> >Group two, seems to want IB completely open-sourced as a
> >"community" project. This is obviously not a company for profit.
>
> Right on the head. The code, documentation, build scripts etc
> should belong to the community. If a company wants to make
> money providing printed manuals, better books, pre-built
> systems, consulting or support more power to them. This Is
> why I suggested a php type of a manual where the actual
> users get input as to what goes into the docs.

I am afraid I have to disagree with what I think is the direction of these
statements. I am concerned that this sort of attitude will lead to a
splitting of the community right when we need to stick together on this.

IMMHO Open Source products such as Linux are successful for TWO equally
important reasons!

1. The product (code, documentation etc) is high quality due to community
effort as you are suggesting.

2. Companies have found a way of making money from an essentially free
product, by providing support, documentation and structure to what would
otherwise be chaos.


Without a *profitable* company to provide structure to our efforts the new
product will never achieve popular success! Whether that company is NewCo
or and existing company (such as a distributor of Linux or other open-source
product) is open to question. There are many examples of high quality
products in various markets that have not been successful due to lack of
marketing and structured support.

Do you really think that Linux would be so popular today without companies
such as RedHat and Caldera actively marketing and pushing their
distributions? Despite many peoples opinion of OS, it is still about
making money, it is just a different way of doing it.

It is important to note that these companies could not be successful without
the community support. It is just as important to note that the community
support would lead nowhere without the companies to provide focus and
marketing - a "voice" for the community.

What we do NOT want is the "support" company to be Inprise, such a structure
would be a contradiction in terms.

What we DO want is a company that can provide structure, support and
cohesion to our efforts - and companies are about money! NewCo may not be
the only solution, but it would appear to be the best solution if we want to
try and hold onto those people that know enough about the product and its
source to get the new product going. Without these people the product will
flounder for months, it may never recover or if it does it may become a
Linux-only system taken over by a Linux distributor - and I for one do NOT
want this to happen.

My 2c - which is not enough to run a company ;-)

Geoff Worboys
Telesis Computing
gworboys@...