[openbeos] Re: Couple of non-sequiters

>What a complete waste of money.
>
>You filed a complaint on behalf of a company that has already gone 
>bust, in support of a product that you are probably never going to get 
>your hands on again.

No, we didn't.  We filled a complaint against Microsoft stating that 
alternative OSes do not stand a chance at even minimal success in the 
current environment.  We filed on behalf of noone but beunited, we 
didn't represent anyone, and we did NOT focus on BeOS any more than 
OpenBeOS, AtheOS, or even Linux.  We focused on what Microsoft has done 
to prevent other operating systems in general from being able to 
penetrate the market.  Sure, we used Be and BeOS in a couple of 
examples, but all in all, it focused on what needs to happen in the 
remedies for OpenBeOS and others to have any sort of chance at any sort 
of success.

We filed stating that RedHat and Sun's idea of auctioning off MS Office 
porting licenses didn't help the other 90% of alternative OSes out 
there.  I mean really, do you think that if Sun got a license that 
they'd port it to OBOS, or even if RedHat got a license that they'd port 
it so other Linuxes or BSD's could use it?

We filed because of boot loader issues and exclusive licensing of 
Microsoft products to OEMs.  We filed because Microsoft doesn't follow 
standards, they embrace and extend them in their own proprietary format 
so that other OSes aren't 100% compatible with 99% of the PCs out there 
(HTML, FileSharing, Networking, etc).   

We filed because Office is the most used Office suite out there, and ALL 
other suites cannot properly read Office file formats, thus rendering 
most useless in a business environment, and most home environments.  We 
filed because of the application barrier to entry - Microsoft making 
projects such as WINE as difficult as possible by not disclosing and 
documenting all of the APIs.

We filed because no other small movement was filing, and the judge would 
get the impression that only RedHat, Sun and a few others had suffered 
from Microsoft's tactics.  They are still big companies, did they suffer 
much?  The judge needed to see that there are more people and 
organizations than just a few million dollar corporations that have 
suffered in part to Microsoft's tactics and very interested in the 
remedies. 

We filed for the future of OBOS, hoping to make some sort of difference 
in the judge's remedies decision - to make some difference in our 
possible non-Microsoft future.  

>I wonder how much of that money could have been plowed into private 
>developers developing much needed software for BeOS, or how many specs 
>could have been bought from various companies for hardware, or how much 

>server space, bandwidth etc. could have been donated to OSBeOS 
>projects.

We wondered that as well.  But considering $8500 of that money came to 
us from parties that wouldn't have otherwise donated anything towards us 
- they wanted to file against Microsoft and used us as a tool, so to 
speak.  Then take out the $675 that I covered personally to fill the 
last bit up to the 10K (and I personally wasn't enthusiastic about 
donating that much, you know), we only raised $825 from the community in 
general that theoretically could have been used otherwise for other 
things.  And considering that many people that did donate gave in $50 
and $100 spots, those few individuals probably had belief that our 
briefing was a worthy cause.

We've done the "raise money for hardware" thing - and that got us not 
very far at all - all of the devs disappeared with the focus shift - 
some with the hardware.  I very recently offered another developer 
hardware under conditions that would protect beunited from "wasting" 
money like that, protecting other's donated money, and he declined 
stating that it was "unreasonable" for beunited to ask of that (rights 
to distribute, and the right to ask that the hardware be returned if 
work was not accomplished) unless we paid him $20K for the work.  :/

I've donated personally a whole lot of money to server space and 
bandwidth for this community, both through sites I've run, and the open 
offer to host sites freely.  I've offered webspace/bandwidth/etc for 
free to community members/devs for over 3 years now, and a very few have 
actually taken me up on that.  For as much money as I have put into web 
servers over the past 4 years for BeOS sites, without asking for 
anything in return (even BeGroovy lost money for me - with ads running - 
so much so that I didn't even bother putting ads on beunited from the 
beginning).  Did that get "the community" any further along today?

The community is very ungrateful, to tell the truth.  And to boot, not 
many people that want to give have the extra money to give.  Not many 
out there that want to help have the skills to help.  And those that do 
are way too overtasked and lack enough time.

>I do hope BU spends money more wisely than this in the future, even if 
>its just 2.5k.

Like I said, outside influences had partially influenced the action.  
Simon, myself and a few others debated for nearly a month if this money 
would be well spent before commiting to it.  And after all that 
debating, we decided it was, if only as recognition as a community that 
puts it's money where it's mouth is, one that is organized and united.  
One that cares enough to raise money to possibly bring about change for 
all.  There are big companies and people that now know about beunited 
and OpenBeOS.  

Well spent?  I think so.  If you don't think so, well, you didn't 
donate, now did you?  None of your money wasted.  ;)

Was the outcome of the money spent tangible?  No.  Profitable?  No.  
Even decided as beneficial yet?  No.  We are still waiting for the 
judge's decision.

Did we know all of this going into it, before committing any money?  
Yes.  Do we think we've "wasted" money?  No.  Do we stand by the 
decision we made?  Yes.

Do you think we've wasted money?  Did we waste yours?  Those that did 
donate knew what they were donating for, and thought it a good enough 
cause to give money for it.

Me, I'm down yet another few hundred dollars in an OS/Community that 
hasn't brought me much in the long run, other than the satisfaction of 
being here and a part of it all.  I don't even dare tally how much I've 
spent towards BeOS... I might shoot myself.  And we aren't even talking 
about time, if the saying "time is money" is true.  :P

Am I upset about it?  No.  Is my wife?  Yes.  :P

And that's all I'll ever state about this again - promise.  :)

Deej
--
Donovan Schulteis
Chairman, Founder
beunited.org

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