'[kde-promo] Re: as far as theKompany is concerned'

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List:       kde-promo
Subject:    [kde-promo] Re: as far as theKompany is concerned
From:       Shawn Gordon <shawn () thekompany ! com>
Date:       2001-12-07 11:29:06
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At 03:21 AM 12/7/2001, you wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
> 
> 1. Re: as far as theKompany is concerned (Navindra Umanee)
> 2. Re: as far as theKompany is concerned (Chris Howells)
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 07:00:09 -0500
> From: Navindra Umanee <navindra@cs.mcgill.ca>
> To: kde-promo@mail.kde.org
> Subject: Re: [kde-promo] as far as theKompany is concerned
> Reply-To: kde-promo@mail.kde.org
> 
> 
> Well, I personally don't begrudge you your business model, only the
> perceived lack of PR skills at theKompany and/or perceived strained
> relationship with the community (if it wasn't, someone wouldn't submit
> a page long essay in consultation with others, about founding a
> "different" kind of KDE company to the dot).  It's hard to get right,
> just ask Trolltech.

I get resumes and compliments every day - in response to this thread I 
received a large number of private emails telling us to keep up the good 
work.  I never saw this essay you are talking about, but basically there 
are a group of people just simply offended by the fact that we exist as a 
commercial company using KDE.  If this other group were to start a company, 
they would start getting the same crap.  I would saw overall that our PR 
has been very well handled all things considered.

> HOWEVER, since you seem to be saying theKompany is doing very well for
> itself, I'm very happy and you should certainly *not* change a formula
> that works.
> 
> > You know, we've done a bucket of free stuff and it always gets forgotten
> > for some reason.  I've spent more time and money on Aethera than any other
> > product in our stable for whatever insanity and now we will give it
> > away.  The updated Qt version is done now and we are testing
> 
> For example, as part of the KDE community myself, I must say I cringe
> everytime you expound how you are "rebaptising" what was formerly a
> KDE product and turning it into a pure Qt one.  Aethera immediately
> loses value to me, personally, but I am not your paying customer
> (yet).

You know, I've had people say this a number of times and I just don't get 
it.  What are you loosing?  Especially with KDE 3 and the work we are 
putting into making sure stuff works natively.  I mean you've got themes, 
printing and cut&paste as far as I can see, and if those things work 
properly under KDE then what are you missing?  You are also missing the 
larger opportunity that we are creating by making it easier for people to 
switch to KDE from other platforms if our software is in all these 
places.  They might say "hey, this app is pretty darn useful, and it runs 
on Linux, let's give it a try", and when they do they see the all the great 
stuff that KDE has to offer.  I think I have a much larger vision with this 
than my detractors - they are in the moment and upset at that moment for 
whatever reason and just try to drive corporations out.  IBM was really put 
off by the reaction they were getting, why do you think ViaVoice hasn't 
been released almost a year after TT and IBM demo'd it?

> Thankfully your business seems to be actually working, but maybe just
> try to keep an eye on the PR aspects.  Don't take all this personally
> either, please.  :-)

since I do the courtesy (that most busy CEO's don't) of responding to 
emails and talkbacks, I get personally involved.  I also get a lot of 
customers because we are so responsive.  The people who don't like us will 
for the most part always not like us and it is purely a matter of ideology.

> -N.
> 
> --__--__--
> 
> Message: 2
> From: Chris Howells <chris@chrishowells.co.uk>
> Organization: @ $HOME
> To: kde-promo@mail.kde.org
> Subject: Re: [kde-promo] as far as theKompany is concerned
> Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 16:49:25 +0000
> Reply-To: kde-promo@mail.kde.org
> 
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Thursday 06 December 2001 12:00 pm, Navindra Umanee wrote:
> > Thankfully your business seems to be actually working, but maybe just
> > try to keep an eye on the PR aspects.  Don't take all this personally
> > either, please.  :-)
> 
> Yes, I'm glad that it is working.
> 
> However, I think some some confusion may occur when theKompany describe
> products such as the commercial version of Open Source.

I don't call that open source or Open Source, I call it a restricted use 
license.  You get the source for your use, but can't redistribute it.  If 
there is confusion on that, then please point out to me where I haven't 
been clear.  We have some GPL code, some more liberal open source licenses, 
pure closed source and our restricted source and we've tried to be clear 
about all products in all cases.

> They are in that the respect that you do get some source code, although can't
> do certain things, IIRC.
> 
> _However_, to me at least calling something "Open Source" suggests that the
> license follows the specifications listed at
> http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.html.
> 
> So, Shawn, at least for me, it would clear up a lot of understanding if you
> didn't refer to some of your products (I'm use the following thread as an
> example -- the thread http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice&m=100574793822655&w=2,
> in particular message http://lists.kde.org/?l=koffice&m=100578391807341&w=2)
> as open source.

at no point in that thread did I say anything about open source, I said the 
stencil builder wasn't closed source because it's not, you get the source 
with it, but off the top of my head I don't remember the license.

> - --
> Cheers, Chris Howells -- chris@chrishowells.co.uk, howells@kde.org
> Web: http://chrishowells.co.uk, PGP key: http://chrishowells.co.uk/pgp.txt
> KDE: http://www.koffice.org, http://edu.kde.org, http://usability.kde.org
> 
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> 
> --__--__--
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Regards,

Shawn Gordon
President
theKompany.com
www.thekompany.com
949-713-3276

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