Re: New BK License Problem?

Larry McVoy
2002-10-07T17:37:30Z

On Mon, Oct 07, 2002 at 10:18:12AM -0700, Craig Dickson wrote:
> Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> > It always was and always will be a feature that it is easy to get in
> > and get *out* of BK. We may be pains in the butt on the license front
> > but once you are using BK, if you have to get the data out, BK makes
> > that as pleasant as can possibly be made.
>
> This is all very well, but is this not something that might change if
> someone else were to come into control of the company? It isn't hard to
> imagine some future BitMover CEO with a more Microsoft-like mentality
> looking at the product and thinking, "This 'ease of getting data out'
> has to go -- we need to make it less convenient for our customers to
> defect."

Yup. Don't know what to do about it other than stay in charge. If it
weren't for interactions like this with the community, I could make a
compelling case that giving away the software and maintaining the status
quo is in the best interests of BitMover. As it stands right now, we
do it only because I insist on it and I own more stock than anyone else.

My goal is to arrive at some sort of reasonable point, put this flamage
behind us, and live happily ever after.

We definitely derive benefit from having the kernel in BK. It stresses
it, the kernel team has hard problems that we have no choice but to fix,
the product is better and continues to get better because of it. The fact
that it works with what you guys do to it validates the product, that's
an important thing for us. The so-called PR value is definitely offset
by the negative PR value we get from things like this weekend. I think
I could make that go away simply by unsubscribing from the kernel list.
That's not very realistic, I like being on the list. Another way to make
it go away is hire Chris Mason and get him to do for me what he did for
Hans. Hans and I share some of that shoot-yourself-in-the-foot behaviour.
When Hans got Chris and Chris became the defacto interface to the outside
world I believe that was a turning point for the acceptance of resierfs.
Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. So I need a Chris for BitMover.
--
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm