From: John Goerzen [mailto:jgoerzen@complete.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2000 9:47 PM To: Alexander Staubo Cc: Zope Mailing List (E-mail) Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope needs this (and Dynamo has it)

Alexander Staubo <alex@mop.no> writes:

[snipped]

...

Zope doesn't have the flashy packaging and sexiness of a product line Dynamo -- which, actually, I strongly urge you (and everybody else in this forum) to experience yourself, before you snap back at my again -- and this affects management decisions. Dynamo is exceedingly sexy, and it boasts the kind of bullshit magic that have management and tech people alike drooling.

OK, but see you're trying to make Linux something it is not. Linux is not about marketing. It is not about world domination. We specifically do not care about this :-) Now, digicool is a company, and they probably DO care about this. Making Zope Free Software is a great way for them -- and us -- to benefit.

World domination has nothing to do with it. If Zope were the only tool out there (or if it were enjoying the same kind of monopoly iron grip on the market), that'd not be a Good Thing. At the moment, Zope is still very much a "guerilla" product. It follows that you might have to use guerilla tactics to lure it into your company. Like Linux was just 1-2 years ago.

So your comments should be addressed at them if you want them to make the sale. Not me, a Linux hacker.

Well, you entered this thread on your own -- I wasn't addressing my post to you. If the elements of the discussion do not concern you, why are you arguing against them?

...

As one of my colleagues pointed out, the problem starts with the name. (Somebody out there is hyping what they call Linux' next-generating GUI. And it's called... GNOME. What's wrong with this picture?) I don't care myself, but I recognize the problem.

But see again, Free Software is not about marketing. The name is irrelevant to us. Free Software is about what's *right* and what *works*. We leave the marketing to those that want to do it (such as digital creations, or whomever else). So again, write to digital creations' marketing dept. :-)

Arguably, free software (or Free Software) is about freedom, not necessarily about what's right or what works. RMS, arguably the grand old man, top banana, and icon of the Free Software movement -- which is not the same as Open Source -- openly admits he'd rather have bad, free software than good, non-free software. The Open Source movement takes the pragmatic view that bad, free software isn't an improvement at all, and that the software industry has little use for RMS' moralisms. The Open Source guys just wants "software that doesn't suck". Perhaps Free Software people don't care about marketing. But then making good impressions or having good hygiene has never been top priorities for geeks. ;-) For some people, outward perceptions do count. I flinch every time somebody sets up Microsoft Exchange Server, or buys some pricey piece of non-compliant Internet software, or seriously argue the significance of ASP. The people who make such decisions are often, sadly, uneducated about what's good and about "software that doesn't suck". *Other* people suffer because of such misfires. Here's a different perspective you might not have taken into account in your salutations to the spirit of Free Software. If Linux *hadn't* been picked up by huge corporations and stock markets, if Linux *hadn't* been rampantly commercialized, would we have seen the surge of wonderful developments and innovations for the OS that we're seeing now? Methinks not. As much as I abhor commercialism and the new Linux hype, Linux' implicit "world domination" plan is doing good things for the OS. Linux is not the ultimate OS and hopefully won't be the last stop on the way to utopia, but I rather look forward to the point where it's usable as a desktop OS and I can forever throw out the software I know for a fact sucks. Marketing, in the case of Open Source/Free Software, is mostly a tool to educate ignorant brass. *We*, as you point out, don't need the stuff.

-- John

-- Alexander Staubo http://alex.mop.no/ "Do not go gentle into that good night/old age should rave and burn against the close of day/Rage, rage against the dying of the light." --Dylan Thomas