From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from jazzswing.ncsc.mil (jazzswing.ncsc.mil [144.51.68.65]) by tycho.ncsc.mil (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA04381 for ; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 10:23:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jazzswing.ncsc.mil (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by jazzswing.ncsc.mil with ESMTP id OAA27297 for ; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 14:22:17 GMT Received: from tsv.sws.net.au (tsv.sws.net.au [203.36.46.2]) by jazzswing.ncsc.mil with ESMTP id OAA27293 for ; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 14:22:15 GMT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Russell Coker Reply-To: Russell Coker To: Ben McGinnes , selinux@tycho.nsa.gov Subject: Re: A 'Statement of Assurance' on SELinux patents Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 16:22:56 +0200 References: <000f01c23d4a$e938e750$0a01a8c0@ed> <3D5114BB.D45BAD57@cpcug.org> <20020808235352.B4737@mail.enternet.com.au> In-Reply-To: <20020808235352.B4737@mail.enternet.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: <20020808142256.7DBB620B@lyta.coker.com.au> Sender: owner-selinux@tycho.nsa.gov List-Id: selinux@tycho.nsa.gov On Thu, 8 Aug 2002 15:53, Ben McGinnes wrote: > [other good point about monopoly-potential in buying patent/SCC] > > Which is one very good reason, of course, for a more well-meaning > group to purchase either the company or the patent; in order to prevent > any future corporate travesty on the part of either SCC or anyone else > they might sell the relevant patents to. So if you behave badly then you get paid for doing so... I prefer the model of channeling money to people who do good things. If a company produces solid products, does the right thing, and contributes to the community then you recommend them. If a company has great products but doesn't contribute to the community and leaves legal issues etc in an unclear state which costs people money then you should not deal with them. This discourages bad behaviour, and is also sound practise. Some years ago I recommended that a client make a significant investment in Linux related hardware from a company that did not behave particularly well. Since then the lack of support from the company (delayed releases supporting new versions of software and configuration changes that aren't properly documented making it difficult to migrate the config files) has been continually delaying upgrades on the machine in question. The amount of time that has been wasted due to that hardware has cost more than the purchase price of the hardware. I have learnt from that experience that the business ethics of a company you deal with are quite important, especially months or years after purchase. I will recommend to my clients that they spend more money for a product with less features if it means better support (usually no-one uses all the features of a product and the purchase price is often a small fraction of the overall cost). Often the only way to determine the level of support you can expect is to see how the company deals with the community (because by the time you get accurate information it's way too late). -- I do not get viruses because I do not use MS software. If you use Outlook then please do not put my email address in your address-book so that WHEN you get a virus it won't use my address in the >>From field. -- You have received this message because you are subscribed to the selinux list. If you no longer wish to subscribe, send mail to majordomo@tycho.nsa.gov with the words "unsubscribe selinux" without quotes as the message.