> I kinda figure Darrell does okay in all of this. :) Truly, he's > done tons > of great work with the community. On the other hand, he got software for > free that reflects thousands of hours of development effort and he's > building a business for himself off of that. *He* hasn't needed to sink a > few million into building the developer community, developing the nascent > offerings, etc. He participates in a community that is hosted, seeded and > moderated by another company. So he does lots in return. I like > that - Fair > trade. In fact, he solicits business for himself on our forums for a > competitive offering (Are we schmucks, er what?!?).
First and foremost, I want to say that I think Mitel has an outstanding product. I couldn't be more pleased with my decision to implement it in my office. I'm fairly new to the open source world, having installed linux for the first time about a year ago. I quickly found that the best way to lean this stuff was to get involved in the communities and read what the pros where saying. I've bounced between 10 or so communities similar to this one over the past year and have learned a great deal. The thing that struck me about this community, and what prompted me to make the comment that I did, was the fact that a majority of the HOWTOs, utilities/apps, and related documentation come from one guy. My comment certainly wasn't meant to insult anyone, I apologize if this is the case, but to point out an observation. I certainly wasn't trying to imply that the open source movement should die or is dead here. I enjoy and will continue to enjoy helping others where I can. I think that the majority of open source users feel this way. I will say in response to your previous email that I don't think Darrel is doing anything different than Mitel in terms for running a business in the GNU community. If it weren't for the endless hours of many others and the GNU software agreement, Mitel wouldn't't have a product to sell. The Linux Kernel and the RedHat OS structure are at the core of your product, neither of which where developed by Mitel. So, technically, Mitel was handed a free code base to build their OS on. Being a business owner, I understand that there has to be a balance for you folks. You have to try to show a positive bottom line at the end of the year otherwise you are wasting you time, right? It only makes sense that you would focus the bulk of your effort to those tasks that produce a return. I don't really think that's the point here. I think the main point is how Mitel utilizes the wonderful resource they have in this development forum. You have many people here willing to do free development and testing for you. Doesn't matter if they make a living in the process, it isn't costing Mitel anything. How many other businesses get a huge team of volunteers at their front door's willing to help where they can? I think the best thing Mitel could do is to use the resource to the fullest extent possible. A prime example is the release of SME 5.0. There is absolutely no reason why a beta of this shouldn't have hit this group before hitting the streets. I think your support team would be fielding a deal less email than they are now. In any event, I think you folks are doing a great job!!! Keep it up. Best regards, Greg J. Zartman -- Please report bugs to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] (only) to discuss security issues Support for registered customers and partners to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives by mail and http://www.mail-archive.com/devinfo%40lists.e-smith.org
