Well - I have tried a few times to get funding for ideas that was partly based on Open Source. The problem is not the engineering side but the VC side of it. I have yet to find a way to convincingly explain to a VC that by using open source I can cut the development cost down to 1/10th of what it would have been if I was to develop everything from scratch, and that it actually will lead to a better quality "version 1" product. But VC's seems completely focused on the IP of the product. Without that it seems that even a good business based on knowhow and delivery of services are unworthy of investment.
I for one would love to hear some good arguments that could convince VC's to invest in Open Source based projects.
Hey - can you guys possible imagine the noice level when this site - connected via tcp/ip over bongo drums - gets slashdotted? Amazing:) I'll bet you anything the system administrator does NOT need a fancy SNMP based netmon tool to realize he's got a problem.
Anybody interested in this approach should take a look at LNX-BBC (http://www.lnx-bbc.com) - a Linux distribution designed for credit-card sized CD's. While the distribution itself is not particularly interesting (for me that is), the build process and startup scripts _are_ interesting. It is basically the most impressive exercise in make scripts I have ever seen. The whole distribution is built from source archives (ok - that's not hot news any longer) and the startup scripts are based on make too. I don't know if they do anything in parallel though. Don't think speed was the reasoning behind this.
Another thing I do wonder about. I've got two simmilar laptops (both old 800 MHz) with same memory. One is running Win2K and one is running Debian. The Debian one is actually booting marginally faster than the Windows one (we're only talking 5-10 seconds here).
I am sure it's a hoax. I still remember the old/. story mentioning floppies. I spend a week trying to convert a bunch of 5 1/4" floppies but didn't get any gain - none AT ALL!:( Maybe I should have used 8" instead?
Isn't it possible to critise both? That's after all where this discussion originated. I fail to realize how US's questionable behaviour can be justified by referring to other countries questionable behaviour. I for one would say that any country with an army with nuclear weapons are threats to world security.
Speaking of this - anybody working on porting Linux to the segway? Would enable all kinds of neat stuff - like wireless networking, built-in VoIP soft phone and IM client.
Slashdot Mirror
Well - I have tried a few times to get funding for ideas that was partly based on Open Source. The problem is not the engineering side but the VC side of it. I have yet to find a way to convincingly explain to a VC that by using open source I can cut the development cost down to 1/10th of what it would have been if I was to develop everything from scratch, and that it actually will lead to a better quality "version 1" product. But VC's seems completely focused on the IP of the product. Without that it seems that even a good business based on knowhow and delivery of services are unworthy of investment.
I for one would love to hear some good arguments that could convince VC's to invest in Open Source based projects.
Hey - can you guys possible imagine the noice level when this site - connected via tcp/ip over bongo drums - gets slashdotted? Amazing :) I'll bet you anything the system administrator does NOT need a fancy SNMP based netmon tool to realize he's got a problem.
Anybody interested in this approach should take a look at LNX-BBC (http://www.lnx-bbc.com) - a Linux distribution designed for credit-card sized CD's. While the distribution itself is not particularly interesting (for me that is), the build process and startup scripts _are_ interesting. It is basically the most impressive exercise in make scripts I have ever seen. The whole distribution is built from source archives (ok - that's not hot news any longer) and the startup scripts are based on make too. I don't know if they do anything in parallel though. Don't think speed was the reasoning behind this.
Another thing I do wonder about. I've got two simmilar laptops (both old 800 MHz) with same memory. One is running Win2K and one is running Debian. The Debian one is actually booting marginally faster than the Windows one (we're only talking 5-10 seconds here).
I am sure it's a hoax. I still remember the old /. story mentioning floppies. I spend a week trying to convert a bunch of 5 1/4" floppies but didn't get any gain - none AT ALL! :( Maybe I should have used 8" instead?
Isn't it possible to critise both? That's after all where this discussion originated. I fail to realize how US's questionable behaviour can be justified by referring to other countries questionable behaviour. I for one would say that any country with an army with nuclear weapons are threats to world security.
Last time I checked, Denmark was part of Scandinavia :)
Speaking of this - anybody working on porting Linux to the segway? Would enable all kinds of neat stuff - like wireless networking, built-in VoIP soft phone and IM client.
Edlin?