Yep, we donated a server to Jamie. He's been a good friend to us personally and to the company in general.
Now, I don't speak for rob or any of the/. people, but I think that the reason this story is being posted is not about VA so much as it is about/. having the class to tell people about the status of kuro5hin. If you look on the site, rusty all but asks for a post.
The way I see it, anyone familiar with k5 knows we helped them out, and those that aren't wouldn't read the story much anyhow, so I don't see this as corporate shillism.
As far as your worries about the sites we actually run, only time will tell. In the past we've been good (unless you talk to a few people, that is:-) and we're not looking to change. Of course time will show our intentions better than any post on/.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems --
Grant Chair, Linux Int. Pres, SVLUG
In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later develope all subject to the terms of any applicable Open Source Initiative-approved license.
Which means that you choose the license, and we will continue to use your code or whatever under the license you chose., The point of this is so that people can't pretend thier code isn't under a licences that they released it under previously. You're familiar with the OSI right? The GPL maybe?
Well, if you aren't there are a lot of resources on the web for you, you probably shoudl start with them.
People, whenever you read a bowie post you should go back in the/. archives and read the previous responses as we've all heard his rants before and already addressed them.
Dude, if you have an NAS product from us it is a beta product that your company chose to bring in. VA Partners with people who want to check out upcoming product all the time, in return they get access to early product which invariably means that there may be more problems.
The thing is this is -very-- good for VA, as we get to learn the problems with the machine before we put it into major production. We take the term BETA seriously here.
That said, I'm glad you like the web based admin and such. The machine that the original post was about wasn't the NAS at all though.
Chris DiBona --
Grant Chair, Linux Int. Pres, SVLUG
Course that didn't mean we didn't screw up on your order. As far as the actual post, the guy in charge of support will be posting on this when he's got all the info together so he can eat crow the right way.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems --
Grant Chair, Linux Int. Pres, SVLUG
Boy, before the sarcasm tag, you had it right, oh well...
I am of course working on what I was told to me by trae and the rest. Those guys aren't talking because they've already talked with you and put their views before the world to see.
I am -not- paid by VA to lie or say things that I an ethically uncomfortable with. I have spent the last 2 years of my life building the company with the rest of the people here. I have hired or caused to be hired probably about 60 people. I hired trae, who hired tony. I interviewed Brian. I don't lie, I don't have to. If someone does something here at VA that pisses me off, they fix it or they convince me that it's the right thing to do. (Or I do more drastic things)
So if I tell you I'm interested in making peace, I am not lying. My ethics didn't go out the window just because VA went public. If VA was that kind of company do you think that you'd still have an account on/.? Don't you ever see the paradox in your saying that VA is an evil ursurping company on a site owned by VA?
You talk about the abilty to clue me in. So answer me this, you told everyone here you were developing a GTK widget repository, something that sourceforge was not designed to compete with. Is this true? You said you would "do some project hosting". Something which we were already doing and have been doing for five years. So where, tell me, did we do -you- wrong? Trae tells me that when he was talking to you about employment he asked to see the code you worked on for 7 months, and you had nothing to show him. That's what I know.
And , yes, there are people who have beefs with VA. That's going to happen. I'd love to make peace with them. But again, it is not possible to make peace with everyone. And I -do- have a personal beef with you, you are insulting the people who are my frends, and you are attacking a company that I love and had a strong hand in building. You call us assholes and the rest and say that I lie for an expedient paycheck. That's personal.
And,all that said, your rant shows you do not understand, appreciate or grok the concepts of intellectual freedom behind the GPL. No one who does would ever not get the viral nature of the GPL. You can't co-opt (legally) GPL'd code into a proprietary product that you wish to redistribute. You know that, right? The way you talk about ideas make British Telecom and the MPAA look good.
Actually, we're fine with you saying nasty things about us, I just don't think that telling the truth is your forte.
You're statement that we are going to steal peoples oss ideas are laughable. You do -not- understand the GPL to any degree. It's all about stealing everyone elses ideas and code to create new ideas and code without reworking. The GPL recognizes that ideas are worthless without the implementation. The GPL makes implementing already discovered and new ideas easier.
Not that you care, but as far as your petulant cries about me and my department of addressing you: The only reason I post to reply to your emails is so that reasonable people who read slashdot can know the truth about VA and the way we do things.
Honestly, we'd love to make peace with any of our detractors including you, but we feel that it would be a complete waste of time with you, as you are acting unreasonably.
VA Does in fact have such a department. It contains:
Chris DiBona (Me)
Joe Arruda Kit Cosper Josh Freeman
And two others. This doesn't include the 200+ employees who came -directly- from lugs, users groups, and oss projects. So, yeah, we care.
I assure you that we care very much about VA's ability to make money. We like money. Money buys stuff. But money and helping linux continue to grow and prosper are not mutually exclusive and is what we do here.
As far as immunity, if someone puts a copy of the source code to solaris, you think that we want to accept the liability that person has invited upon him or herself? Hell no. Also, you don't seem appreciate the projects we host and have gotten the angry lawyer calls about. I'm just waiting for the freenet call. When Livid was hosted here on our network, I sent out an email to the guy telling him we would not pull the software without a court order. The AAC decoder has already gotten us a call from Dolby labs, luckily they had released teh very code they were -yelling- at us to pull down themselves into the public domain.
We put a -hell- of a lot of work into sourceforge, but we're not going to be everyone's lawyer, we expect that project leads are well able to take care of their own legal issues. We don't take ownership of their code, why should be accept thier liabilities?
So there is your answer, if you'll take the time to understand it.
If anyone cares about what Bowie is babbiling about with regard to ocmmunity.themes.org, it's been detailed here on slashdot often enough. Just look for my or bowies post on the topic.
1: VA has been very clear since our road show that we intend to show profitability in 2001. The reason that we are not profitable is that we have been spending our cash to expand so that we can effectively compete. That is -why- companies go public and take in investment. If you don't think we are a good investment, then don't invest in us, I'm okay with that. Our investment in MySQL is part of what made the gpling of mysql possible, but again, it's not clear you want to understand this. I'm also okay with this.
2: Yep, I'm aware of this, and the lawyers are working on it. But just because SF doesn't have a privacy policy in place doesn't mean that we can repeal the GPL. So chill. I think you are also intimating that we are going to rip people's software off and do our own...I don't really understand your complaint, I suppose. If we take code and create new oss software from it, that's okay. You do know how the GPL and BSD licences work, right?
As far as stock price and such goes, people are going to sell, people are going to buy, that's what happens in a market.
The card adapter (at 10$) is very inexpensive, and under linux, it mounts as easily as any other partition. I don't see why you say few people can use it.
Here's some instructions for you:
First root yourself, then:
tail -f/var/log/messages&
put the compact flash in the adapter, put the adapter in your pcmcia slot, when you do this, you'll get a line or two tell you which drive device it has been assigned to (assuming pcmcia is set up right).
Supposing it's hdc, then do this:
mount -t vfat/dev/hdc1/mnt/flash
cd into/mnt/flash and there's your pix. Enjoy. Don't forget to unmount before ejecting.
EFM (the new file manager or E) rocks. I mean, it's really, really, really cool. I've got some screenshots up off my laptop hereish. What you will be looking at includes the ability to execute any typed command in the typebuffer.
Anyhow, stop reading this right now and go check out EFM from CVS. It's awesome. Be sure to check it out of CVS, the tar ball is oldish.
Really, Trae and you had a conversation , that's fine, if you look at our previous discussion on slashdot, I'm fine with that, but that doesn't change the fact that I did not and certainly the sf guys did not knwo what you were working on or what name you chose.
And I chose the name, if you did too, great, but I registered the damn thisng and I came up with it. I also registered other names in the event we didn't like it, including sourceanvil and the rest.
What kills me is your assertion that if you came up with teh idea for sourceforge, why did you tell trae that it was a gtk widget repository? That's all I heard. So get over yourself.
So for B) you in fact don't have anything you are willign to post, but I realyl don't thikn you have anything. What I do know is -my- conversation with Rob. I already noted it. Whatever you have is either complete deal bullshit (you know "you'll have to give us a good price, as we're talking with other buyers) or you do not have it.
Chris DiBona -- Grant Chair, Linux Int. Pres, SVLUG
a) Oh , okay, you came up with sourceforge. Right, sure you did. That's why I came up with it and got the domains and we put up an entire site before you could even put in an order to register.com for the domain.
Again, since you can't seem to remember, VA has been hosting projects since 1996 or so, and we wanted to do a better job of it. So we came up with sourceforge. And anyhow, just coming up with an idea means noting if you don't follow through. You didn't, we did. You talk about the 11 people, tell us what they did, show us the code.I'd love to hear from them.
B) Post the documents. Bring it on.
And I'm sorry you had such a bad time with Trae, and nothing I can say will change if you are pissed or not, I just want the slashdot readers to hear both sides in this story. And you have some nerve calling it a flame considering the flamethrower you've been pointing around.
Hey, First off, I don't talk about this kind of thing, but the deal was restructured a month ago or so and it's not a 1b$ deal. Why don't you call up our investor relations guy, Pat Fossenier. The main number for VA is 408-542-8600. He can detail the investment-fu that went down and such.
In slashdot's defense, I think if anything systems reliability has gone up since the move , as far as editorial quality, I'll tlet you take that up with Rob and Hemos and such. But I'll say that I think that Slashdot is still pretty great.
Chris DiBona -- Grant Chair, Linux Int. Pres, SVLUG
Fact: We did give a lot of money and machines early on to slashdot before the andover purchase of/.. And we gave machines to everything2 (which is still owned by BSI). We give machines away all the time to groups, see kernel.org, linuxfromscratch and all the rest.
Fact: Show your proof, let's see it. IF it's real, it's a surprise. My conversation with rob when I heard about the andover thing was "So , do you want us to get in the mix on this." , his answer was no, so I dropped it.
Fact: Coldstorage was intended to be and became what sourceforge is, we jsut didn't like the coldstorage name. We knew there would be some freshmeat crossover, but they are very different sites. Big deal.
How can we cannabilize your volunteer project,?why did you stop? Was it because we "made" you stop? Or is it because you were not committed enough to finish? Even if we hadn't offered space and machinery for what you told us was going to be a gtk widget repository, why did you stop? You stopped, we didn'ty get in your way. Fact is we can't make -you- do anything, and we're not interested in having anyone stop giving back to linux. If you have such a big problem with us, go set up your own thing somewhere else. It's my impression you'd rather bitch about it.
Result: Keep your suspicison of VA, I'm fine with that. VA did purchase Andover, duh, when there is a merger whoever is bigger is by default the aquisitioner. As far as to whether we "ate" anyone, that's just stupid, in the adult world, people only merge when they want to.
As far as beinga paid mouthpiece, I am the person who comments on slashdot. That doesn't mean I lack ethics. My job is so much more than responding to this kind of bullshit.
Bowie, you have this vision of VA that is incorrect, it's too bad you can't see that. So, yes, I hope people keep both eyes and ears open, because then they will see how VA is not simply explointing linux like so many. I'd like to point out the bandwidth that we cover and hardware costs of sourceforge, and the public service mission of linux.com, or the many machines we gave away last year to projects big and small. Or the largest Friends and Family program that went off without trouble, benefitting a -great- number of developers.
Finally, VA does care, and not just because it has it (there are a number of very good business reasons to care), but because it wants to. We didn't get into linux just last year, or even just 5 years ago, we started in 1993 when everyone knew -everyone- who was in linux. And we were helping out back then, too.
We were there for people getting them hardware and stuff back when we were barely making payroll. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. Even now when VA is growing by a huge amount, we help out whenever we can. Because that is our duty, and we ake it very seriously.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, I don't speak for rob or any of the /. people, but I think that the reason this story is being posted is not about VA so much as it is about /. having the class to tell people about the status of kuro5hin. If you look on the site, rusty all but asks for a post.
The way I see it, anyone familiar with k5 knows we helped them out, and those that aren't wouldn't read the story much anyhow, so I don't see this as corporate shillism.
As far as your worries about the sites we actually run, only time will tell. In the past we've been good (unless you talk to a few people, that is :-) and we're not looking to change. Of course time will show our intentions better than any post on /.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
In each such case, the submitting user grants SourceForge the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later develope all subject to the terms of any applicable Open Source Initiative-approved license.
Which means that you choose the license, and we will continue to use your code or whatever under the license you chose., The point of this is so that people can't pretend thier code isn't under a licences that they released it under previously. You're familiar with the OSI right? The GPL maybe? Well, if you aren't there are a lot of resources on the web for you, you probably shoudl start with them.
People, whenever you read a bowie post you should go back in the /. archives and read the previous responses as we've all heard his rants before and already addressed them.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Next year we won't have to play any games, honestly, we're already trying to figure out what would be a good, legal venue.
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
"Who's bullshitting who" indeed....
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Chris DiBona VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Sorry about the bold, forgot to unbold. My bad, I wasn't trying to be snippy.
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
The thing is this is -very-- good for VA, as we get to learn the problems with the machine before we put it into major production. We take the term BETA seriously here.
That said, I'm glad you like the web based admin and such. The machine that the original post was about wasn't the NAS at all though.
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
I am of course working on what I was told to me by trae and the rest. Those guys aren't talking because they've already talked with you and put their views before the world to see.
I am -not- paid by VA to lie or say things that I an ethically uncomfortable with. I have spent the last 2 years of my life building the company with the rest of the people here. I have hired or caused to be hired probably about 60 people. I hired trae, who hired tony. I interviewed Brian. I don't lie, I don't have to. If someone does something here at VA that pisses me off, they fix it or they convince me that it's the right thing to do. (Or I do more drastic things)
So if I tell you I'm interested in making peace, I am not lying. My ethics didn't go out the window just because VA went public. If VA was that kind of company do you think that you'd still have an account on /.? Don't you ever see the paradox in your saying that VA is an evil ursurping company on a site owned by VA?
You talk about the abilty to clue me in. So answer me this, you told everyone here you were developing a GTK widget repository, something that sourceforge was not designed to compete with. Is this true? You said you would "do some project hosting". Something which we were already doing and have been doing for five years. So where, tell me, did we do -you- wrong? Trae tells me that when he was talking to you about employment he asked to see the code you worked on for 7 months, and you had nothing to show him. That's what I know.
And , yes, there are people who have beefs with VA. That's going to happen. I'd love to make peace with them. But again, it is not possible to make peace with everyone. And I -do- have a personal beef with you, you are insulting the people who are my frends, and you are attacking a company that I love and had a strong hand in building. You call us assholes and the rest and say that I lie for an expedient paycheck. That's personal.
And ,all that said, your rant shows you do not understand, appreciate or grok the concepts of intellectual freedom behind the GPL. No one who does would ever not get the viral nature of the GPL. You can't co-opt (legally) GPL'd code into a proprietary product that you wish to redistribute. You know that, right? The way you talk about ideas make British Telecom and the MPAA look good.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems.
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
You're statement that we are going to steal peoples oss ideas are laughable. You do -not- understand the GPL to any degree. It's all about stealing everyone elses ideas and code to create new ideas and code without reworking. The GPL recognizes that ideas are worthless without the implementation. The GPL makes implementing already discovered and new ideas easier.
Not that you care, but as far as your petulant cries about me and my department of addressing you: The only reason I post to reply to your emails is so that reasonable people who read slashdot can know the truth about VA and the way we do things.
Honestly, we'd love to make peace with any of our detractors including you, but we feel that it would be a complete waste of time with you, as you are acting unreasonably.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
- Chris DiBona (Me)
And two others. This doesn't include the 200+ employees who came -directly- from lugs, users groups, and oss projects. So, yeah, we care.Joe Arruda
Kit Cosper
Josh Freeman
I assure you that we care very much about VA's ability to make money. We like money. Money buys stuff. But money and helping linux continue to grow and prosper are not mutually exclusive and is what we do here.
As far as immunity, if someone puts a copy of the source code to solaris, you think that we want to accept the liability that person has invited upon him or herself? Hell no. Also, you don't seem appreciate the projects we host and have gotten the angry lawyer calls about. I'm just waiting for the freenet call. When Livid was hosted here on our network, I sent out an email to the guy telling him we would not pull the software without a court order. The AAC decoder has already gotten us a call from Dolby labs, luckily they had released teh very code they were -yelling- at us to pull down themselves into the public domain.
We put a -hell- of a lot of work into sourceforge, but we're not going to be everyone's lawyer, we expect that project leads are well able to take care of their own legal issues. We don't take ownership of their code, why should be accept thier liabilities?
So there is your answer, if you'll take the time to understand it.
If anyone cares about what Bowie is babbiling about with regard to ocmmunity.themes.org, it's been detailed here on slashdot often enough. Just look for my or bowies post on the topic.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
In response:
1: VA has been very clear since our road show that we intend to show profitability in 2001. The reason that we are not profitable is that we have been spending our cash to expand so that we can effectively compete. That is -why- companies go public and take in investment. If you don't think we are a good investment, then don't invest in us, I'm okay with that. Our investment in MySQL is part of what made the gpling of mysql possible, but again, it's not clear you want to understand this. I'm also okay with this.
2: Yep, I'm aware of this, and the lawyers are working on it. But just because SF doesn't have a privacy policy in place doesn't mean that we can repeal the GPL. So chill. I think you are also intimating that we are going to rip people's software off and do our own...I don't really understand your complaint, I suppose. If we take code and create new oss software from it, that's okay. You do know how the GPL and BSD licences work, right?
As far as stock price and such goes, people are going to sell, people are going to buy, that's what happens in a market.
So there you go.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
We are lucky to have them.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Here's some instructions for you:
First root yourself, then:
tail -f /var/log/messages&
put the compact flash in the adapter, put the adapter in your pcmcia slot, when you do this, you'll get a line or two tell you which drive device it has been assigned to (assuming pcmcia is set up right).
Supposing it's hdc, then do this:
mount -t vfat /dev/hdc1 /mnt/flash
cd into /mnt/flash and there's your pix. Enjoy. Don't forget to unmount before ejecting.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Anyhow, stop reading this right now and go check out EFM from CVS. It's awesome. Be sure to check it out of CVS, the tar ball is oldish.
Chris
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Really, Trae and you had a conversation , that's fine, if you look at our previous discussion on slashdot, I'm fine with that, but that doesn't change the fact that I did not and certainly the sf guys did not knwo what you were working on or what name you chose.
And I chose the name, if you did too, great, but I registered the damn thisng and I came up with it. I also registered other names in the event we didn't like it, including sourceanvil and the rest.
What kills me is your assertion that if you came up with teh idea for sourceforge, why did you tell trae that it was a gtk widget repository? That's all I heard. So get over yourself.
So for B) you in fact don't have anything you are willign to post, but I realyl don't thikn you have anything. What I do know is -my- conversation with Rob. I already noted it. Whatever you have is either complete deal bullshit (you know "you'll have to give us a good price, as we're talking with other buyers) or you do not have it.
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Again, since you can't seem to remember, VA has been hosting projects since 1996 or so, and we wanted to do a better job of it. So we came up with sourceforge. And anyhow, just coming up with an idea means noting if you don't follow through. You didn't, we did. You talk about the 11 people, tell us what they did, show us the code.I'd love to hear from them.
B) Post the documents. Bring it on.
And I'm sorry you had such a bad time with Trae, and nothing I can say will change if you are pissed or not, I just want the slashdot readers to hear both sides in this story. And you have some nerve calling it a flame considering the flamethrower you've been pointing around.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
In slashdot's defense, I think if anything systems reliability has gone up since the move , as far as editorial quality, I'll tlet you take that up with Rob and Hemos and such. But I'll say that I think that Slashdot is still pretty great.
Chris DiBona
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Sorry about the excessive bolding, forgot to close my tag. And my spelling is getting as bad as rasters. Eek.
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Fact: We did give a lot of money and machines early on to slashdot before the andover purchase of /.. And we gave machines to everything2 (which is still owned by BSI). We give machines away all the time to groups, see kernel.org, linuxfromscratch and all the rest.
Fact: Show your proof, let's see it. IF it's real, it's a surprise. My conversation with rob when I heard about the andover thing was "So , do you want us to get in the mix on this." , his answer was no, so I dropped it.
Fact: Coldstorage was intended to be and became what sourceforge is, we jsut didn't like the coldstorage name. We knew there would be some freshmeat crossover, but they are very different sites. Big deal.
How can we cannabilize your volunteer project,?why did you stop? Was it because we "made" you stop? Or is it because you were not committed enough to finish? Even if we hadn't offered space and machinery for what you told us was going to be a gtk widget repository, why did you stop? You stopped, we didn'ty get in your way. Fact is we can't make -you- do anything, and we're not interested in having anyone stop giving back to linux. If you have such a big problem with us, go set up your own thing somewhere else. It's my impression you'd rather bitch about it.
Result: Keep your suspicison of VA, I'm fine with that. VA did purchase Andover, duh, when there is a merger whoever is bigger is by default the aquisitioner. As far as to whether we "ate" anyone, that's just stupid, in the adult world, people only merge when they want to.
As far as beinga paid mouthpiece, I am the person who comments on slashdot. That doesn't mean I lack ethics. My job is so much more than responding to this kind of bullshit.
Bowie, you have this vision of VA that is incorrect, it's too bad you can't see that. So, yes, I hope people keep both eyes and ears open, because then they will see how VA is not simply explointing linux like so many. I'd like to point out the bandwidth that we cover and hardware costs of sourceforge, and the public service mission of linux.com, or the many machines we gave away last year to projects big and small. Or the largest Friends and Family program that went off without trouble, benefitting a -great- number of developers.
Finally, VA does care, and not just because it has it (there are a number of very good business reasons to care), but because it wants to. We didn't get into linux just last year, or even just 5 years ago, we started in 1993 when everyone knew -everyone- who was in linux. And we were helping out back then, too.
We were there for people getting them hardware and stuff back when we were barely making payroll. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. Even now when VA is growing by a huge amount, we help out whenever we can. Because that is our duty, and we ake it very seriously.
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
So if the company is broken up, which one served Slashdot with a cease and desist?
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG