--===============0788750071==
Content-Type: multipart/signed;
  boundary="nextPart1784152.2Sq2ZB8f9j";
  protocol="application/pgp-signature";
  micalg=pgp-sha1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

--nextPart1784152.2Sq2ZB8f9j
Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: inline

[Insults first...]
> > > oh, you also might want to think about the getting personally
> > > insulting part.
> >
> > *think* Your father must have mistaken the whore that calls herself
> > your mother for a goat. In that regard it's positive that you were
> > named after your mother, and not Goatmann after your father ;-)
>
> see that line over there?
> thats the fine line between discussion and flaming. and you just
> overstepped it. by miles.

Yes, if you flame you have to do it right. I wasn't aware there was a=20
discussion going on actually. I just found this thread an amusing way to=20
spend my free sunday afternoon, it was either amusing myself in this thread=
=20
or doing some bug reports. But I guess my attempt at improving my personal=
=20
insult skills wasn't as funny as I thought, I admit to having a strange kin=
d=20
of humor, so I would like to apologize for that to you and your family.

> besides, it basically says "omg i ran out of sensible things to say"
> when you resort to insults.

No, it was a reaction to your suggestion to think about getting personally=
=20
insulting.

On Sunday 13 March 2005 20:05, Mathias Homann wrote:
> Am Sonntag, 13. M=C3=A4rz 2005 19:29 schrieb Waldo Bastian:
> > *think* Yes, I still think it's a good idea. You see, KDE will be
> > able to sustain itself just fine without users, while it will not
> > last a single day without developers. So when it comes to choosing
> > between scaring away developers and scaring away users, the choice
> > is rather easy actually.
>
> checked that opinion with your employer?

No, that is my personal opinion as it relates to KDE as an open source=20
project.

> who was that again, suse?

Well, it's good that you mention my employer. My employer actually cares ab=
out=20
its paying (!) customers. And when my employer gets the impression that a=20
significant part of its paying customers would like to have a certain=20
feature, it will direct paid developers (like me) to implement those=20
features. It does that in the hope to get that investment repaid in the for=
m=20
of increased product sales.

Note the difference here between a commercial linux vendor, for whom paying=
=20
customers are essential to its business and whose primary goal is to make=20
profit, and an open source project, which has no profit motive whatsoever,=
=20
does not have paying customers and has only a small amount of financial=20
expenses.

> which DE is default on suse linux?

You can chose between Gnome and KDE as default :-)

> > I'm not sure why you use kmail as example btw, there is exactly one
> > KDE developer that I know of who accepts payments for adding
> > features, and that is a KMail developer, see
> > http://www.kontact.org/shopping/sanders.php
>
> yea, and exactly the one bugzilla entry i was referring to is the one
> that sits in bugzilla as assigned to exactly that person, yet he
> basically says "i wont do it until i get money for it" on his page.

Ok, so why don't you pay him then?

> So, if some people here oppose to paying for features, shouldnt the
> same people see that this bugzilla item gets assigned to someone
> else?

Those same people just don't care for the feature. You seem to care, you ha=
ve=20
the ability to pay the kmail developer to get it done, yet you don't do so.=
=20
If anything, it proves that this whole idea of "let's buy features with=20
symbolic amounts of money", just doesn't work. Unfortunately a lot of peopl=
e,=20
including you, aren't willing to accept that reality because they keep=20
holding the mistaken believe that they have a right to demand that others=20
write software for them for an amount far below fair market value. You don'=
t=20
have that right and it is extremely rude to think you do.

I understand where the confusion comes from though. On hand it comes from a=
ll=20
round confusion about the term "free software" which people keep associatin=
g=20
with "free beer", this isn't surprising because "free software" often comes=
=20
as "free beer". It doesn't stop with that though, the harmfull part starts=
=20
when people get the "free beer" and then think because the beer is free, th=
ey=20
must certainly have a right to "free whiskey", "free wine" and "free=20
spareribs" as well, and please hurry a bit because they don't want to wait=
=20
all day. And sure, they understand that the whiskey costs 30 EUR a bottle i=
n=20
the shop, so here you have a 50ct tip and now better hurry because they pai=
d=20
for it. As I hope you realize by now, that's not how the free software cafe=
=20
operates.

The other problem is that there are people who are really fed up with=20
Microsoft's monopoly and would nothing better than to replace it with Linux=
=20
and free software today. They like that to happen so much that they tell=20
everyone that Linux and open source software is great and can solve all the=
ir=20
problems. And in their enthusiasm they may get a little bit overboard and=20
exagerate a little bit. Now the problem starts when someone who has been to=
ld=20
that Linux can solve all his problems, then discovers that he happens to ha=
ve=20
a problem that it can't solve. He will get all angry because "they" told hi=
m=20
it could solve all his problems, and then he goes to "kde-devel@kde.org" to=
=20
complain about it and he finds "developers" that make software because that=
=20
happens to be what they like to spend their sunday afternoon on. And these=
=20
"developers" shrug and think he is a loony because they never told him that=
=20
their software would solve all his problems. At first this seems very stran=
ge=20
till you realize that the "they" who told you about Linux yesterday may not=
=20
be the same as the "developers" that you talk with today. And most (but not=
=20
all, take me for example) of these "developers" are fairly reasonable and a=
re=20
quite sympathetic to your situation and may be able to help you, but in the=
=20
end they don't owe you anything and it is still all about how they spend=20
their free sunday afternoon that you are talking about.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the fact that people advocate=
=20
linux and KDE to the masses, after all it would be a waste to have great=20
software around if nobody knows about it, but you need to be aware of the=20
realities of the process that creates the software. It's a bit like the fai=
ry=20
tale about the goose that laid golden eggs, you need to keep the goose=20
healthy and happy to benefit from the eggs. Throwing euros at it doesn't he=
lp=20
if all it wants is love and care.

Cheers,
Waldo

--nextPart1784152.2Sq2ZB8f9j
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQBCNMSjN4pvrENfboIRAnAzAJ4g4Gb7hjueX7DwjK/Zy3E+NKhHOACfW3O5
T3rkOQucVmjIJaAkpQvdZVg=
=JVxF
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--nextPart1784152.2Sq2ZB8f9j--


--===============0788750071==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

 
>> Visit http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-devel#unsub to unsubscribe <<

--===============0788750071==--