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List:       userlinux-discuss
Subject:    Re: [Discuss] ISV's and Licensing
From:       "Mark W. Alexander" <slash () dotnetslash ! net>
Date:       2003-12-12 13:34:52
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On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 03:35:21AM -0500, Adam Treat wrote:
> Gratis development is simply not the enticement you think it is when
> presented side-by-side with a technologically superior platform.  Not
> to mention the top notch support and documentation.  Not to mention
> the ease of conversion from their current toolkits.  Not to mention
> the cross-platform solution that many of them find to be a defining
> criteria.

Not to mention the most brilliant objective of UserLinux: Getting
companies to understand that cooperative development on non-strategic
software is a great way to meet your infrastructure needs while driving
your costs down.

If Free QT/KDE development is the most effecient way to produce that
software, because it's technologically superior, more complete, has more
effective development tools and enjoys an already decent deployment --
or even if it just "looks more polished" to a manager -- in enterprises,
then inclusion and support of a _current_ QT/KDE environment will help
promote _gratis_ development using QT/KDE.

I support both KDE and GNOME in my environment and I give my users their
choice Although they use some GNOME tools, KDE has won my userbase's
hearts. Right now, if I develop a GUI tool for their use it's wxWindows
because a) our language of choice is Python and b) I still have a lot of
people who prefer Windows and I can't pay for QT. If, or when, Windows
goes away then I'd chose pyQT for better integration with what they've
already demonstrated they prefer.

In any case, since what we do in my division is not line-of-business
specific (pure systems and network management) I'm fighting like hell for
the ability to contribute this stuff to the open source community for
the cost sharing benefits. In this, and I suspect many cases, the decision
to do software development in the first place is because we need the
tools. The decision to open it up will be to drive support costs down.
We don't want or need that development to _make_ money, we just need it
to cut into the bottom line less. Giving it away gratis, in the hopes of
building a broader development base is simply good business.

This is what I read in the UserLinux Whitepaper -- That Linux using
customers can work together to develop a vendor agnostic distribution that
supports their needs.

Here's the real sticking point: The _only_ issue that I've had with my
userbase is that Debian's KDE support is dog slow (I just got a usable
KDE 3.1 from unstable last week; How long has 3.1 been available?) and
they want the latest and greatest stuff they see in other distros but
they either don't get it or I lose all the advantages that Debian gives
me from a support perspective. I'm _very_ fortunate that they understand
the support advantage (which took a great deal of education and
marketting on my part), and they are willing to be patient. They are
willing to be patient because what they do involves management and
support of a global enterprise network, and Linux/UNIX provides a far
superior environment for those activities than Windows. If they where
secretaries, accountants or management, Debian would have been out the
door already.

The _only_ real advantage I see to a project like UserLinux is faster
and better integration of KDE into Debian. That's what _real_ customers
want. At least that's what they are telling me. If that's not what
UserLinux is, then it's not going to do me or my organization any good.

And if that's not what UserLinux is, then what advantage does it hold
over Debian proper? Debian _has_ good GNOME support, so if that's what
people want there's no need for them to look to UserLinux. Debian has
everything else that the whitepaper calls for except the industry
support. With all the examples of commercial QT applications available
now, I would think that the point has been made that QT/KDE already has
a huge lead in industry support. 

Failure to address this is the only reason Debian proper is not
_already_ UserLinux.

-- 
Mark W. Alexander
slash@dotnetslash.net

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