall, who's CmdrTaco, what text clients do people use for reading Slashdot, where is Slashdot, etc. This would be a place for discussion. It could be called something like "The Slashdot Comments/Questions Page" linked from the home page slashdot.org/comments.htm where people can discuss current Slashdot issues.
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.
Should I turn them away, or take on the port and help spread Linux?...this is a serious question.
Well, if you work for money you take on the work. If you want to spread and improve Linux then you give back the source code. These are two different things, IMHO.
I have no objection to programmers and VC types earning money for their work. But I do fear that if a commercial product (without open source code) becomes dominant, then the field for volunteer cooperation is lessened. At this moment it seems that Linux needs useful applications more than hacks to the base OS. What will happen if IBM Viavoice is distributed on Linux free or very cheap--will open source developers in universities be less motivated to work on free and open voice recognition and voice synthesis programs?
My fear is that free programs for blind users, for example, won't get produced and improved, because the people who could donate their work are instead working for money. (This is one way Microsoft has dominated, simply by hiring the best people and paying them a lot, thus keeping them from donating their work as university researchers--I'm not putting MS down for that--they are in the business of making money for their shareholders, and any money they make they may choose or not to give back to universities for open research--but it's not the same as an open source movement from the beginning, is it?)
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?
Has anyone ever told you you're really cool??
Cracking down on AC's won't solve the problem.
-cow
Blowing your shitty little head off would, now wouldn't it you attention seeking little 3rd grader.
My congratulations to you and Valerie. Best wishes and good luck!
:)
Oh yeah, and good luck with the business thing, too.
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?)
--
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.
.. ohwell, we'll see :-)
:)
:-)
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
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
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
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.
--
Do you have any kind of reasoning as to why people who produce things of value should be rewarded, or is this just one of those mindless "money is bad" rants?
Call me crazy, but I am kind of partial to the notion of Good Things happening to those who merit it.
> You're right; I don't have access to a Debian system right now. (It's on my
.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
.dsc, the .orig.tar.gz, and the .diff.gz. If the .orig.tar.gz, you have two more places to look, don't
.diff.gz (after gunzipping it, of course), or simply .diff.gz file.
.spec file that applies one huge .diff against many different
> 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
>
>
> 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
patches aren't in
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
reading the
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
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.
Address-collecting spam robots don't know how to crack ROT13. Do you?
... of a venture capital firm is like having Karl Marx run the New York Stock Exchange. Perens's recent immature outburst suggesting that Corel should be sued makes me highly skeptical that he has the temperament or the business savvy to be involved in any commercial venture. Bruce Perens is a loose cannon who has hurt Linux far more than he has helped it.
Yeah, "News for Nerds" is more like "News for Nerds with Stock Portfolios." This was bound to happen eventually though. Oh well.
Ok ... I've never bothered to get an account here, but I will if Rob would please get rid of Anonymous Coward posting. I feel that we are only going to see more of this Natilie Portman behavior. Also, with AC posts gone most of the moderators could go back to having lives :) not AC, LL (Lazy Loon)
is it not surprising that a mere week after he publicly threats to sue a company shipping a linux distribution he appears as the head of a venture capital firm that lo and behold, is financing a competing commercial distribution?
Did he only learn this last week about the conflict of interest? Wouldn't that be amazing?
Or am I paranoid? Even if I am, shouldn't Caesar's wife appear honest, beyond being honest?
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".
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Before some Bruce asskisser moderates me down:
If Ransom Love would have gone and done the same thing with Corel, would you not have called him on the conflict of interest?
Or Bob Ewing? Or whoever the head of SuSE is?
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
The truth is out there - we'll let it back in after it sobers up a bit. -The Cube
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.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
As for real-world applications of useful ways to spend ones money, maybe we all could collectively ask Mr. Perens to donate some money so we could buy a life for Mr. Petrified Buttocks?
He seems in dire need of such a thing.
-- Z.
Zontar The Mindless,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
-- $SIGNATURE
I don't know if you keep information on the IPs of posters (I guess I hope you don't) but criminy - block that Natalie Portman bastard.
This is no different than the ORBS anti-spam system. It's not censorship, it's excercising control over YOUR system. If it's abused this pathetically, I think it's time to take control.
Perhaps blocking a subnet is extreme. But can you continue to ignore this....?
Perhaps this could be discussed over here
----
Maybe it would be okay to limit AC comments to say 6 lines max. Freedom of speech would prevail, and people with something to say would say something in less space. Also, it wouldn't be a bad idea to weed out posts with words "natalie", "portman", "naked", "petrified"...
Write your own article and submit it to Slashdot.
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
Bruce Perens.
I know there is a large number of people who believe that all software on Linux must be open source but I disagree. There has to be both. competition is good. By continually bashing one of the early adopters of Linux you are sending a signal to all other commercial software companies. Don't come here. Don't help us, don't contribute because we will pound on you no matter what you do. We will ignore every positive thing you have done and instead zero in on every little mistake. Oh yea we will also threaten to sue you once in while just for good measure.
Give them a break folks at least they are trying.
War is necrophilia.
Not being christian does not mean that somebody is an atheist. Death wishes, though, should not be tolerated here, especially not against someone who is far more respectable then you'll ever be, with that attitude.
OFTC: By the community, for the community
oh bullshit. the average programmer who codes for free doesnt give a flying fuck about the companies and doesnt kiss ass. what difference does it make if i post garbage to /. or piss off bruce perens ? does that interfere with my ability to code and release free software? no. i code for pleasure as most of us do and work on my own projects.
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.
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
lynx has a great approach to this. Give the user more information rather than hiding it from them. When in novice mode, lynx displays a list of often used keys. Intermediate has pointers to where you can find out more information and advanced has that atmosphere that subtly speaks "You go girl, it's yo birfday, git busy, git busy".
If anyone wants to interview me and write an objective article, my email's up there in the header.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Come on over here and we can talk at length. :)
----
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I'm well aware of that, but that's not really the point. I do it to try and help good ISPs punish spammers so that spamming becomes less profitable, and to try and thwart fraudulent fast-buck schemes (there are a lot of them out there). Also to get open relays closed to make it hard to spam anonymously. So I'm doing it for both selfish and altruistic reasons.
Reporting spam does make sense, especially when you're getting flooded by it to the point where it's hard to find real messages. Check out spamcop.net for an easy method and an FAQ.
Female Prison Rape in NY
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
Bruce Perens.
- The annoying bastards continue until the signal-to-noise ratio here is unbearable (we only have a finite number of moderator points)
- People turn up their thresholds to the point that if you're not Linus Torvalds, Bruce Perens, or RMS, your post won't even get read.
- We continue to bitch about the idiots
Of course, another obvious answer would be to implement a "cancel post" feature accessible to a few super-moderators that would effectively "kill" a post by setting its score to -2 or -infinity. That's an awful lot of power, though, and I think it would sit horribly with the Slashdot community at large. I know this is long and somewhat off-topic (although this article beautifully demonstrates the need for action), but I think it's important. Please post your ideas as a follow-up. It's time to take our forum back! PS: If someone sees this post as worthwhile and knows of a better place to post/send it, please let me know. Do the obvious thing to my posted email address to contact me. Spam and flamage not welcome, but coherent comments always are.Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
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???
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Will the new Debian distribution be aimed more toward's programmers, server stuff, end-users (like Corel's Debian distribution), or will it try to cover all bases equally well?
And don't think Stallman's any better. His anti-capitalist stance, which some people oversimplify as being one that's anti-money, makes him just as suspect as those who stand to gain.
RADIX MALORUM CUPIDITAS EST!
Um... two things.
1) If you did that, I'd just use my account (as you mentioned). This would suck, though, because with accounts you can only be moderated down 5 times in 24 hours. Then you can't post. Which is why I'd do #2:
2) Not use my real IP.
-cow
Oh hell. Somebody told the Pope about us! :-)
Oh no... this is really scary...
The village idiot gets a clue.
--
- Sean
It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
- Sean
This is an e-mail I sent to Bruce Perens:
/. article.
-
-----------------------------------------------
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
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,
-----------------------------------------------
--exa--
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,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use LWP::UserAgent
Since they are commercially owned, a much simpler solution would be for Andover to hire a person to persue comments and moderate down ones obviously junk. You wouldn't even have to pay the person much, perhaps $8/hr. Hell I'd take that job HEH.
Also interesting, Wichert Akkerman (current Debian leader) is on the Advisory board.
At the moment, it looks like it's a Debian VC firm. I'm sure that will change, though. (Even if it doesn't, I'm all for more money in the Debian world.)
Greg
It seems many people think this is a bad thing, that somehow we shouldn't be making money off free software. I see this as very similar to the independent music scene, where some people dislike a band simply because they "sold out". But if a band has greater freedom to produce the music they want to, then in the end everyone benefits. The situation is the same with free software.
Think about it. Why should we care if companies are making money off free software? If the codebase is still open then it should make no difference to us. In fact, I would argue that this is not only not a negative move, but a positive move that will benefit the free software community.
Three reasons: first, when money is on the line, companies are _forced_ to make a good product, or it won't sell (No M$ 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.
pdubroy AT yahoo DOT com
I work on a commercial product and have done very little open source. Our startup just closed it's first round of funding. The thing that sticks in my mind about the whole process is the shear number of crackpot, lame, desperate people trying to raise funds in the Internet space.
It seems that there are a large number of opportunists that will just jump on the bandwagon. They might spoof a low-level VC or angel investor into seeding the company but it won't last. The problem is that when you push there just isn't anything really there.
I predict that the same will happen to the Linux community. The opportunists will try to move in. The only defense that the Linux community has against the slobbering horde is to purchase goods and services from only those companies that genuinely helps the open source effort (code, good PR, etc.)
If you have an idea for and open source software company, you will have to shout a lot louder to get VC attention.
The Open Source community can't control what the VCs fund so we're likely to see some terrible stuff. However, we can control who we approach with our ideas. I would suggest that if the VC you talk to isn't seriously interested in what you've don't for Open Source, you should walk away.
This is more than just trying to keep Open Source pure. Sooner or later push will come to shove and the VC will pressure you to do something that will hurt your reputation in the community. Without an understanding of how important reputation is in this market they just won't get why that's such a bad idea.
BTW, when I say "we" up above I mean the community. Some would argue that because I haven't contributed much code that I don't get to be part of that "we". That's really okay. The guys that can do that have my respect and support.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
"A linux-focused VC fund? I mean, how could this be anything but great? :)"
Yes, it can be much less than great.
Linux development is already a political quagmire of who's but you kiss to get your patches in what system, what license you have to support publically to have your words heard and so on.
We have our little empires, and we have our bishops and popes, there are people who will "make" you (You get 'the letter') or "break" you (ignore your patches and bugs) based on what you said about ESR on slashdot.
There is a new path to wealth boys and girls in the Linux world. Pick a public figure and kiss their ass publically and often, then talk to em in email - they may just take you along for the ride the next time a Linux company goes IPO.
BUT - be careful, never insult them! If you do, expect to be forever doomed.
Linux - business as usual.
"This is .. in my eyes .. bad taste. The problem, is that they are getting free marketing.. or more correctly,they got the oportunity to market *themselves* again and again, since slashdot posts THEIR views on their things - as main articles."
Well, of course they get acess to the slashdot readership - who knows how much money they are ina position to chuck in the direction of andover.net and taco?
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?"
Linux has it's own "Old Boys NEtwork" now.
Linux - business as usual.
&sign($AC[0});
Yesterday we had ESR ramble on about his new riches. Today we have perens rambeling on about his way to earn money.
.. in my eyes .. bad taste. The problem, is that they are getting free marketing.. or more correctly,they got the oportunity to market *themselves* again and again, since slashdot posts THEIR views on their things - as main articles.
What is wrong with this picture? Well, for me, it seems like both ESR and Perens get to write their own articles, and get either the entire article, or a link to the article (with no comments attached), posted to slashdot.
This is
I deeply respect both perens and esr. I was one of those who sat enthralled by him at the University of Oslo when he was there. And perens? Well, I've visited his websites and read a bit by and about him.
Both of them, are respected figures in the open source community.
The problem right now, is that slashdot is giving them "their own" self-promotion. And that, in my eyes, is a Bad Thing[tm].
I urge slashdot to STOP posting self-promotioning articles, and start doing their own comments on things.
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
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.
That's exactly what Coda is! Like its predecessor AFS, it has a large local disk cache to store copies of the files kept in the distributed filesytem. Basically all you need to store locally on your machine is a boot partition to get the kernel running. When I was at CMU, I ran my workstation this way for years.
Geez Bruce, I thought you were with it.
What is a qualified investor? Does money and the willingness to trust you with it qualify somebody, or is there more to it?
Thanks,
Dan
Debian has an opportunity for major improvement with lan installations. If I could install the Debian application collection (easily) on a distributed filesystem, then the entire LAN could access those applications. The workstations themselves would have a very small core OS with few to no applications locally. Workstations would be easily interchangable, not require huge disks, and keeping the software collection up to date would be even easier (just running apt-get on a single machine.) This type of setup would really blow away NT solutions, whose software collection's flexibility is hamstrung by intellectual property issues. Coda seems to be the best distributed filesystem for this sort of application. This sort of distributed computing environment has worked wonderfully at MIT's project athena and other large computing facilities, but thus far has been out of reach for smaller environments. It's a big project with tangible benefits; and something I'd very much love to work on. (hint hint hint)
"Sorry, I don't find that comment to my original post remotely funny."
Good - cause I am dead serious.
&sign($AC[0]);
So, how do we get his stock?
Money helps some things, destroys others. Things
that posses creative or intellectual qualities
suffer the most. The WWW has been reduced to
a slimy espionage tool that marketroids ply
against unwitting surfers. Why has it degraded
so? Because it is what commercial interests want.
It's what *pays*. The internet could have evolved
in any number of ways (ever hear of Asimov's Galactic Encyclepedia?)
but devolved into the cesspool we see today.
Commercial interests have smothered the
greatest information resource the human race
has ever known in exchange for a quick buck. I wonder how many years
we have been set back by
all this? It's like inventing the wheel and then
using it to crush walnuts instead of transportation.
What has happened to the internet damn near feels
like some sort of self-inflicted wound humanity
has inflicted upon itself.
Linux is another intellectual pursuit being courted by commercial interests.
How will it be affected? Roll your f**ing dice
because monetary intersts coinciding with intellectual is a shot in the dark at best.
Have a nice day.
Just think how far Linux would go if there was one of these!
:)
Apologies in advance.
I didn't need excess karma anyways
I never seriously used Debian but, according to net gossip, they are one of the best distros out there. I am wondering what would be the reason for producing commercial version of Debian? .. which is fine with me.
POssibly Debian people want to cash on recent Linux frenzy
If VA can make so much money, surely Debian people deserve even more.