Slightly off topic, just a little pedantic example =)
Erm.. sometimes it is A Good Idea (TM) to give away the most prized possession of a company. But only when it will make them more viable and profitable.
Take my employer for example, Digital Creations. In November 1998, they were a product company, with a great product. A Web Application Server that, if only the customers would see it, was much better than what all the multi-billion-dollar companies were offering. Not many people were listening to the tiny voice of this company though.
Then a VC convinced them to make that product Open Source, and switch to services, solutions build upon that product. Now, over a year later, the company is hiring like crazy, O'Reilly has started funding the company, and the product is making great inroads in the marketshare of those aformentioned multi-billion-dollar companies. Going Open Source is paying off.
Anyone of you ever heard of Zope? Let's just say that 85% of all people I asked at LWE did. Long live Open Source, long live the free messengers.
Not that this little story has any impact on Transmeta of course. They have a solid business model based on a product that just would not benefit from going Open Source. Their voice is being heard, they are making the inroads just like that. And not that Metcalf cares. Change is just scary, but he'll get over it.
Slashdot Mirror
Erm.. sometimes it is A Good Idea (TM) to give away the most prized possession of a company. But only when it will make them more viable and profitable.
Take my employer for example, Digital Creations. In November 1998, they were a product company, with a great product. A Web Application Server that, if only the customers would see it, was much better than what all the multi-billion-dollar companies were offering. Not many people were listening to the tiny voice of this company though.
Then a VC convinced them to make that product Open Source, and switch to services, solutions build upon that product. Now, over a year later, the company is hiring like crazy, O'Reilly has started funding the company, and the product is making great inroads in the marketshare of those aformentioned multi-billion-dollar companies. Going Open Source is paying off.
Anyone of you ever heard of Zope? Let's just say that 85% of all people I asked at LWE did. Long live Open Source, long live the free messengers.
Not that this little story has any impact on Transmeta of course. They have a solid business model based on a product that just would not benefit from going Open Source. Their voice is being heard, they are making the inroads just like that. And not that Metcalf cares. Change is just scary, but he'll get over it.
Martijn Pieters, Software Engineer
Digital Creations, Creators of Zope
What do you mean, inflated version number?
Netscape Open Sourced version 5, but never released it.
Mozilla is build partly on version 5, but has lots of new code. Netscape 6 is based upon the results of the Mozilla project. Sounds logical to me.
Martijn Pieters, Software Engineer
Digital Creations, Creators of Zope