[openbeos] Re: BeUnited info

>Deej,
>
>I took a look over at the BeUnited site but have a few
>questions. Note, I really don't mean to be sarcastic,
>so please don't take it that way. :)

I won't.  And your comments are appreciated and will be considered 
thoroughly upon careful examination with the website for possible 
corrections and fixes.  :)

I'll also answer some of your questions for your own knowledge right 
now.  :)

I'm CC'ing this to both beunited's web team (for re-work consideration) 
and the OpenBeOS list (everyone should hear and know the answers to 
this, if only so that I don't have to answer them over and over  ;)  ).

And I hope you all read it too...  ;)

>-- How many people are beunited? I always thought it was,
>   like, you, Simon, and Helmar.(?)

Helmar is, unfortunately, no longer involved with beunited.org.  His 
interests were more commercial in nature, and he has gone his separate 
ways.  Simon and I are involved heavily, obviously.  Also involved are 
the representatives from the companies listed on our web page as 
supporters.  Some of these representatives are also more heavily 
involved than just representation, such as John Tegen, William Dunning, 
Lawrence Debow, and Michael Paine most notably.  Gavin James is our new 
webmaster.  Jace is working with us on many different areas of things to 
be done.  Tom Hoke is now a project lead/developer, obviously, as is 
Paul Ashford (who has most notably been doing BeZilla all along mostly 
by himself).  I'm sure I'm forgetting names, but this is coming off the 
top of my head.  There are a few other developers that are working on 
things with us and/or have expressed interest in helping, and we are 
trying our best to give them their chance to help.  

>-- Press releases? Ex.
>   http://www.beunited.org/?page=pr~24-06-2002-01
>   I always thought press releases were for publicly
>   owned companies. They can't just say stuff on their
>   site for unfair-competition-related reasons, but you
>   can say whatever you want on your site, whenever. No?

But "Press Release" sounds so much more official than just posting news. 
 ;)  It's also allowed to legally be repeated by other parties and 
websites.  Also, we can't "just say stuff" either, we are a corporation 
too - just not commercial (profit seeking) nor publically owned.  But we 
do have an image and reputation to uphold just as any other company 
does.

>-- On the right side of the front page is a graphical
>   list of supporters of BeUnited. In what way do they
>   support BeUnited?

They support in the way of advice and input, for the most part.  Some 
have done more than that, by actively joining beunited, donated money, 
time, and in particular cases, server space and hardware for testing 
OpenBeOS / OSBOS compatibility and QA.  

>I'm only concerned about this sort of stuff because,
>OBOS is really a pretty small project right now.
>Michael's recent newsletter even said: "Most of OBOS
>has been written by 15 people. Yes, really."

And really, beunited.org is maybe 7 people for 90% of the work done so 
far.   But both OpenBeOS and beunited.org seem like so much more, don't 
they?  And we've all accomplished much more in a year than anyone would 
guess 22 (+ a few) people could do (esp. in the case of OBOS).  Just in 
an _unfair_ comparison - Be, Inc. had well over 50 people working full 
time, we have less than half that working in what little spare time we 
can afford.  And they took from Dec '98 until May '00 to get from R4 to 
R5 Pro (PE was like Mar '00).  Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on 
that - top of my head dates.  But OBOS has gone from null to here in 
just one year by way less than half the people (won't count beunited in 
that number) with 1/4 the time.

>I wouldn't want them to think that their hard work
>is going to get commandeered by an overzealous company
>claiming to set the standards and represent the community.

We've been trying to shake this image from the beginning.  Michael 
Phipps is on our advisors list, and a very strong voice for OBOS at 
beunited.  Simon and myself have spent many hours speaking with him on 
the phone, no less email and chats.  We do not in any way want to 
commandeer control - we want to facilitate community control.  We want 
to gain enough momentum that if a larger company came in and made their 
own distro, it would be in _their_ best public interest to remain 
compatible with the other distros, contribute code, and not commandeer 
it themselves.  We are here as a community effort to protect the 
community as a whole from the bigger fish if/when they arrive and try to 
take over.

And we are not only about OpenBeOS, we are all O_S_BOS platforms, 
Cosmoe, BlueEyedOS, and Zeta are included, having representatives from 
each present at beunited.org.  This is not about controlling OBOS.  It's 
about trying to make sure all the different "fragments" play nicely 
together and keep things compatible for purposes of spreading the wealth 
of the minimal applications we have and to help facilitate developers in 
the porting of applications between the compatible platforms.  

Also, we are not a "company", but we are an official not-for-profit 
corporation.  I've stated time and time again that anyone can join and 
offer help - some offer, few actually _do_ something.  Those that do 
have interests in seeing OSBOS survive as compatible, competitive 
alternative operating systems.  Some are people that have been around a 
long time and truly believe in the BeOS, some are from companies 
invested or thinking of investing in BeOS/OpenBeOS or other platforms, 
ones that _really_ want to see the platforms succeed.

>I don't know what BU's plans are, and I certainly don't
>want to insult you -- but of all people, *you* likely
>realize how much trepidation most BeOS folks have about
>relationships between commercial entities and the "future
>BeOS".

beunited is NOT commercial.  Everyone involved with beunited has other 
commercial interests or goals outside of and not related to beunited, 
and see beunited as a method of ensuring that those commercial interests 
are protected with the best possible interests in mind - compatibility 
and common purpose of the platforms.  Some of these people have somewhat 
competing interests with each other, but they remain working "together" 
at beunited to ensure everyone has a chance to succeed (this case exists 
mostly at the actual OS project level).  

beunited is not there to commercialize OSBOS, it's there to facilitate 
the commercial success of OSBOS.  

I certainly do not expect or desire to take beunited.org into the 
commercial realm (or am legally able to at this point).  That's best 
left in the hands companies of the likes of Envision, iZ, TuneTracker, 
Tycom and yellowTab (in no particular order, mind you).  I have my own 
plans for commercializing on OBOS at a later date, and they are not 
related to beunited whatsoever.  I am here at beunited right now because 
I see it as the stepping stone that we all need to take in order to 
better assure the capability to have commercial success in the 
respective areas we would like to succeed in.

Do not assume that because we have commercial interests we are making 
beunited commercial.  Our commercial interests need the survival of the 
BeOS platform.  beunited.org helps facilitate that.  Michael Phipps 
himself has stated on multiple occassions that he started OpenBeOS 
because he didn't want his own closed source, commercial goals and years 
of work to go down the drain.  Does that mean that OpenBeOS itself is a 
commercially focused project since he heads it up?

But I do find it interesting that commercial operations have an interest 
in beunited.  Maybe those that are here and complaining should think 
about that a bit. Ya think?

>Statements (on BU) like:
>
>"beunited.org is an international, non-profit organization working to 
define
>and promote open specifications for the delivery of the Open Source
>BeOS-compatible Operating System (OSBOS) platform for personal 
>computers in consumer and business environments."
>
>seem a bit presumptuous to me. I mean, I'm not one of the
>15 Michael mentions -- but if I was, I might think, "who
>does this guy (or BU) think he is? Defining specs for the
>OSS that *I'm* giving my own free time to work on?"

Hehe, Michael is right here with us.  Or at least he's the guy that 
represents OBOS at this point.  Plus, you need to keep in mind the 
difference between OBOS (OpenBeOS) and OSBOS (Open Source 
BeOS-compatible Operating Systems).  There is a big difference there.  
We are in no way trying to presume to define specs for the individual 
projects, nor can we.  We are providing a place for these projects to 
come together and agree on those specs together, or at least 
democratically.

And as far as giving free time - so are we.  And we have stated many 
times that because we are not for profit, any excess monies recieved 
need to be "donated" somewhere outside of our own personal benefit - 
maybe back to those that have been doing the "real work"?  Naw, that 
couldn't be.  Giving gifts to those that others stand on the backs of to 
reach higher goals?  That would be, so, so.. so non-commercial!  ;)  (or 
non-capitalistic, or non-American, whatever).  

Another goal of beunited - we might even someday be able to "hire" or 
"contract" developers to work on this stuff full time, should enough 
money start to come in from donations and memberships.  Who are the 
first people we are going to look at?  The ones that have worked the 
hardest, the ones that have put the most effort, the ones that coded it 
in the first place.  We _want_ to pay you back for your free time.

That's not commercial, mind you.  It's for the betterment of the 
platform, it's open source, and it's freely distributed - not sold, and 
definately NOT for profit.

>And, it says non-profit there, but isn't there a BeUnited
>LLC? If so, what separates the two? (The company and the
>non-profit organization.)

No, we are a (from our articles of incorporation) "NONPROFIT 
CORPORATION".  There is no company.  We own the beunited.com domain for 
the purposes of pointing mis-typers to the right site.  There is nothing 
commercial about the interests of beunited.org.  There is nothing 
commercial about what we are doing, can do and will do.  Therefore, 
there is no separation, less the separation between what we do at 
beunited and what we do in our other endeavours.

In support of this statement, Our Additional Provisions state that 
beunited is:

"educational, charitable, scientific, and literary, through the 
advancement of the science and art of computing by (1) defining and 
promoting open specifications (i.e., standards) for the delivery of an 
open source BeOS-compatible operating system (OSBOS) platform for 
personal computers, (2) providing a forum for the development of a 
consistent, open specification (or standard) for the OSBOS platform, for 
the common good of OSBOS users and developers worldwide, and (3) 
providing a common, unified and community-represented body, for the 
establishment and accreditation of OSBOS distributions for the benefit 
of the OSBOS community, OSBOS projects, and computer users worldwide."

Straight from the official paperwork.  Notice the words 
"community-represented body".  And this "community represented body" 
will not directly have commercially involved members on it, only 
representatives for them.  There will also be representatives from the 
developers working on the code and representatives from the user 
community.  No person that receives a salary from beunited.org (should 
we ever have that sort of cash flow) will ever have a "seat" on the 
"community represented body" either.   beunited.org will not control 
this body, or even have a vote or representation in this body.  We will 
only facilitate it.

The framework has already be set in stone that beunited cannot be in any 
way for profit, commercial, even personal benefit - or what have you.  
These documents must also be provided for inspection (as all our 
documents) upon request by the public as required by the IRS.  ;)  We 
will likely have them online at some point in the near future, but some 
of the documents, such as our ByLaws, are still works in progress.

>Anyway, I (of course) appreciate all your efforts. You've
>been in the BeOS community much longer than I have (I
>first used BeOS when R4.5 came out), so I certainly have
>no business telling you about handling Be-related affairs.
>I just wanted to give you the impression I get, and the
>things I worry about. :)

John, thank you very much for your kind words.  It's very good to see 
you still around with us.  :)  I bet you're still subscribed to the old 
NPC list too, aren't you?  :P

And, in a way, by our articles, you do have some business telling us how 
to handle these affairs, or at least have the right to have your voice 
heard - you are part of the community.  Your inputs here will definitely 
be considered carefully to resolve any misinterpretations on the website and in 
the public's eye.  Thank you very much.

Deej
--
Donovan Schulteis
Chairman, Founder
beunited.org

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