[rant] open source and support (was owner of squeak)

G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl
Fri Dec 21 20:38:05 UTC 2001


> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Hinsley [mailto:jhinsley at telinco.co.uk]
> Sent: vrijdag 21 december 2001 18:18
> To: squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> Subject: Re: [rant] open source and support (was owner of squeak)
> 
> 
> G.J.Tielemans at dinkel.utwente.nl wrote:
> 
> John: OK, rises to bait (I'm getting so predictable) although I agree with
> most of this ;-)
> 
> > Suppose you go to your boss and tell him all about Linux 
> > and Staroffice:
> > 
> > - free stuff, so no one is earning money on that stuff?
> > - giving away for free?!? you are kidding...
> > - then there is no money for supporting the product.
> 
> But that's _precisely_ how people make money out of Open Source. 
> You take your choice, everything from free support via 
> newsgroups to a team of dedicated IBM folk available 24/7.
> 
> 
> > ... Of course we then have to admit that in the Squeak 
> > community we only do what we like,
> > You cannot build a business on our fun:
> > - Problems with Squeak under Windows? buy a Mac!
> > - Browser problems with the Squeak plugin? change the 
> browser(version)! 
> 
> Mmmmm. Or sue Microsoft. 
> Certainly, if I was hiring someone to do Squeak

Ger: hmm, close your eyes and the world does no longer exist, 
didn't we do that when we were (very) young? 
As I said often on this list: 
IF you want to live outside the Squeak-zoo 
THEN you have to accept that people play dirty in the real world.


> support for a M$ based business, these are some of the issues 
> I'd expect them to look at. But instant solutions are no more likely to be
> available at Squeak support com than at Microsoft. IIRC, it 
> took Cincom 
> 2 or 3 weeks to isolate and cure the "tiny print" problem people were
> experiencing with VisualWorks (eventually tracked down to an
> undocumented change Microsoft had made). 
> No one took them to court, and seems to me that that was a pretty fine
effort.
> 
Ger: Yes I know this kind of games: 
Mid 1997 we selected Oracle InterOffice as the new foundation 
for our groupware-support in education. 
Jan 1998 Oracle took it back from the market, as a spokesman said:
"Because Microsoft everytime did change the (Ger: undocumented?) functions
under the hood of windows. May 1998 we had to deliver.... so we took our
refuge
too Lotus Domino:
- in these days a great product with a terrible marketing....
- Now it is in the hands of IBM, better marketing, yes... for websphere...

> > (Although I have to admit that in other communities like 
> SourceForce the community looks much more proficient Apache, PHP, MySQL...

> and so many packages, right-out-the-box (PHPDEV for example))
> 
> I think Squeak support is pretty proficient. But the larger the
> community (and the Apache and Linux communities are huge, with a much
> higher developer to user ratio than M$, for obvious reasons) 
> the quicker and more wide ranging support is likely to be. 
> 
Ger: yes you are right... how many Squeakers are there really? (Not only
platforms but real people
> > 
> > Another point is that normal people have habits and want to 
> keep these: If you offer a product like StarOffice, that is so different 
> in look and feel, then you have to invest a lot of extra time before you
can 
> go back to your normal work...
> 
> Is Star/Open Office _so_ different? I'd think that after 2 hours group
> training anyone would be able to make the switch, although 
> it'd probably take around a week to become equally proficient. 
Ger: do you remember your first switch to your second wordprocessor?
(or platform? I believe that lots of people are still on their first) 
> I hear that Ford are looking at switching.... 
> Just think: simply by ditching M$ Office you save £150, 
> ditch the OS as well and you save around £200 per user.
Ger: Yes, isn't that a fascinating calculation? Or are to many people using
illegal software?
(Trying to bring a faculty on the legal software side, a university
professor flamed me for
blocking Univwersity research (1995) 

> Chances are that you can leave your 2 yearly upgrades another year or
> two. Hell, I've seen it argued that it's cheaper to build a 
> Linux based system for 500 users (not 500 terminals) around a new IBM 
> mainframe than it is to do it around Windows 2000.
> 
Ger: You look at the details, so -- are you a manager?....  
> 
> > And last but not least: You do not need the best product as 
> > a businessman, you just need the best advertisement and other tricks to 
> > grab the market.
> 
> The desktop market was always going to be the place Microsoft circled
> the wagons. It's also the only place where the user base is hopelessly
> uneducated and naive. Elsewhere, Apache has pretty much gobbled up the
> webserver market simply because, while it's _not_ the best 
> webserver, it > offers a huge range of features and the best
> speed/cost/reliability/configurability/multi-platform compromise. 
> 
Ger: Yes, in the past I did look at GNU & Emacs, always a promise for the
future, but now looking at SourceForce and the useful examples they deliver,
I believe that free becomes professional and also useful in busimess
environment. Squeak has potential to survive ther too: if it can create the
spin-off I did expect from Squeakland when I first saw it: solving the
plug-in problem is for me the ultimate test... (For myself: repair the
upload problems in BigTimeSwiki and try to communicate with SourceForce
initiativs like the Apache XML project, it would be fascinating..)  

> Cheers
> 
> John
> -- 
> Reputed to be the reason Windows 2000 was nearly a year late, (paid in
> shares M$Ds needed the cash and kudos) Netproject's Eddie 
> Bleasdale has,
> renewed his challenge to virus writers. The first person to infect his
> Linux box wins 10,000 pounds.
> 
> http://www.silicon.com/bin/bladerunner?30REQEVENT=&REQAUTH=210
46&14001REQSUB=REQINT1=48211





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