On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, Jason W. May wrote:
> Stas said:
> > BTW, any reason for taking this off the list?
>
> That would be "because I missed the Reply-to-All button" :-)
>
> OK, list, your input: is it too soon to claim ActiveState and
> Covalent as "successful" examples of open source businesses?
> What's the measure? I favor a financially conservative approach -
> a successful business is one that has demonstrated profitable
> operations over a significant period of time. Using my definition,
> Red Hat doesn't pass the test either.
Jason, please notice that I brought ActiveState and Covalent example as
companies that have top-notch experts in house, so they could solve any
emerging problem on the spot. I thought that they are "successful", but I
didn't try to stress this aspect of the business.
Of course I'm interested too in your change of this thread's course :)
My definition of successful is a company that I'll want to work for, since
- it creates a cool product, I enjoy working on
- has lots of talented people that I can learn from and enjoy working with,
- opens to using OSS, and allows me to contribute back
- I can make a good living with
- the company is here to stay
Of course this is not the definition of a a successful company if you are
a shareholder in this company and you don't work for it.
It's not my definition of a successful company, when the company makes a
lot of money, but it simply sucks working there.
YMMV.
> Stas Bekman said:
> >
> > On Sun, 12 Aug 2001, Jason W. May wrote:
> >
> > > Stas, you said:
> > > >
> > > > Some companies go even further, they hire these super experts
> > > > to develop
> > > > the open source technologies and they know that when they
> > > > need something
> > > > that's not available in the used technology, it'll be added
> > > > on the same
> > > > day when needed, since the experts are in house. You don't
> > > > have to go far
> > > > away, ActiveState and Covalent do this *very* successfully.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Which companies are these (that hire super-experts)? I'm not
> > > familiar with any.
> >
> > ActiveState and Covalent :)
> >
> > ActiveState has Gurusamy and other major developers in house.
> > Covalent has
> > half the ASF members and core Apache developers in house.
> >
> > > I'm not so such that ActiveState and Covalent should be labeled as
> > > successful just yet. These are both very young firms, and as far as
> > > I'm aware, neither of them are profitable. I'd be thrilled
> > to know if
> > > I'm wrong here.
> >
> > Really? I thought that these companies were successful ones :(
> >
> > BTW, any reason for taking this off the list?
> >
> > _____________________________________________________________________
> > Stas Bekman JAm_pH -- Just Another mod_perl Hacker
> > http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide http://perl.apache.org/guide
> > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://apachetoday.com http://eXtropia.com/
> > http://singlesheaven.com http://perl.apache.org http://perlmonth.com/
> >
> >
> >
>
_____________________________________________________________________
Stas Bekman JAm_pH -- Just Another mod_perl Hacker
http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide http://perl.apache.org/guide
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://apachetoday.com http://eXtropia.com/
http://singlesheaven.com http://perl.apache.org http://perlmonth.com/
