On 20 May 2011 00:52, Louis Suarez-Potts <lsuarezpo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hola Ramon! > > Let's be serious. The maintenance cost does not even include the copyright > cost, if any. And it's not a trivial cost. I've dwelt on this issue, as have > others. it is all about business, I think that is easy to agree. Hands up all those who have started and run their own business and sustained it for at least 10 years ;-) not at all about what is good for society, humanity, the people of the > world. It is not even really about saving money in the immediate. It is > about staking out valuable territory in a new market. Possibly, but it is also about selling, If you don't sell you don't get. Simple as that. Ok, you might get MSFT to buy your loss making company for X billion because it has a lot of users but in the end you have to have a way of making money, In open source that means not from selling software licenses. Other than that it's an open book. > Persuading people of this is not impossible. I've done it. But it is one > thing to persuade of your vision, another to persuade away from the status > quo, and yet another to persuade to commit sums of money; and yet another to > persuade to arrange a context for all this that can promote sustained > development of the code, not just one-off and ad hoc work. > Simply they have to believe there is a potential return on the investment which is better than they would get or at least less risky than putting it elsewhere. > And if you think that the act of persuasion can be written in the > preterite, once it's done, just look at Brazil under the new Minister of > Culture. > > > Furthermore, many other people could bring more money to that. How many > people would buy some shares of OpenOffice (Inc, Ltd, GmbH or whatever it > would be), just for help a be part of the ownership of OOo? Big users should > think about it. > > Again, this has been considered, as has the sort of NGO. I prefer Apache, > to situate OOo as a nonprofit operating within the Apache frame. But I am > also open to TDF, if the licensing scheme can be arranged to promote > business expansion. Why the focus on licensing when FOSS is fundamentally against licenses that require payment? I can't see that working, We need a business model that can support development without requiring paid for licenses. It's more fundamental than whether the company is a for profit or a not for profit, > What counts for me is the expansion and security of the ODF market. It's > absolutely vital and I daresay more important than OOo qua OOo. Without the > ODF market—the myriad of implementations—we are niche. > Yes, but what will sustain that expansion? Licensing? I don't think so. > OpenOffice may not be a good businesss to Oracle, who can sell their database licenses for thousand of dollars, but it can be a very profitable business for a small start-up company. Indeed. And it still is. But the future is in needs of securitization. > Well scaling to something that can get 10m a year ;-) > Anyway, consider to send your open letter to the big-users community. It's wonderful Peugeot, the French Police, the Finnish Governement, the city of Munich or Zaragoza use OpenOffice. It's time n I would, but do you honestly think I've not previously approached not just > those above but others, too? And guess what. They say, We love open source! > As long as it is cheap and does not demand a centavo from us, or even > better, as long as a big company is willing to do all the work …. > So give them some service around the product that they need and are prepared to pay for. > Community is a process. It is a kind of joy, not an obligation as such, but > it is all the same a process, and just like it's sometimes easier to sit at > home and watch YouTube than to go out to a party or make a video of your > own, so too is the momentum of commodity culture, and all it implies about > consumer passivity, overwhelming. But not always. > > > ow to ask them a little of support to the community. Ask them just a few > EUR or USD per user and probably you get the budget for some years! > > Nope. What happens is that they say: We have millions for software. Just > ask MSFT. And if we switch over, then… usual story of needing an analogue to > MSFT. I know this, I know it well. I've for this reason tried to work with > Asolif and others around the world, to provide that single, coherent and > reliable business point of entry: the single vendor kind of analogue. And > sometimes it works, but more often the status quo prevails. Compelling > arguments are not compelling if it's not against rationality but irrational > habitude you fight against. Status quo is costly but cheaper than actually > doing something, esp. if it's your job on the line or just about as bad, > your effort. And I've tried, Ramon, I've tried. Doesn't mean I won't try > again, just that I am hardly naive, hardly optimistic. But I am realistic, > and do see the value in what we do and why it's important. > So maybe you are asking them the wrong questions? Making the wrong sales proposals? > I do think it is compelling that we work with SMBs; but I also think it is > absolutely necessary that a) the community of OOo and LO reunite and > reconcile, so that we can be strongly stepping into the future; Strongly agree with that. > and b) that IBM, Red Hat, Canonical, and even Google (as well as of course > Novell/Attachmate) collaborate under the same roof to share the immense > costs of making this thing they all benefit from and which even more will > add to. > I'd say bring them together to develop a sustainable commercially viable proposition and don't get bogged down in emotion like "not for profit". Do what will work. Machiavelli had some good points :-) > Just my 5 cents. > > Let's try make OpenOffice -together with LO if possible- the most used office suite. It would be really a pitty to stop now. Actually, it would be a tragedy. > So let's devise a business plan that will work. Just back to my Paris hotel room after a lot of beers, red wine and Calvados so apologies if any of this is not as I intended ;-) > > > > > Ramon > > > Cheers > Louis > > > > Louis Suarez-Potts wrote: > >> :-) > >> > >> I am. > >> > >> My strategies are, obviously, to invoke the established > stakeholders—IBM, Red Hat, to name but two, but also Google—in the gambit. > But the issue is even more interesting than money alone. Much of the secret > of OOo's sauce lies not in the recipe, which is open, but in the makers, who > are like chefs the world round, only more so. And with Oracle's > renunciation, they are obviously affected. How, it's not clear. But if I > were in the team, I'd be no doubt updating my résumé—and be fending off hot > solicitations. > >> > >> In short, time is of the essence. > >> > >> LibreOffice, TDF, do not have the full resources to continue, let alone > advance OOo. They can differentiate it, which is to be lauded, but they have > their own uncertainties. They do not appeal, too, to enterprises; we do. > Enterprises can be public sector or private. They have the same concerns: > reliability, predictability, stability, and super-good QA. > >> > >> That all takes money not just in the present but in the future. So, > these are not trivial points. > >> > >> I've been working sub rosa because that's the way this is done. And even > so, I've been pretty much shut out of a lot of discourse. Oracle has been > absolutely mum about OOo's copyright and development future, though I've > asked. They are surely in talks with the usual suspects, at least, I hope > so. But the discussions are hardly including the OOo community—not me, at > least, and not really any I know involved with OOo. > >> > >> What I'll do is what I promised earlier: write an open letter to Edward > Screven, the Oracle VP who issued the announcement 15 April. > >> > >> And I also would very much appreciate it, and I think the entire OOo > community would, too, if IBM and other stakeholders, such as Google and Red > Hat execcs-I'll spare names—would engage the community representatives, in > the plural or even singular, to proceed. What counts here is not my presence > or participation per se, that's irrelevant and immaterial, but the > continuation of OOo as that set of tools enterprises and users the world > round expect to be there, as a community thing is. > >> > >> So, we are doing things. And I just wish I could speak more, or write > more on this. I also wish I had more to speak, write, say. But you see the > issues. They are not secret, they are not hard to comprehend, they are not > hard to digest. We need not just the funds but the chefs, and we need not > jus to continue status quo—that did not work, obviously—but to re-do things, > re-set things, improve: no one liked the old logistics of power, all wanted > change. This is our opportunity, and let's begin with the reconciliation, > with the stakeholders, so that we can continue working on this. > >> > >> And one more point: OOo makes money. It makes money not just for the > ecosystem stakeholders, like Ian, Jean, and many many others, including me, > now—but for the stakeholders, in much the same way that an Eclipse like > platform or Apache does. By providing the source technology that creates new > markets. > >> > >> -louis > >> > >> On 2011-05-18, at 19:21 , Jean Hollis Weber wrote: > >> > >>> On Thu, 2011-05-19, Ian Lynch wrote: > >>> > >>>> if we need 10m per year lets work out strategies to generate it. > >>>> > >>> > >>> +1 > >>> > >>> --Jean > >>> > >>> > >>> -- > >>> ----------------------------------------------------------------- > >>> To unsubscribe send email to dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org > >>> For additional commands send email to sy...@marketing.openoffice.org > >>> with Subject: help > >> > > -- > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe send email to dev-unsubscr...@marketing.openoffice.org > For additional commands send email to sy...@marketing.openoffice.org > with Subject: help > -- Ian Ofqual Accredited IT Qualifications The Schools ITQ www.theINGOTs.org +44 (0)1827 305940 You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. 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