I don't understand that. Why not? The reality is that unless a revenue stream comes from somewhere, there is no way to "fill in the picture" with little things like user documentation, customer support, do interface usability studies, and do a dozen other little things that produce a truly usable system.

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000

That's important feedback to keep in mind. Its something we have to make a conscious decision on, if it turns out we go that way. I'd love to open source it to everyone, but I have yet to see a business model that makes sense, other than one where your *real* business is built on top of the software.

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000

The goal is to provide the wherewithal to sustain future development, and the freedom to pursue important projects when they become apparent.

There's only so much you can make from support contracts.

If we're going to enable GM to make or save an extra 10 billion one year, as a side effect of getting the software we need to save our collective skins, it's hard to see how it would be wrong to get a slice of that, so we can do a better and faster job of (hopefully) saving our skins. On the other hand, for some reason the open source standard seems to have completely ruled out that option, even though it appears to me, on the surface at least, to be completely reasonable. Do you have any insight into how that decision was reached? Do you know of any good sources that give a rationale for it?

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000

One wonders what the result would have been had the results been freely available to the "evil empire", without the financial resources to carry on a legal battle -- or to fund the small army of developers who have developed the GUI libraries, multimedia libraries, and other stuff for the platform. It would have been nice if it had been truly open source -- or would it. Would the result have been as useful for servlets, or any more standard for browsers?

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000

The primary goal is building it, supporting it, and being able to improve it and/or take on other projects, as needs dictate. The only question is... "What is the best way to do that?". Open source has advantages. Making money has advantages. What works best?

When it comes to foundations and governments, I would point out that Doug has been pursuing this course for 30 some years. Where is the army of developers he should have at his fingertips to take on new tasks? Where is the collection of funding agencies lining up to back his vision? The point of a "vision" is that is not a universally accepted view. If you're going to make your vision a reality, it helps to have the financial resources to pursue it -- both individually and as an organization. Will open source get us there? Possibly. What about 6 years from now, when an equally important but slightly different opportunity comes along? Will we still be doing it in our spare time? Or will we have the freedom to devote all of our energies to it?

Right now, frankly, I'm concerned about my job performance. I am investing a huge amount of time in this proposition, because I find it compellingly necessary. But the intellectual energy that goes into this project is *not* going into my "bread and butter" job. Typically, I run at 200% or 300% (I write programs to augment my productivity, so I can do a week's worth of work by setting up a task and pressing a button). But recently, my "on the job" productivity has been a fraction rather than a multiple. And its a hell of a strain -- I come in evenings and weekends hoping to make up for lost time, and then find myself with another irresistible intellectual challenge. It's too important not to do, and I am both too motivated and too undisciplined to walk away from the challenge.

But how exactly do I keep working at this and keep a full time job? I've figured out that I ought to just stop *wanting* a life. But that doesn't really work, does it?

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000

No problem. Where are they?

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000

Great idea. Know any companies willing to sign up?

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000

Now that the vacuous nature of *that* business plan has been exposed (80% drop in capitalization in the last week), who do we sell this idea to? It's fine for an existing company. You can make enough to keep going. But I have yet to see the business model that makes a compelling enough case to support venture capital risk.

The good news is that there are signs that *some* venture capital thinking might be changing. There is a move towards "venture philanthropy". Maybe something along those lines is possible. But the business needs to create a revenue stream to support growth and development. That is a necessity.

Paul Fernhout wrote in a letter on April 22, 2000