Lindows.com and open source

[Michael Robertson]

>John Alvord <jalvo at mbay.net>
At 02:11 PM 2/11/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>Maybe you could shed some light on the current License flamefest.
>Would BSD versus LGPL have made any difference to you progress as a
>company? You have contributed so much in the past, a formal statement
>of intentions could reduce the perceived problem...


I'm not sure Lindows.com has earned a voice in the license debate yet or 
even if we had a voice could add anything meaningful that hasn't already 
been said. There are many others who have for years shepherded WINE to this 
stage. I'm confident they'll do the right thing. Licensing is a topic on 
the wineconf 2002 agenda. I'll be sending a list of topics to the list 
shortly for feedback. Thanks to those who have offered suggestions.

 From a more general perspective though, I believe there needs to be much 
more investment in many areas of WINE and more broadly Linux to get to the 
next level (say from 1% penetration to 10%). Anything that gets more people 
involved, more organization, more developers, more capital, more companies, 
and more ideas will ultimately be a good thing.

When I was at MP3.com, we had the MP3 summit every year. We invited 
everyone including our direct competitors, tangentially related industries 
and even our antagonists. We'd not only invite them, but also encourage 
them to speak. Our thinking was the more people that we got making "neural 
connections", the more success MP3 would have (and ultimately MP3.com). 
Companies were created, merged, and bought because of the MP3 Summit. 
Products were dreamed up and built because of the MP3 Summit. It wasn't 
about our company, it was about bringing all the smart, passionate people 
together (even if they had opposing viewpoints) and watching the magic 
happen. I believe Linux and WINE (at least on the desktop) are at similar 
stages.

-- MR



Lindows.com
michael at lindows.com
858-410-5941

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