On Monday 01 September 2003 04:01 am, Keith Powell wrote: > I sent three postings yesterday, but none of have appeared on the list. So > here goes again. > > Sorry, Bryan, if you thought my posting was a knee-jerk action. It wasn't > meant to be.
Anytime someone asks other people to consider abandoning a product in the marketplace that has had some measure of success without confirming all of the facts surrounding the situation, I would consider it knee-jerk. I do think that your and a lot of other's hearts are in the right place, I just wanted to underscore the importance of supporting those developers and companies that have supported our community, and insuring that we don't cause damage to them and to ourselves by embarking on some crusade before we really know who the enemy is. I would especially guard against the overriding nature of evangelism and activism that sometimes permeates the open-source movement. If we want business support for open-source, it needs to be sold as a purely economical, practical, and value-driven proposition, completely removed from emotion. Goodwill and community contributions are all well and good, but the bottom line is that open-source makes good business sense. Real companies are loathe to get involved in movements that are too emotionally driven, it alienates potential customers and offers them few benefits that are also not fraught with risk. If open-source is seen as professional and practical, it will generate professional investments by companies. If it is seen as activism, it will not. > I had no idea that there was any link whatever between Trolltech and SCO > until today. It came as quite a surprise! > > As SCO is regarded as "the bad boy" of Linux at the moment, I wondered if > Trolltech should be too. Trolltech is probably not the only company. Canopy is an investment group, their sole purpose is to make investments in other companies and try to recoup their investment. Every single bit of activity regarding SCO and Linux is solely for the purpose of Canopy recouping their ill-advised investment in old Unix code and licensing agreements. I do agree that we should try to stop them from earning money using the underhanded methods that they employ but would caution against bringing other companies into the struggle who may not have any real connection to it, or may not choose to fight this particular battle. > > That was my reason for asking opinions of other members of the list what > they thought of KDE and its use of QT. I wondered if, by using > KDE/Trolltech, others thought we may be giving moral support to SCO. Possibly, I picked up the thread at a late date, it is also possible that my perception has been colored by several other previous calls for boycotts before the originators had discovered the true extent of the connection between Canopy and Trolltech. This is actually the fourth thread that I have seen in different places calling for some type of action against Trolltech. They have done the best they can to publicize, accurately, the current investment by Canopy in their company, they have assured everyone that Canopy has nothing to do with their business decisions and the operations of the company, and finally, that they do not agree with the actions of SCO towards Linux. > I certainly don't want to tarnish the name of such an excellent company as > KDE. > > Thank you for putting the record straight and explaining the Trolltech > set-up. > > Sorry if I have offended any one- I didn't mean to, and apologies to you, > KDE and Trolltech!. No harm, no foul, I just wanted to make sure that the real story was known before anyone went riding off to joust at windmills. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer
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