Just to clarify my feelings on this matter, I am a big supporter of Ximian and of making money. That's why I am so concerned about Ximian's image. They are the poster child for open source companies looking to make a living by both creating software and at the same time supporting the open source community. I am very aware of what happened to Eazel and I don't want to see anything negative happen to Ximian.
>From the beginning I have planned on buying copies of the software that Ximian has helped develop for all of us just as I have with Suse and Redhat and I will continue to support open source companies in the future. Stephen P.S. Debian is on my short list of software to buy on CD next. On Tue, 2001-12-04 at 20:25, Brian wrote: > On Tue, 2001-12-04 at 19:09, Stephen Witkop wrote: > > The only problem that I have with this is the timing. Ximian Connector > > has obviously been planned for some time, so why wasn't it laid out > > along with all the other plans for evolution. It just makes it seem as > > though Ximian was afraid they would lose support among developers and > > users so they didn't announce anything until they had what they wanted. > > I'm not saying that's what they were actually doing but that's certainly > > the way it seems. > > *DISCLAIMER*: Don't take this personally, Stephen, as I'm not aiming > this square at you. This is a general rant. > > <SOAPBOX> > So what if they did make a proprietary plug-in and had it planned all > along? They've given us a great mailer that's completely standards > compliant and 100% free! I consider myself just as much of a GPL/FSF > supporting guy but jeez ... do I feel betrayed by Ximian because they > didn't clue me in about a plug-in that is of no use to me anyway? In a > word: NO! They have to make money somehow and giving away software > *isn't* it. If people find their making proprietary software > "distasteful" then they should ante up and buy either their standard or > professional edition of Ximian Gnome (I plan on doing it once 1.0 is on > the CD that I'm buying). Why is the Linux community filled with folks > who find simple economics distasteful?? I myself have watched with > baited breath ... hoping Ximian wouldn't go the way of Eazel once its > product hit 1.0. Ximian's been a software company whose primary > products were stuffed monkeys and t-shirts until recently. How can we, > the community, leech the efforts that they're funding and then complain > when they attempt to support themselves? > > They are a business, they must sell software to stay in business. Their > proprietary plug-in is of use to those who already languish in a closed > source environment. This has no bearing on those of us who use/support > open standards. When it does, then I'll bitch! > </SOAPBOX> > > B > > > _______________________________________________ > evolution maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/evolution _______________________________________________ evolution maillist - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/evolution
