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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: Response to Dennis E. Powell
From:       Shawn Gordon <shawn-gordon () home ! com>
Date:       2000-09-26 4:54:36
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I think a couple of these items need an independent answer.

John Califf wrote:
> 
> Dennis, I did read the Shawn Gordon interview very carefully. You did an
> excellent interview and showed great skills as an interviewer in getting
> your subject to open up.  You need not apologize for the interview
> because you did your job too well.
> 
Dennis and I had a great, long conversation and talked very frankly
about a lot of things.  I didn't have anything to hide, and made no
attempt to do so.  I had a great time talking with Dennis, I would like
to do it more often :).

> There are at least two parts of KOffice that were are in Kde cvs that
> are being influenced or managed by theKompany, KImageshop and Kword.
> KImageshop still has a mailing list but it's effectively dead.  Some
> others were, as you say, dropped from Kde cvs before being taken up by
> theKompany and others never were part of Kde cvs and are new.  Well,
> think a little about why some projects may have been removed from Kde
> cvs and then taken up by a commercial outfit shortly thereafter.  I am
> well aware of which projects theKompany has developed independently and
> I am looking forwad to their release.  Those projects are not what I am
> referring to here.
> 
Katabase is the only project that can be seen as something we really
overtook.  The original Katabase project had exactly nothing done other
than some initial specs.  We worked with the KSql folks to come up with
a solution, which is the KDB and Rekall combo.  KDB is good for many
things beyond Rekall, and both are totally new projects.  The only thing
is the idea of a personal DBMS that is similar.  We asked and asked for
months about Katabase before we decided to go ahead and do a similar
project.  It was wide open.  There isn't stopping anyone from making any
application into something that is KOffice "aware".  It may or may not
be officially part of KOffice, much like many programs for KDE in
general.

> I don't think Shawn Gordon is evil, only human. It is only human to want
> to have control over what you invest in.  In the interview he clearly
> indicated a desire for that kind of control over what he's paying for.
> This is not a matter of my not wanting to get along, for Christ's sake,
> but of whether independent developers will feel like contributing to a
> commercial (though open) project without getting paid. I certainly
> won't.
> 
I'm sorry, but this just sounds like sour grapes.  Some people are
getting paid to work on something, and others aren't, and since you
aren't getting paid, you aren't going to work on it.  You said you were
very interested in KImageShop.  I actually have very little interest in
it, other than to see it done and complete the KOffice suite.  I would
be happy to take back my committment of a programmer to work on the
project, and have you become the official supported of it.  It would
give me back some badly needed manpower for other projects.  Let me know
if you want to do it officially, and we will make an announcement and
take it off our projects page.  Or, if you want to work with our
programmer and the rest of the KDE developers that are interested, then
please jump in.

> The fact is that activity on this list has been lacking, and I am sorry
> for being a provocateur but the focus needs to be moved back to this
> list, and away from commercial channels.  If this contiues KOffice will
> effectively become a commercial open source project, as more and more
> activity moves away from Kde and this list and into commercial
> management.  I don't want that to happen.  It will become another
> Mozilla.  It's spirit will die.
> 
> To answer your poke about sending email with a browser, I can read
> what's posted
> here with a browser and can send email but not reply to a thread right
> now, so I'm starting a new one.
> 
> This is a matter of whether other KOffice developers want this to
> primarily be a free project or a commercial open source project.  If
> relevant technical and other discussions don't happen on this list,
> where are they happening?  theKompany is free to do anything it wants
> with the code or pay anybody it wants.  It is a matter of what people
> involved want and I am not trying to force anybody to do anything.
> 
> This has broken my heart, a little.  I will go away for a few days and
> hope that other people will think about these issues and what kind of
> project they want KOffice to be.
> 
> Think again and stop apologizing,
> 
> John Califf

Our motive is to see KOffice finished, and enterprise ready.  If you
think that is bad and evil and will suck the life out of you, then we
will sadly keep our work totally independant of KOffice, maybe close
source it, whatever.  However, since virtually all the core KDE
developers work for either Suse, Mandrake, Corel, Caldera, Troll Tech -
I find the idea that my company is the evil one rather absurd.

Shawn Gordon

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