Return to BSD News archive
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!classic.iinet.com.au!news.uoknor.edu!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!wa4mei!news.randomc.com!usenet From: masinter@randomc.com@mail.randomc.com Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: The FreeBSD Project, Inc. (For Profit or Not?) Date: 13 May 1995 01:45:36 GMT Organization: Random Access Communications Lines: 61 Message-ID: <3p1300$35b@news.randomc.com> References: <9504240621341239@infoplus.uu.holonet.net> <3nqvvh$62q@bonnie.tcd-dresden.de> <3nuc1h$o80@columbia.acc.brad.ac.uk> <3o8or2$fqj@helena.mt.net> <3ob04j$lsc@agate.berkeley.edu> Reply-To: masinter@randomc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: masinter.randomc.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.09 In <3ob04j$lsc@agate.berkeley.edu>, jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard) writes: > >......locked in the throes of paralysis over the decision as to whether or >not it should be a "for profit", "not for profit" or "non profit" company. > >............will be sitting down with a group of lawyers on Friday to finally >get the straight-scoop..... > Jordan Jordan, it is now Friday evening, and I read this posting too late to get E-mail off before you visited the attorneys. I have strong feelings on this topic: Whether or not to incorporate, and "for profit" vs. "non-profit." I am still a "techie" at heart, but have cultivated several small businesses into sucessful corporations over the past 6 years. The following opinions are from both a "computer geek" programmer who wants a technically superior OS, and from a business person who would like to see an alternative OS grow to be more than a "flash in the pan." My motivation is to see FreeBSD become an expanding, professionally supported product. My argument is that in order for a product to maintain a commercial level of growth and provide the level of support needed to encourage its use, a FOR-PROFIT organization must drive it. I have recently chosen FreeBSD 2.0 for a professional development project. The overwhelming reason was my twelve year relationship with the commersial BSD. However, I also have faith that FreeBSD will grow into a commercial product. Without that drive for profit, so germane to business, the provider will not have the "fire in the belly" needed to drive the product to market. The reason I would never consider linux, is because it is a rag-tag hodge-podge of donations, without a source for professional support. I know UNIX started that way, but commercial development and "for profit" distribution is what made the product acceptable for corporate data systems. That satisfaction of knowing a business is out there with a real fiduciary and financial stake in the product, is what allows business users to sleep at night. FreeBSD could become THE alternative OS, if only it is brought to market by a REAL company. By saying that you don't want to make any money off of it, and that you merely wish to continue its development and deployment, you are NOT making a magnanimous contribution to mankind. If the product dies out in a year or so, it has quite conversely hurt everyone that invested in its development, and the development of commercial applications to run on it. An operating system without support is much less than an unsupported operating system--it is an operating system of the past. Please get over the idea that if you are "for profit" this makes you a money grubbing, quality assurance-less, purveyor of vaporware. This "for profit" nature is what will encourage you, and enable you, to continue your work. No one with a little business education could condemn you for deciding to incorporate as an S-Corp. This, I truly believe, is the best chance for FreeBSD to become a preferred platform in the sea of systems we swim everyday.